Jury Nullification: The Right of Free Americans
by sherry clark
I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. What I can do, I should do and, with the help of God, I will do!
Everet Hale
The last refuge of freedom — our great experiment– has turned its back on the very thing that made this country great–our Constitution. Where the “rule of law” was once king, we see everywhere its desecration. What then can the people actually do about it? One word: Nullify.
“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
Jury nullification is an act by a jury through its verdict to make an official rule, especially a statute, void in the context of a particular case. In other words, it is the process whereby a jury in a criminal case effectively nullifies a law by acquitting a defendant regardless of the weight of evidence against him or her. This is done when the individuals serving on a jury, either by reason of their conscious or moral grounding believe that a law is immoral or that a sentence is unjust. As the 12th Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Harlan F. Stone put it, “The law itself is on trial quite as much as the cause which is to be decided.” Jury nullification is thus a means for the people to express opposition to an unconstitutional, immoral or unjust legislative enactment.
