If you want to nullify a law as a member of a jury, don’t talk about jury nullification:
- during jury selection
- during the trial
- in private with any other jury member
- during verdict deliberation
There is no Michael Scott moment where you “declare nullification”.
Even if the defendant is on camera and appears to commit the crime; if the defendant admitted to committing the crime; if the defendant shook your hand and said, “send me to prison, I’m guilty” — you simply decide that you did not see sufficient evidence that the defendant is guilty.
The moment you talk about jury nullification, you will be removed from the jury and/or cause a mistrial.
Just a friendly tip to those who want to serve their civic duty!
I’ve always wondered how the US courts would respond to some kind of jury nullification PSA going viral enough, either naturally by meme or deliberately by some organization buying up ad space for it. What would happen if the majority of eligible jurors all knew about jury nullification?
We’d finally have one properly functioning piece of a criminal justice system?
that’s optimistic. my thought is they’d do away with juries.