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Jury nullification means deciding not to apply the law to the facts in a particular case by jury decision. 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."
A 1969 Fourth Circuit decision, U.S. v. Moylan, affirmed the power of jury nullification but also upheld the power of the court to refuse to permit an instruction to the jury to this effect. [ 26 ] We recognize, as appellants urge, the undisputed power of the jury to acquit, even if its verdict is contrary to the law as given by the judge, and ...
A citizen's right to a trial by jury is a central feature of the United States Constitution. [1] It is considered a fundamental principle of the American legal system. Laws and regulations governing jury selection and conviction/acquittal requirements vary from state to state (and are not available in courts of American Samoa), but the fundamental right itself is mentioned five times in the ...
The reversal of a jury's verdict by a judge occurs when the judge believes that there were insufficient facts on which to base the jury's verdict or that the verdict did not correctly apply the law. That procedure is similar to a situation in which a judge orders a jury to arrive at a particular verdict, called a directed verdict. A judgment ...
A jury trial, or trial by jury, is a legal proceeding in which a jury makes a decision or findings of fact. It is distinguished from a bench trial, in which a judge or panel of judges makes all decisions. Jury trials are increasingly used in a significant share of serious criminal cases in many common law judicial systems
Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court ruling that a prosecutor's use of a peremptory challenge in a criminal case—the dismissal of jurors without stating a valid cause for doing so—may not be used to exclude jurors based solely on their race.
Jury duty or jury service is a service as a juror in a legal proceeding. Different countries have different approaches to juries: [ 1 ] variations include the kinds of cases tried before a jury, how many jurors hear a trial, and whether the lay person is involved in a single trial or holds a paid job similar to a judge , but without legal ...
A special jury verdict form may be used to have the jury answer directed questions as to the required elements for a cause of action or special issues and to demarcate monetary awards of damages by economic and non-economic damages, beneficiary, and specific categories of damages (lost earning capacity, funeral expenses, loss of consortium ...