Jury Nullification
Jury nullification refers to a rendering of a verdict by a trial jury, disagreeing with the instructions by the judge concerning what the law is, or whether such law is applicable to the case, taking into account all of the evidence presented. Although a jury’s refusal relates only to the particular case before it, if a pattern of such verdicts develops, it can have the practical effect of disabling the enforcement of that position on what the law is or how it should be applied. Juries are reluctant to render a verdict contrary to law, but a conflict may emerge between what judges and the public from whom juries are drawn hold the law to be, or the legitimacy of a law itself. A succession of such verdicts may signal an unwillingness by the public to accept the law given them and may render it a “dead-letter” or bring about its repeal. The jury system was established because it was felt that a panel of citizens, drawn at random from the community, and serving for too short a time to be corrupted, would be more likely to render a just verdict, through judging both the accused and the law, than officials who may be unduly influenced to follow merely the established law. Jury nullification is a reminder that the right to trial by one’s peers affords the public an opportunity to take a dissenting view about the justness of a statute or official practices.

Notwithstanding perceived righteous applications of jury nullification, it bears noting that this verdict anomaly can also occur simply as a device to absolve a defendant of culpability. Sympathy, bias or prejudice can influence some jurors to wholly disregard evidence and instruction in favor of a sort of “jury forgiveness.”

“ I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution. ”
—Thomas Jefferson, 1789 letter to Thomas Paine

Historical examples include American revolutionaries who refused to convict under English law,[1] juries who refuse to convict due to perceived injustice of a law in general,[2] the perceived injustice of the way the law is applied in particular cases,[3] and cases where the juries have refused to convict due to their own prejudices such as the race of one of the parties in the case.[4]

Talking a lot and expressing your strong prejudices may NOT work to your advantage, especially if you annoy the judge. DO NOT ANNOY THE JUDGE. This also goes for trying to avoid jury duty altogether: Make sure you do not annoy the civil servants of a courthouse. It’s just not worth the potential pain they can wreck upon your life.

In the jury selection that I was in, several potential jurors expressed strong prejudices that would not allow them to assess in an unbiased way the truth of a cop’s testimony versus the truth of an alleged gang member’s. The judge asked the potential jurors if they could reasonably set aside their personal prejudices in order to assess the truth and honesty of testimonies in the trial. Obviously trying to get out of this criminal trial, these jurors insisted that they could not. Instead of releasing them, the judge re-assigned them directly to a civil courthouse. Ooooops!

Depending upon the case you get – you may not be able to get over some of the things you see or hear though. I was on a jury for a child abuse case. Very sad to see pictures of a little girl who was beaten by her dad, and then to hear her describe it. We found the guy guilty. Strange thing was that I saw the same man working at a restaurant that i was eating at – several months later. Not sure if he saw me or recognized me.

My dad was on a jury once for a murder trial where someone was bludgeoned to death. That one was even more graphic.

My advice? It may not be easy or fun, but do your civic duty!

As courts have long recognized, several features of our jury trial system act to protect the jury’s power to acquit, regardless of the evidence, when the prosecution’s case meets with the jury’s “moral[] disapprov[al].” Since the famous opinion in Bushell’s Case , 124 Eng. Rep. 1006 (C.P. 1670), freeing a member of the jury arrested for voting to acquit William Penn against the weight of the evidence, nullifying jurors have been protected from being called to account for their verdicts. Moreover, and in addition to the courts’ duty to safeguard the secrecy of the jury deliberation room (discussed in greater detail below), the several rules protecting the unassailability of jury verdicts of acquittal–even where these verdicts are inconsistent with other verdicts rendered by the same jury in the same case, United States v. Carbone , 378 F.2d 420, 423 (2d Cir.) (Friendly, J. ) (recognizing link between upholding inconsistent verdicts and protecting juries’ power of lenity), cert. denied , 389 U.S. 914 (1967)–serve to “permit[] juries to acquit out of compassion or compromise or because of their assumption of a power which they had no right to exercise, but to which they were disposed through lenity.” Standefer v. United States , 447 U.S. 10, 22 (1980) (internal quotation marks omitted).

FN9. Accordingly, criminal defendants have no right to a jury instruction alerting jurors to this power to act in contravention of their duty. See United States v. Edwards, 101 F.3d 17, 19-20 (2d Cir.1996) (citing cases); see also United States v. Sepulveda, 15 F.3d 1161, 1190 (1st Cir.1993), cert. denied, 512 U.S. 1223, 114 S.Ct. 2714, 129 L.Ed.2d 840 (1994); Dougherty, 473 F.2d at 1136-37. As the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit recognized, to instruct on nullification “would … undermine[ ] the impartial determination of justice based on law.” United States v. Krzyske, 836 F.2d 1013, 1021 (6th Cir.) (finding no error in court’s response to jury inquiry on nullification that included the admonition to the jury: “You would violate your oath and the law if you willfully brought in a verdict contrary to the law given you in this case.”), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 832, 109 S.Ct. 89, 102 L.Ed.2d 65 (1988).

My job and my education are grossly mismatched and I think neither side wanted me as a juror.