Definitions and Examples
To Nullify or Not to Nullify, That Is the Question
A Violation of the Sex Offender Act
|
JURY NULLIFICATION Definitions and Examples To Nullify or Not to Nullify, That Is the Question A Violation of the Sex Offender Act |
DEFINITIONS
"Jury nullification occurs when guilt is established but the jury decides to acquit on its own sense of fairness, propriety, prejudice, or any other sentiment or concern." Randall Kennedy, Race, Crime, and the Law (1997)
"Jury nullification… may take on a variety of meanings or shades of meaning."
"True" or stringent nullification "occurs when the jury recognizes that a defendant's act is proscribed by the law but acquits because it does not believe the act should be proscribed. The behavior, in other words, is not criminal in the eyes of the jury."
"Intermediate" nullification occurs when "although the act proved is properly classified as criminal, it is within a class of acts that do not deserve the punishment prescribed for them."
"Weak" or "ad hoc" nullification "reflects the jury's view that although the act proved is criminal and falls in a class of acts that may well deserve the prescribed punishment, such punishment is inappropriate in the case at hand."
Thomas Andrew Green, Verdict According to Conscience (1985)
SOME EXAMPLES
Bushel's Case [sometimes called Bushnell's Case] (1670, England)
Jury Trials in the North involving "Fugitives from Labor" in pre-Civil War period
The Case and Trial of John Peter Zenger (1735, New York)
Emmet Till (1955)