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Jury nullification sometimes takes the form of a jury convicting the defendant of lesser charges than the prosecutor sought. [13] In the 21st century, many discussions of jury nullification center around drug laws that many consider unjust either in principle or because they disproportionately affect members of certain groups.
Sparf remains the last direct opinion of the Court on jury nullification. Justice Gray spoke for those dissenting, saying "It is universally conceded that a verdict of acquittal, although rendered against the instructions of the judge, is final, and cannot be set aside; and consequently that the jury have the legal power to decide for ...
United States v. Thomas, 116 F.3d 606 (2nd Cir. 1997), [1] was a case in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that a juror could not be removed from a jury on the ground that the juror was acting in purposeful disregard of the court's instructions on the law, when the record evidence raises a possibility that the juror was simply unpersuaded by the Government's case ...
Jury nullification may also occur in civil suits, in which the verdict is generally a finding of liability or lack of liability (rather than a finding of guilty or not guilty). [22] The main ethical issue involved in jury nullification is the tension between democratic self-government and integrity. [23]
The cover of The Citizens Rule Book. Citizens Rule Book is a handbook written to educate American citizens regarding their rights and responsibilities. It is a compilation of quotes from founders of the United States of America and select government documents, including information on the rights of a jury to "nullify bad law" and acquit people on trial. [1]
Indiana followed Florida in 1977 and enacted a similar death penalty scheme in which the jury's sentence recommendation was not binding. There were no directions on when the judge could override the jury's life sentence until 1989, when the Indiana Supreme Court held that the override was permitted only when "virtually no reasonable person could disagree that death was appropriate".
The grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia will release some of its findings on Thursday – which could shed light on whether or not ...
5-4 (pronounced "five to four") is a podcast that covers the U.S. Supreme Court from a critical, progressive perspective. The podcast's tagline describes it as being "about how much the Supreme Court sucks", and providing an "irreverent tour of all the ways in which the law is shaped by politics."