Hey hey! Today’s headline in The Daily Review (Hayward, California) is: Jurors find merit in nullification. As I said before, nullification is not the whole story in the case that prompted this; but it’s good to see it in the air, as it were. From the article:
Jury nullification advocates like Jones [executive director of FIJA] note some founding fathers thought likewise.
John Adams in 1771 said, “It is not only the juror’s right, but his duty to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment and conscience, though in direct opposition to the instruction of the court.” Thomas Jefferson in 1789 said, “I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.”
And Alexander Hamilton in 1804 said, “Jurors should acquit, even against the judge’s instruction . . . if exercising their judgment with discretion and honesty they have a clear conviction the charge of the court is wrong.”
But critics say our judicial system has evolved since then, situating jurors as triers of fact — deciding what actually happened — and leaving the law’s application and interpretation to judges.
Much as militia did not mean a Federally-organized select force when the Second Amendment was written, neither did jury mean a body of government puppets when the Sixth was enacted. As usual, when someone talks about ‘evolution’ in a Constitutional matter, it means cumulative usurpation.