The drafters of the Constitution clearly intended [the right of trial by jury] to protect the accused from oppression by the Government. Singer v. United States, 380 U.S. 24, 31, 85 S. Ct. 783, 788, 13 L. Ed. 2d 630 (1965). ... Part of this protection is embodied in the concept of jury nullification: “In criminal cases, a jury is entitled to acquit the defendant because it has no sympathy for the government’s position.” United States v. Wilson, 629 F.2d 439, 443 (6th Cir. 1980). The Founding Fathers knew that, absent jury nullification, judicial tyranny not only was a possibility, but was a reality in the colonial experience. Although we may view ourselves as living in more civilized times, there is obviously no reason to believe the need for this protection has been eliminated. Judicial and prosecutorial excesses still occur, and Congress is not yet an infallible body incapable of making tyrannical laws.more Judge Thomas Wiseman quotes | | The right of the jury to decide questions of law was widely recognized in the colonies. In 1771, John Adams stated
unequivocally that a juror should ignore a judge’s instruction on the law if it violates fundamental principles: “It is not only ... [the juror’s] right, but his duty, in that case, to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the
direction of the court.” There is much evidence of the general acceptance of this principle in the period immediately after the Constitution was
adopted.more Yale Law Journal quotes |
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