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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.
Some commonly cited historical examples of jury nullification involve jurors refusing to convict persons accused of violating the Fugitive Slave Act by assisting runaway slaves or being fugitive slaves themselves, and refusal of American colonial juries to convict a defendant under English law. [8] Jury nullification is the source of much debate.
Sparf v. United States ended the 100-years old custom of informing the jury of their right to decide both statutory law and facts. Since then, judges do not inform juries of their power to nullify the case statute, although that power is universally acknowledged. Justice Harlan, speaking for the majority, quoted Kane v. Com., 1 Cr. Law Mag. 51, 56:
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, but not all.
Jury nullification occurs when a jury returns a not guilty verdict even though jurors believe beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant has broken the law. This may happen when jurors disagree ...
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."
Judgment notwithstanding the verdict, also called judgment non obstante veredicto, or JNOV, is a type of judgment as a matter of law that is sometimes rendered at the conclusion of a jury trial. In American state courts , JNOV is the practice whereby the presiding judge in a civil jury trial may overrule the decision of a jury and reverse or ...
This is not nullification, even if the courts uphold the state's position and declare the federal statute unconstitutional. The theory of nullification is that the states have the unilateral power to determine the constitutionality of federal laws, and that a state's determination of unconstitutionality cannot be reviewed or reversed by the courts.