Jury Nullification
Nullifications in England, USA and Canada have a long history, and are dependent upon the character of the jury, and the character of the jury largely a matter of being a responsible middle class citizen, ad a middle class citizen on responsibility for property.
—“Jury nullification, jury equity, or a perverse verdict occurs when members of a criminal or civil trial jury believe that a defendant is guilty, but choose to acquit the defendant anyway because the jurors also believe that the law itself is unjust, that the prosecutor or plaintiff, or judge has misapplied the law in the defendant’s case, or that the potential punishment for breaking the law is too harsh.”—
So let’s list them again:
… 1 – The Law itself is unjust,
… 2 – The prosecutor(Plaintiff, Judge) has misapplied the law,
… 3 – The punishment is too harsh for the crime.
Nullification is at present a consequence of two rules of procedure within the law rather than a because it is explicitly encoded in the law:
… a) Jurors cannot be punished for reaching a “wrong” decision.
… b) A defendant who is acquitted cannot be tried again for the same alleged crime in front of another jury.
In practical terms to prevent jury nullification,
… a) prosecutors choose not to prosecute,
… b) jurors are given a set of options and multiple ‘counts’ (crimes),
… c) jurors are given instruction by the judge.
The most effective is (b) since this is usually the source of concern.
The open issue is the corrupt juror or jurors which originally was a common problem.
In the P-Constitution jury nullification is embedded in the law.
However,
… 1) The unjustness of a law is easy to explain, demonstrate, and difficult to construct, and it is possible to prosecute those who attempt unjust laws before they can be acted upon.
… 2) Misapplication of the law is easy to explain, and demonstrate.
… 3) Excessive Punishment is open to debate, and in general should be a misapplication of the degree of the crime.
So this means it is fairly easy for a juror or jurors to either (a) explain and defend their position on nullification (b) judge, juror or jurors to claim the resistant juror is engaged in contempt. (c) And it should be extremely difficult to make a fraudulent claim of nullification, (d) and extremely difficult for an unjust law to survive. What remains is (e) that the juror or jurors disagree on the interpretation of the facts of the case. (Good examples in the literature are common).
In addition, police, plaintiffs, prosecutors, the judge, and members of the court are not free from prosecution for misrepresentation including overcharging including overcharging for the purpose of coercing the accused.
THE PROBLEM
The problem is preserving the high trust society that makes the jury system possible. it’s almost impossible to create. it’s extremely easy to destroy. And that is the reason for P-law. To defend it.
