Jury Nullification

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
21

How much proof do you need? After 2 accquitals by juries in a predominantly Catholic province, they tried a 3rd time and showed no sign of quitting. That goes beyond simply charging someone because evidence of a crime was present. It strays into the realm of fanatic determination.

Most intellectuals in Quebec were antagonistic toward the established order which included the church heirarchy. Also, there is always some base sentiment of resentment toward authority in most societies, which in Quebec would extend to the church heirarchy who had their claws deep into the Quebec government until the 50’s.

Anyone who grew up in a strong Catholic society in the 60’s or earlier before Vatican II (I did) knows how influential and involved the church can be; even more pernicious than fundamentalist churches in some areas of the USA. However, true dedication to any church is probably lip service brought on by social pressure for a significant number of the population in any place or time. (Almost 20 years of catholic education and church-going has pretty much cured me of religion).

Given how determined the Quebec government was in trying to squash the guy, I would be very surprised if they made no effort at jury stacking - sorry, careful selection. Rules for picking jurors are about the same as in the USA so it’s not like they were stuck with a jury, except in the sense that they can’t fight demographics.

So I’m not sure what the problem is?
You’re upset that Morgantaler won? Face it, more than 75% of Canadian society supports his viewpoint.
You resent the impugning of Bourassa? The little weasel turned out to run a government that could only be described as clean and honest if compared with earlier Quebec governments like Duplessis. Think Alpo-gate. Quebec “politics”, including recently Mulroney and his $300,000 cash “non-bribe”, has always been the example for crooked politics in Canada.
You resent implications about Catholics in what I said? Hey, anti-abortion catholics are probably the most honest and straight-forward players in the whole story. But… Canada doesn’t get approval ratings for our abortion non-laws of 75% to 80% without significant buy-in from the huge numbers of catholics; although the fanatics will stop at nothing, including slander, persecution, and deception, to win. (In college I remember the slanders suggesting, never proving, that many of Morgentaler’s patients were sick and dying from sloppy procedures - not true). Besides, a catholic in name only is still a catholic. If the prosecution couldn’t find enough “convinced” catholics in 1975 Montreal to at least get a hung jury, that should tell you something too.

Anyway, back on topic - repeated jury nullification simply made it impossible for the governments to ignore the will of the poeple. Without it, this process might have taken 10 or 20 years longer.

22

I’m still unclear on the legal status. I understand that the acquittal cannot be overturned because that would be double jeopardy, and that juries don’t reveal their reasoning. But suppose that likely jury nullification becomes apparent before a verdict. For example, it’s my understanding that the jury can ask (in writing?) legal questions of the judge while they’re deliberating. Suppose the jury sends the judge a note that says “We’re thinking of acquitting him, even though he did it, because we think the anti-marijuana law is wrong. Can we do that?” What does the judge do? Say “yes”? Say “no”? Declare a mistrial? Or what if they say “We’re thinking of acquitting him because the guy he killed was black, and we hate black people”?

23

The Quebec Justice Minister from 1970 to 1975 was Jérôme Choquette. If there had been political influences over Morgentaler’s trials he would have been responsible. I can’t find anything that would suggest he was linked to the Catholic hierarchy; he seems to have been a pretty regular Liberal. I didn’t even find his personal opinions over abortion although it is probably likely he was opposed. But AFAICT he was pursuing charges against Morgentaler because he thought he had to apply the law as written at the time, and Morgentaler was openly performing illegal abortions.

It seems as well that Morgentaler’s third trial was over charges brought forward by the federal Justice Minister. It is true, though, that after Marc-André Bédard became Justice Minister in 1976 charges were immediately dropped.

There’s no doubt that Duplessis’s government was cozy with the Church during the 40s and 50s. But you’re claiming that Bourassa’s government was too, well into the 70s. This is something I’ve never seen the slightest evidence for, and an unlikely claim to be sure.

As I’ve said, I don’t think Choquette or Bourassa were on any kind of crusade against Morgentaler, and any fairly selected jury of Morgentaler’s peers would have contained a fair number of pro-choice people, as by the 70s a slight majority of Quebecers supported abortion, at least in some cases.

Not at all, I’m happy that Canadians now have access to abortion. I am a little uneasy about the fact that there is no restriction at all of abortion in Canada, but it sure beats it being illegal.

Why yes, I do resent the impugning of Bourassa, who’s been an excellent premier and, with Lévesque and Lesage, one of the main people responsible for the modernization of Quebec starting in the 60s. Quebec politics aren’t anymore crooked than anywhere else in Canada. They probably were back in the 50s, and maybe marginally in the 60s or 70s, but the political reforms of the late 70s changed all this for the best, provincially at least. Of course, Canadians enjoy trotting this old canard, as well as other smears against Quebec and Quebecers, in order to feel superior and, let’s face it, when you’ve got a convenient scapegoat for your country’s imperfections, you don’t let go of it easily, right? But that’s why I’m here to set the record straight.

Sort of. I’m saying that while you may get something like 85% of Quebecers identifying as Catholics even today, most of them are only nominally Catholic and may not even really be Christian in actual beliefs. Even if they are, you have no idea how they feel about abortion or same-sex marriage or assisted suicide. Probably not the same way as the Pope, that’s for sure.

Not in any meaningful sense, is what I’m saying. Not in the sense that you can prejudge what they believe and dismiss them as “backward”.

24

This is the strongest argument against jury nullification. Not that they ever say it out loud. They don’t, they just do it. But it cannot be stopped. Taking the right of jury nullification argument to the jury by the defense lawyer (or defendant for that matter) doesn’t stop jury nullification from happening in race based cases. It stops it happening in marijuana cases, or battered spouse syndrome cases where juries are law abiding.

The argument for jury nullification is that it is our right under the law and constitution of our forefathers and is the direct subject matter before the court and it should be allowed to be argued.

If it is before the verdict is entered there is an argument to make that the judge can declare a mistrial for jury misconduct.

25

Juries may certainly ask a question of the judge once deliberations have begun. In Ohio, this must be in writing. The judge discusses the question with opposing counsel, and then answers it in writing. The lawyers may disagree with the judge’s answer and state their objections on the record, outside of the jury’s hearing, and it might supply grounds for an appeal (although in 99% of the cases, IME, the lawyers come to a quick consensus with the judge as to what the proper answer is, and that’s what’s given to the jury). The judge’s answer may be simply, “Refer to the jury instructions, page X, for the answer to this question.” Or it may be “Yes,” or “No.” Or even, “That is not a matter about which the jury should concern itself.” Or whatever else the judge sees fit to write.

I’ve presided over civil jury trials as a magistrate, and tried many more criminal jury cases as a prosecutor. If I was the judge and the jury wrote, “We’re thinking of acquitting him, even though he did it, because we think the anti-marijuana law is wrong. Can we do that?,” I would write back (after consulting with counsel), something along the lines of, “You are bound by your oaths as jurors to determine whether or not the defendant violated the law. We are fortunate enough to live in a democracy under the rule of law. You must accept the law as it now stands, since it was written by our elected representatives and is binding upon all of us until duly changed in the same manner as it was written. If you are unanimously convinced that the defendant has violated the law, as proved by evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, your verdict should be ‘Guilty.’ Otherwise, your verdict should be ‘Not guilty.’”

If the jury wrote, “We’re thinking of acquitting him because the guy he killed was black, and we hate black people,” I would reply, "“You are bound by your oath as jurors to see that justice is done, without fear or favor, and without bias or prejudice. Either acquitting or convicting someone of a crime for the entirely irrelevant reason of that person’s race is illegal, improper, and would create a terrible injustice. You must decide this case based upon the facts as you see them, and on the law as I have given it to you in my instructions, and for no other reason whatsoever.”

I would not, at that point anyway, grant a mistrial in either case.

26

I don’t remember, obviously you know more about Quebec politics than I do. I just know what was in the media, and being at the receiving end of the F18 Maitenance Contract arm-twisting that put Quebec politicking back on the map for a few years. But, for every story of corruption from the rest of Canada, there are 10 from Quebec. Sadly the most uncorrupt politician from Quebec was Pierre Trudeau, who wrecked Canada too in his own special way.

Bourassa was never identified as a catholic toady, but you can bet that outside the big cities, there was a lot of interplay between various parts of the church heirarchy and the members of government. Riding-based democracies are much more vulnerable to that sort of pressure. Heck, look at the church bozos who were trying to get catholics to not vote for Obama, Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Giuliani and lots of others who dared to disagree with the church position on abortion. I am glad the religion issue is practically non-existent in Canada, and the extent to which Stephen Harper plays the Pharisee scares me.

People of any religion are probably more than 50% just nominal members, going through the motions depending on the degree of social pressure to conform. Otto Lang was the federal minister I recall vaguely, and was identified as a staunch Catholic - and IIRC the guy who offered the reporter the bet. I think it was Mark Twain who said “if at first you don’t succeed, try again. If that fails, give up. No point in being a durned fool about it.”

Anyway, off topic.

I doubt a judge would declare a mistrial at the whiff of jury nullification. It is best to provide the pat answer “do your legal duty”. However, you do see occasionally that disruptive jurors are tossed off a jury. If the judge suspected this was happening, he would probably drag each juror in individually for questioning, and find something in some versions of events to justify kicking out one or two disruptive jurors. if that did not get the required verdict, then a mistrial would likely result. Tossing one or more jurors probably makes it easy for the defence to appeal and get a mistrial/re-trial on conviction.

Certainly trying to tell other jurors things that were not mentioned in the trial, or that the law says something the judge disagrees with, can trigger this reaction.

If the prosecution really wants a conviction, then it would be surprising if they could not put together a jury that would at least hang rather than acquit. The notorious Jim Crow juries in the US south generally seemed to be a result of systemic inequality from the ground up. You can’t win if they won’t even deal you any cards…

27

Two other points:

I recall reading once, in the depths of time before the internet, that the crime of “manslaughter” came from the early British justice system. They had to come up with a crime less serious than murder (i.e. not a capital offense) because in many cases a jury would not convict a man to hang for murder, in for example, a case where two men got in a fight and one killed the other. It may have been a crime, but not a capital one - but given a choice between death and walk, they acquitted.

Don’t forget, that in a group of 12 people, there’s likely to be a person that’s happy to pass a note to the judge complaining if one juror starts telling the others too forcefully to ignore the letter of the law and do this or do that. I remember news reports over the years of cases where, when one juror is an unreasonable(!!) hold-out, they were tossed off as disruptive. Generally, either you’re one smoooooth talker, or the majority wanted the same verdict in the first place - which is what juries are all about. One squeaky wheel is just going to call attention to themselves.

28

What do the courts think of grand jury nullification–refusal to indict even though there’s evidence the accused committed a crime? I ask because I read a mainstream book on the bill of rights that approved of it.

29

Grand juries are almost entirely a tool of the prosecutor. The prosecutor controls which evidence comes before it, and can submit the same evidence to a different grand jury if the first one “no bills” (refuses to indict) in a case. Grand juries usually only hear from police officers or investigators as witnesses, and might consider a case for only a few minute or two before deciding whether or not to indict. When, on rare occasions, the subject of an investigation is called before the grand jury, he cannot take his lawyer with him into the grand jury room. Grand juries, far more often than not, do just what the prosecutor asks of them. As the joke goes, most grand juries would indict a ham sandwich. Sometimes a grand jury can provide political cover to a prosecutor, who can say, “Hey, I tried,” if it no bills a case the prosecutor would rather not take to trial.

Indiana has abolished grand juries, IIRC, and I’m inclined to think that’s the right way to go. Because they are enshrined in the Fifth Amendment on the Federal level, it would take a constitutional amendment to abolish them there.

30

Here is a staff report that Bricker and I did on grand juries: Who invented the grand jury? - The Straight Dope

Specifically, a recent case upheld a federal grand jury instruction:

noting:

and

an instruction that said:

because:

*United States v. Navarro-Vargas *, 408 F.3d 1184, 2005 U.S. App. LEXIS 9347 (9th Cir. Cal. 2005) (en banc).

31

The key point is that a grand jury does not hear anything except what the prosecutor wants them to hear. If the prosecutor wants to go to trial and thinks he can beat the defendant’s alibi, he can choose to not present that bit of evidence, or present it in a diminshed way. As a result, grand juries tend to do what the prosecutor wants, because he tells them the right things to get what he wants.

There are 2 considerations with any prosecution: do you have enough evidence to go to trial, and can you win? The grand jury helps the prosecution with the first bit. If you find that they won’t even agree you need to charge the perp, maybe your case is pretty weak anyway, if not in evidence, then in emotional appeal to any jury.

the problem is that grand juries are the equivalent of the modern Star Chamber, secret courts that all but convict a person in secret, with no right to a defence. I guess the question is, why are they necessary? “Sufficient evidence to go to trial” is something the prosecutor should already be able to assess.

Instead, what they seem to be is a means to compell sworn testimony. Then if there are any holes in the story, you can threaten the players in the drama with perjury charges or make them (suspiciously) plead the 5th. Also, if a witness refuses to answer, now you can toss him in the clink until he does; you couldn’t do that with regular police interrogation, unless you were alerady the gestapo.

32

Yeah, if a witness refuses to cooperate - you can sweat him out with a grand jury, rather than having to wait until the actual trial. If you are in the middle of a trial and your star witness clams up, you can send him to jail for contempt - but sooner or later the trial has to proceed, I assume, without his testimony. Easier to hammer the reluctant witness before the main show.

I fail to understand why grand jury details need to remain secret after the case has gone to trial.

33

There’s a fascinating link here with the unique Scottish verdict of 'Not Proven. Britain did away with the Grand Jury yonks ago, likewise impeachment. Scotland had a more Roman-based system where the jury’s job was to determine whether the prosecution had proven its case or not, but it was the magistrate’s job to decide whether a proven case amounted to actual guilt: the prosecution might have proven that the culprit was in the right place at the right time and the jury agreed, but that still didn’t prove somebody else wasn’t there as well to do it - think the original ‘Fugitive’.

It all became rather politicised with magistrates igonring how well a case was ‘proven’, so under English influence they moved more to the jury deciding actual guilt or innocence. Then there came a trial where there was no doubt that the defendant had killed a man, but equally that it was accidental and under Scots law then it was murder or nothing. So the jury restored the ancient verdict of ‘not proven’ that is, it could not be proven that there was any lethal intent even though that was the outcome.

Since then, not proven has come to be thought of as in effect not guilty but don’t do it again, that is, we know you’re as guilty as Satan but the strict evidence isn’t strong enough to stick.

I think it is a very good verdict. I do not like the Anglo-American ‘adversarial’ system because it encourages the police to chase one line they can make a case out of instead of all possibilities. There’s a case was in the papers a couple of days ago that I think results from that.

A few weeks ago, a 2-year old girl went missing in some holiday resort. She was found on Sunday stuck down a drain. We have had so much in recent years about child abduction, that I would guess the police felt obliged to concentrate on that side. The parents even admitted that little Aisling (pronounced Ashling) was so obsessed with water that they called her Splashling.

Maybe, if the police were required to present facts and possibilities for an investigatory panel to derive a case, as in most Latin countries (and Louisiana?) they would have taken a more generalised approach than looking to nail the abductor - who in this case did not exist - and found the body sooner.

As it is, the public is all too ready to jump on them when they dare to assume something other than abduction that it turns out to be. The sad truth is that children do wander off and they do kill themselves accidentally and real abductions are either by tricking much older children than that, or with the connivance of relatives.

34

Arlen Specter voted “Not proven” in the impeachment trial of President Clinton in the U.S. Senate in 1999; the Chief Justice counted it as a “Not guilty.”

35

Yes, grand juries seem more about feeding the GJ the details the prosecutor wants them to hear - with the ability to compell testimony; rather than being an investigative tool. The main thing as i said before is to force the participants to testify or plead the 5th. participants who told the police “i have nothing to say” cannot use that response on a GJ.

I assume a GJ was more supposed to be in a situation like the Valeri Plame-Scooter Libby thing, where the questions involved were “who actually did what?” and “who spilled the beans?”. But even there (and I’m glad they nailed someone, even if it wasn’t Cheney) they were twisting arms. If the founding fathers had wanted the police and prosecutor to have the ability to force cooperation under penalty of imprisonment, they would have put it in the constitution.

The French system (Napoleonic, so hence all of Europe uses it) IIRC a person is brought in front of a magistrate who can also ask questions, the person cannot refuse to testify but they cannot be charged with perjury for what they say. The system takes the logical view that a guilty person will say anything they can to get off; it’s the logical alternative to the 5th. The major benefit is that most trials in europe are much shorter and simpler than in North America.

36

While I agree with the overall gist of the piece, some parts have been left out which I think deserve to be mentioned.

> Jury nullification generally refers to a jury’s decision to acquit a defendant even
> though the jurors believe the accused to be factually guilty of the crime. This
> decision can arise from a desire for leniency or sympathy with the accused or from
> distaste for the particular law being enforced.

Or because the jury feels that the law is being misinterpreted or improperly applied in the particular case before them. (As was true, for example, in the prosecution of William Penn for obscenity. The judge in that case locked the jury up for weeks, if I recall correctly, in an effort to force them to change their verdict to guilty – ultimately causing questions to be asked in Parliament. I believe this case – and by implication, an intention on the Founders’ part to enable other juries to act as that jury did – was one of the main reasons that a right to trial by jury was written into the US Bill of Rights.)

I’ve also heard the term “jury nullification” applied to efforts to circumvent limits imposed by judges on what information the jury can have or consider. For instance, within the last week a juror in a child-molestation case was fined $1200 for finding out, and telling her fellow jurors, that the accused had served prison time for two similar crimes. The judge had to declare a mistrial, which means the young victim will have to testify before another jury. On the other hand, sometimes there is merit in violating these rules: federal courts that prosecute medical marijuana providers routinely don’t allow juries to know that the accused was operating in compliance with state laws. If I were on such a jury, I would want to know that.

> A brief primer: In the modern judicial system, the jury’s role is to be a finder of
> fact. The jury weighs the credibility of witnesses and of stories told, bringing
> their experience and understanding to the jury box.

I’d like to hear something about the origin of this doctrine regarding the purpose and power of the jury. I have the impression it is more recent than the Bill of Rights and was written by judges who felt their own power was being eroded.

> Parenthetically, we should note that potential jurors are typically subject to
> questioning before being chosen for a jury, in a process called voir dire. A juror
> who can be shown to have lied during this process, perhaps by concealing his
> views about the laws at issue, can be subsequently charged with a crime,
> although it won’t affect the verdict rendered in the original case.

Judges also can and will throw a juror off the case for trying to get other jurors to “nullify” if the judge finds out about it before a verdict has been reached. So it’s a bad idea to come out and say that you want to “nullify” if you believe that some other juror might tell on you. Just say you aren’t convinced the defendant is guilty, and stick to that story, and you should be OK.

37

One of the things we keep forgetting: The Bill of Rights was NOT part of the original Constitution, and the authors of the Constitution purposefully left out a Bill of Rights. Few state constitutions at that time had a Bill of Rights, and the authors of the Constitution felt that a Bill of Rights would generally be unenforceable. This is true: Many tyrannical governments have a Bill of Rights, but unless the mechanisms are there to challenge the government, they cannot be enforced.

And, if these mechanisms to challenge the government are there, and there’s a general sense of inalienable rights held by the citizenry, these unenumerated rights will be supported even if they aren’t listed in a particular Bill of Rights. In that case, according to the authors of the Constitution, you’re better off not enumerating them at all. Otherwise, if you leave out a specific right (like the Right to Privacy), some people will claim that the right does not exist.

However, as the various states considered the Constitution, opposition arose based upon a fear that this new government that is placed over the state governments would be too powerful and too removed from the people to control. To get around this concern, the Federalists who supported the Constitution made a political promise to support the addition of amendments to limit Federal power. This is the Bill or Rights.

The first 10 amendments which we call the Bill of Rights did not apply to the state governments until the 14th amendment. That is, you had no right to keep silent or religious freedom via the Bill of Rights at the state level. It was simply assumed that the republican governments of the states would be enough to prevent these rights from being trampled upon.

So, the best way to understand the meaning of the various amendments is to read the arguments made during the debate on the ratification of the Constitution. The amendments proposed were written specifically to qualm those who feared the Constitution.

Therefore, the right to a FEDERAL jury trial as guaranteed by the 6th Amendment was merely granting what the states already had. Those against the Constitution had initially argued that the Federal government could enact a law, seize the defendant, and then deny the defendant a jury trial. The British crown did something similar with the Intolerable Acts. A defendant could be found innocent in a colonial court, but the British crown could seize the defendant, and try them again in a special court without a jury or legal representation.

According to common law, a jury decided cases on fact, and the judge ruled upon the law. Occasionally, a jury would not convict someone because they felt that the law should not apply or that there was a right the suspect had that was being denied. These were rare, and did not create case precedent unless the case itself was brought to a higher court.

The other issue is one of the grand jury. Thanks to the 5th amendment, a grand jury must indict a suspect before they can be charged with a felony crime. This is completely different from other common law countries where a prosecutor can charge a suspect without a grand jury. What has happened over the years is that our grand jury system has become a rubber stamp body for the prosecutor because if the grand jury really investigated every crime as originally envisioned by the 5th amendment, no one would ever be charged for any crime. It would just take too long.

There is nothing special in our 5th, 6th, or even 7th amendments that was not already common practice in the state courts (except for the inability to charge a suspect with a felony without a grand jury indictment).

38

IANAL, but this is my understanding:

A few points to ponder - Yes, the British Common Law basically assumed that citizens had rights they always had, unless the law took it away. The assumption has been that the citizenry and their parliamentary reps would not allow this to happen if it was unacceptable. Unfortunately, in Britain and in Canada (and I assume places like NZ and Austrlia) the parliament has stopped being a representative democracy like Congress and instead become a rubber stamp for the dictatorship of the majority party. A government that gets a clear majority can then impose its will on the people under he cyncical assumption that by the time an election rolls around, 4 years or more later, the people will have forgot.

Until Canada got a constitution and a quasi-bill of rights in the 1980’s, rights were being eroded by law and Supreme Court passivity at an alarming rate. Do not ever consider the US bill of Rights as irrelevant or useless! Compared to Canada, you have far more legal rights and the government cannot arbitrarily take them away.

It says something about the history of jury trials, that this point was enshrined in the Magna Carta in 1215(?). Basically, the barons did not trust the king or his minions to judge them or their people honestly, and put more faith in judgement by a group of equals. In the days before picky “letter of the law” decisions, I am sure the logic was that the jury could better determine if a punishable wrong had actually been committed, than any legal system that probably stood to gain by fines or confiscations. I doubt they even considered the subtlety of “the facts” vs appropriateness of the law.

Whether the judge can or should tell a jury what they can or can’t do, the fact is that strange things happen in the courtroom. Judges have remarkably wide discretion, limited only if they exceeed the norms of conduct so badly that they can be disciplined; or tick off someone with more pull than them. This results in some very puerile behaviour.

Just look at the massive resistance to retesting old DNA evidence in closed cases. The members of the legal profession and the justice system have a down-right hostile attitude to anyone who suggests that tehy made a mistake or aren’t doing things right.

I talked to a visiting lawyer once who said about appeals- “This is a small town, I come here from the big city 2 times a year. If the local lawyers appeal, the judge here gets even by being harsh on all their clients. If he’s too harsh to my client, I appeal, he knows I’m not afraid to; so he’s very cautious about being hard on my clients.”

I saw the same judge once give a guy 2 weeks in jail for taxi fraud. There had been a clamp-down due to ride-and-dash taxi customers. This guy was so drunk he ended up in a taxi without enough money, didn’t run away. The crown attorney (prosecutor) said “in this case, and because it’s Christmas, we suggest a suspended sentence”. The judge got all huffy and said “I do NOT give breaks because it’s Christmas. Maybe in jail he’ll get a good Christmas dinner.”

There is the long-established legal rule that a person’s previous convictions do not figure in as evidence in a trial. Regardless of past record, each time the prosecution must prove beyond reasonable doubt of guilt under these circumstances. Otherwise we run the risk of court descending into the pattern of “blame the most likely suspect, even without the evidence”. This may work when your parents “know” you must have done something. It shouldn’t be that way when a defendant could be locked up for years, or executed.

Similarly, evidence presented at a trial has been examined at a trial by bth sides and any problems pointed out by whoever would benefit from raising that doubt. Jurors simply cannot go out “investigating” and come up with dubious facts that neither side has a chance to rebut.

After all, there was a case a few years ago where some nut from Nova Scotia decided to go Rambo vigilante. He went down to Boston, looked up sex offenders on the internet and shot a few. One was a guy who at 18 was charged by his 17yo girlfriend’s parents and so ended up on the registered sex offenders list - and now dead. One fact is not the whole truth.

Plus, you have a duty to listen to the facts on a jury. If you say “I never believe a cop” you are prejudging the case and should be kicked off the jury. If you say “I strongly distrust police and am skeptical about any story they tell” you are willing to believe the police and so are only bringing your life experience to the jury decision, as is right. If you start telling other jurors to disregard the letter of the law, of course a judge will boot you off if he finds out.

39

Not sure if this is technically considered jury nullification, but it seems pretty close to it:

40

No, it doesn’t fit the idea. So far as I can determine from the article, both jurors said they’d keep opne minds about the death penalty, and were even predisposed to favor it at the beginning, but testimony during the penalty phase of the trial changed their minds. That’s exactly how the system is supposed to work.