I see we lost a couple posts here from the hack attack, later I’ll try to re-do my answer to your post spooje.
I guess we can all agree that this hack really sucks.
I’m just going to respond to future posts on this thread in order to keep from repeating my deleted posts.
If you answered or addressed something to me specifically, please repost it.
Boy this really bites.
I posted two long pieces dealing with waterjs and freedoms last posts, as well as a missing post by bare. Since I have neither the time nor the inclination to go over it again in detail, here are the highlights:
I posted a response to bare and waterj, wherein I cited to specific examples of race-based jury nullification, the 3 largest of which were the murder of Harbert Lee, the Rodney King trial verdict, and the Simpson case. I also included cites, which I will include here also:
67 U. Colo. L. Rev. 1075, Gary J. Simson, Jury Nullification in the American System: A Skeptical View, 54 Tex. L. Rev. 488 (1976); John P. Relman, Overcoming Obstacles to Federal Fair Housing Enforcement in the South: A Case Study in Jury Nullification, 61 Miss. L.J. 579 (1991);Albert W. Alschuler & Andrew G. Deiss, A Brief History of the Criminal Jury in the United States, 61 U. CHI. L. REV. 867 (1994).
I also posted a somewhat incredulous post in response to Freedom comparing himself to Harriet Tubman and people who helped Jews escape Europe. I was also amazed at his feeling that it was his responsibility to lie to the judge, the lawyers, the defendant, and his fellow jurors, and to break a solemn oath he had given, all so he could hang a jury and let a guy off on a charge. I pointed out he had not accomplished anything (except maybe stroke his own anti-authoritarian ego) other than wasting the time, money of the criminal justice system and the defendant. I suggested it may have been better if he had tried to fight the laws he is against in more productive ways, that did not require him to lie, cheat, and break his oath.
Then I pointed out the obvious admission he made that he had prejudged the case. He had his mind made up before he had one single piece of evidence, that he was going to vote not guilty. Having a prejudiced jury is antithetical to our criminal justice system, and no semantic argument will change that.
I responded to Freedom’s questions, and stated that, yes I would condemn the person who would do what he did under the fugitive slave laws. And that I indeed argued against jury nullification, even when the result was “right.”
Finally, I played the national anthem and wrapped freedom in the american flag while he posted the last bit of his post regarding how he took the hard way out and how refused to play by the rules when the State has a stacked deck. I then puked at the idiocy of his arguments.
If bare is going to redo her post, I may be premature to say this, but I also agreed with spooje and pointed out that voir dere doesnt solve the problem when jurors (like Freedom) lie through their teeth.
Finally, I hijacked the thread a bit in response to bare’s now unseen post regarding her 2 times dealing with the criminal justice system. I was interested in what had occurred on the cases. Bare had posted a statement regarding voir dere and that, were she a black man, she would select the jury to have mostly black people on it. In response, I asked her if she believed that it was OK to strike potential jurors on the basis of their race.
Of course there are missing posts where, after I had posted these arguments, bare, waterj, and Freedom posted that I had completely changed their mind, and they effusively thanked me for being so incredibily smart and well-spoken. Freedom apologized to the American people for his lying and oath-breaking. And we all did a happy little dance. At least that’s how I remember it…
I lost two or three long posts as well. To be honest the hack had really sucked my enjoyment out of this thread and I was kind of hoping it would just fade away.
Everytime you think you can get out…they just keep sucking you right back in…
From memory…
I had asked Hamlet if he was a lawyer. I had made the point that by freely talking about my experience and choice ever since the trial, I was making a difference. Prospective jurors are reading this thread and I think it is good that they see both sides of this. I had also made the point that Hamlet has no idea what kind of organizations I am a member of or what kind of political activity I undertake.
I chastised Hamlet for belittling my choice and trying to make it seem that I thought I was a hero for freeing a drug dealer. The war on drugs is unjustly throwing people in prison and denying them of their right to live freely.
If you see this war as unjust, then how can you close your eyes and let people be arbitrarily incarcerated.
Someone else brought up the sodomy laws. Sodomy laws certainly don’t rank up there with the “morally pristine” decision to hide a jew or or a runaway slave, but they fall under my umbrella of unjust laws that would arbitrarily deny someone their freedom.
I’m wondering what if Hamlet would have helped out on the underground railroad if asked, and if so, then what is the difference between that and lying to get on a jury? I’m also wondering what Hamlet thinks a person should have done when faced with the potential to get on a jury trying a slave case.
Hamlet kept making a big deal out of “duly elected representatives” and “The Law[sub]TM[/sub].” I made the point that I could care less what some elected representatives feel, right is right and wrong is wrong. Elected representatives quite often have no idea what is in the huge omnibus bills they sign, and they are known to make mistakes at the same rate as the rest of us.
I also made the point that The Law[sub]TM[/sub] was not some objective bar that we could all see, rather it depends on your physical location as well as your place in time.
What we seem to disagree on is what the correct course of action you should take when faced with someone who is about to be unjustly punished. Hamlet seems to believe that you should stand on princible and screw the victim.
I believe that the potential victim in front of you is the most important thing at that moment in time. Refusing to help a person retain their deserved freedom is a crime in my eyes.
Freedom
Neither point matters to the issue of your actions by hanging a jury, or to the propreity of jury nullification. It would be an interesting aside if you had worked like heck to legalize cocaine, had deliberately walked up to an officer and said: “Officer, I believe the cocaine should be legalized, I just gave an ounce of cocaine to a person, in fact, here I have more, please arrest me so I can make a statement.” Regardless of that, you still shouldn’t have done your protesting by attempting to nullify a trial.
Damn right I woulda worked on the underground railroad, and violated whatever law was in effect. Would I have given my solemn oath to uphold the law on a fugitive slave case? no way. I think it would have made a lot larger impact if I stood up in court, in front of all the potential jurors, the prosecutor and the judge and said: “There is no way I would be fair and impartial juror, because these laws are unjust. The enslavement of a race of people is deplorable, and I am offended, as is any person with a conscience, that these laws exist. I hope everyone joins me in my statement and we make it impossible for the State to even swear in a jury.” That makes a hell of a lot better statement than lying, oath-breaking, and holding out. What point did you make to the other jurors? Did you tell them? No. Did you make a point to the lawyers or the defendant? No. You hid your supposed “moral decision” like a coward, and just talked about it afterwards.
It appears to me the argument Freedom is trying to elicit with these issues is whether one form of defiance of an unjust law has the same moral power as any other. I disagree strongly. If I were a rapid pro-life person and wished to show my opposition, I would do it by marching, petitioning the legislature, etc, not by shooting a doctor who performs an abortion.
Yep, see above.
Blatant misstatement. In addition, this entire thread, I have attempted to avoid any discussion of the propreity of drug laws, and what happens to violators. I will allow myself one lapse in that: Victim??? huh??
Regardless of your feelings on the drug laws in this country, nullifying a jury is not the way to go about it.
Freedom,
I think that allowing jurors to disregard the law when choosing whether to convict is rife with problems. What is to stop a white supremacist juror from convicting the perpetrator of a racist crime against blacks, if he chooses to disregard the laws and “vote his conscience”? Or a homophobic juror who sympathizes with the criminal activities of the defendant?
Under what circumstances can a judge “set aside” a jury verdict?
It’s my understanding that judges have the power to ignore the jury verdict if they feel that it’s “perverse”, which is the actual term, I recall, that a judge uses when ruling that the jury was simply wrong.
In other words, the judge in the Medgar Evars case could have, with sufficient belief that the jury was nullifying for racist reasons, set aside their verdict and declare Mr. de la Beckwith guilty.
Assuming that a judge may do so under certain circumstances, then there is a check on nullification, so nullification cannot be viewed as an anarchic act by twelve people having a bad day, or whatever.
hansel:
A judge cannot overrule a jury finding of not guilty, and declare the defendant guilty. That was one of the reasons for my concern on nullification cases.
Interesting asides to your question:
1)In limited cases, he can do that in civil trials, by granting a motion for JNOV (judgment notwithstanding the verdict), and make his own ruling.
- In criminal cases, the judge can overrule a jury’s guilty verdict and, in effect, say that no reasonable jury could have found the defedant guilty, and find the defendant not guilty. He just cant do it the other way around.
Thanks Hamlet for bringing this thread back to life.
First of councilor, it’s not a good bet to assume gender on a message board. I am fully male.
I didn’t get to see some of the missing posts, I’ll rue their loss. My rebuild is as follows:
spooje quote:
Originally posted by bare
As waterj2 pointed out, the seating of a racist jury is the fault of the attorneys in the case. The Voir Dire process is designed to avoid this very problem.
A question. How, exactly, would Voir Dire avoid this problem if the racist potential jurors lie about their ability to be impartial?
I have had occasion to need the use of a jury twice in my life, both minor criminal cases in which I felt innocent. In both cases I chose to represent myself. The Voir Dire was probably the most interesting portion of the trial. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing the first time but the second time was well prepared.
I would imagine that Voir Dire is a rather lengthy study in law school because the results of picking a good jury will determine the outcome of the trial.
Do you remember the questionnaire you fill out before trial. All that information is made available to both the defendant and the prosecution. During Voir Dire you can also ask pointed questions of each juror to help determine how they might feel. If you don’t like one for any reason you have the ability to strike or remove them. Knowledge of statistical information is also very important in choosing your jury.
If I were a black man accused of stealing a loaf of bread from a white man, I would be hoping to seat a jury of my peers, in otherwords, black, possibly poor, people who have been unfairly treated by the authorities.
Lord, I do wander around don’t I? What I am getting at spooje is that I think I have a pretty good bullshit detector and I’d hope that any lawyer on my case had a good ability to ferret out a deceptive potential juror.
I have not condoned lying yet, but in my piddling experience there is a boatload of it, as well as outright deception going on in any trial. I have seen attorneys lie, officers lie, witnesses lie, I guess the last folks I would expect to lie would be jurors, and frankly, I’d be less concerned about them than the others. We may go on to argue whether deception and cover-up/ omission is lying, but there is no question in my mind.
Yes, I think it is entirely proper to strike a potential juror on the basis of race.
Let me remind you here councilor, that you are under oath!
Is this the article?
http://www.abanet.org/journal/aug01/fjury.html
I don’t want to quibble, but you did make the point in one of your erased posts that those were ways to make an impact. My point was only that I have never said that I haven’t taken other paths towards the same goal.
As to asking if you are a lawyer, I think it matters a great deal when we are putting your posts into perspective. After all…you’re the one who supports full disclosure.
I think my erased response to this point went something like this:
“Are you a nut or do you just play one on the internet?”
Just because I’m not willing to risk my life and freedom to change something I see as wrong doesn’t change my justification. Do you really think that everyone who disagrees with the state should subject themselves to years in jail?
It’s obvious that if you are not a lawyer, then you are at least someone more familiar with the system then the average joe. Those of us on the outside of your little world still have positions and beliefs that we are not going to subject to a thousand arcane rules we do not understand. Most of us in this country spend our time working so that we can live. In trying to raise a family and provide for ourselves, we are not able to take off several years to learn the ins and outs of the legal system just so that we can challenge something we find unjust.
We also don’t have the luxury of risking many years of our life by taking on a system that has an unlimited budget, infinite resources and nothing to lose.
The beauty of the whole system, is that it still gives the final say to people like me.
Risk free.
And then everyone ignores you and the person helping the slave gets executed.
It’s very big of you to stand on principle when it’s someone else’s head on the block.
Besides, could you expound on the difference between lying to the police officers and your neighbors while helping slaves escape versus lying to a judge in order to save the life of someone who helped a slave escape?
Helloooooooo out there…
When you’re done equating jury nullification with assasination, we’ll be waiting for you back inside.
Would you consider someone about to be jailed for consensual sodomy to be a victim?
I would.
I thought I’d throw out some meaningless drivel in this scholarly debate
It seems to me that jury nullification is an excuse to turn the jurybox into a soapbox for political activism. While said activism is all well and good, I would just as well rather not have someone pursuing their own political agenda at my trial; for that person, the case is irrelevent, indeed, I am irrelevent - all that matters to that person is the law. That’s not the person I would want on my jury, and I wouldn’t consider such a person as one of my peers (since I would be little more than a warm body in a room in such an instance). If I’m being tried, it’s all about me, and whether I broke the law.
I also feel uncomfortable having Joe Commonman act on his own unique interpretation of the laws of the land. How do I know if Joe Commonman has been properly informed about the details of the laws of the case? As is evidenced by many threads here in GD over time, not everyone interprets laws the same way. Again, it is my understanding that a jury is there to decide, based on the evidence at hand, whether I am guilty, or not. Not to interpret the law. Not to decide a case based on the laws as they undertsand them. But to determine guilt, or lack thereof.
Now, I fully agree that there are some laws which should not even be on the books, either because they are senseless, or because they are simply unjust. But I feel there are plenty enough ways outside the courtroom to address this.
As for questions about whether I would want to be found guilty of one of those senseless laws, no, I wouldn’t. But if I did break the law, I should take my lumps. If the law is unjust, then it can still be fought - heck, I might even become a martyr! But I would still rather have folks paying attention to the facts of the case, rather than their own agendas.
How can anyone be too late for a party?
So Darwin’s Finch back to the oringial post. Do you think that ild Mrs. Eshenbacher should be sitting down in Boise State Penitentary for growing flowers? After all, she did break the law.
Are drug laws and their penalties archaic? Sure they are. Are the penalties inappropriate? Polls indicate that most people believe that they are. Do our politicians listen to the public about their concerns? Sure they do. Do they make changes based on what the people believe? Eventually.
Jury nullification only speeds up the process. Jury nullification is a powerful tool, allowed by our far seeing and wise forfathers to combat a tyranical government.
My only complaint, and the reason for starting this thread in the first place, is that the courts and their minions choose to avoid the check built into the system by not fully informing juries of their rights under our system of Democracy, and further, go out of their way to strike any juror that claims to be Fully Informed.
Another point Darwin’s Finch, Jury nullification cannot cause you to be found guilty, only not guilty.
I would hope for a THINKING jury, instead of one that blindly follows whatever the judge tells them to think, whether I thought I was guilty or not.
Since we are attempting to have a “Great Debate” about jury nullification, I will ignore your rantings and try to deal with the issues you raise. If you have any other questions, go back to my prior posts, read them again (or have a friend read them to you).
Who said I would be lying to my neighbors and the police? And (assuming your hypothetical, which I dont agree with) there are huge differences. One would be, you perjured yourself under oath, I wouldn’t have. Second, your lying and oathbreaking was in the context of the justice system in America. Two of the major reasons for the justice system is to get to the truth of what happened, and to deal with disputes without regressing to vigalantism. You lied, and you put yourself above the law. I wouldn’t have.
bare
Sorry about that, you are definitely all man. Is the OP with Ms. Eschenbecker a real case or a thought experiment? I have a real tough time believing a prosecutor is going to push for prison on a case like that, or that a judge is going to allow the case to proceed when the State can’t prove that she knowingly grew poppy seeds.
I also find it an interesting example because it is completely different case than freedom’s nullification. Freedom’s nullification was because he found drug laws to be unjust. Ms. E’s case is one where all twelve jurors could think the law is just, and still vote not guilty. Maybe a better example would help your point.
Ignoring the emotionally charged “tyranical government” language, you are still wrong. It is not a powerful tool. It is less powerful and with less moral forthrightness than all the other ways to fight what you consider to be an unjust law. It is even less powerful if you do it like Freedom did, without telling anyone till after the fact. All that Freedom did was make the State retry one drug dealer. He sent no message to the prosecutor, to the judge, or to the people on the jury.
Not to argue semantics, but this all depends on your definition of jury nullification. If you limit it to the specific example of Freedom’s (nullification because of an unjust law) example (which you didn’t in the OP), yes. But if you refer to Jury Nullification as actions taken by the jury when the specifically disregard the instructions of the judge, then you have to deal with other cases. I’m sure there are numerous examples where a jury ignored the instructions and the law and found someone guilty just because that person was black, or poor, or had a bad defense attorney. The jury should decide only based on the evidence, when you say that they don’t have to, you have to deal with the bad side of nullification too.
Again with the loaded language. Juries are thinking people and they do deliberate and don’t follow blindly what the judge tells them to do. The judge tell them what the law is, they apply the facts to the law. Don’t insult the hundreds of thousands of people who have sat on juries.
So? What were your cases? Im guessing a jury convicted you, but that’s just a guess. And if you want me to shut up about it, I will.
But isn’t the judge’s role in the trial, among other things, to determine the sentence? Even if the jury found her guilty of the letter of the law, the judge, if he were a sympathetic type, could have suggested some sort of “alternative sentencing” which didn’t involve Old Mrs. Eschenbacher doing hard time in the State Pen, could he not? Also, don’t extenuating circumstances play a role in determining sentencing (e.g., she clearly was neither producing nor marketing drugs, she only planted the flowers because they were pretty)?
**
In theory, perhaps. However, in practice, just as with the laws themselves, I would suspect there is a good deal of personal bias involved which, in turn, may reduce a trial to a platform in which to express political ideology, rather than a venue whereby an individual (or individuals) is tried on the merits of the facts at hand.
**
I agree that juries should be fully informed of their rights and responsibilities (I also feel they should be entitled to a more active role in the trial itself, but that’s not really pertinent to this discussion). I do not agree, however, that they be granted blanket powers which allow them to derail the entire justice system.
I also ask, as a serious question, how much of the Fully Informed Juror pamphlet is actual law, and how much might be political mumbo-jumbo on the part of its authors?
**
But how can you be certain that they aren’t THINKING based on personal bias or misinformation about the laws in question? Orders to the effect that they base their decision only on the facts presented are an attempt to circumvent such bias, are they not?
I once worked in a courthouse and we’d sit in on the jury selections on short breaks.
The funniest thing was a guy who, when asked his name, first volunteered to “reassure” the others (who never asked) not to worry, that this will be a short case, because “these things happen a lot and always turn out the same”. He didn’t get a second question.
Old Mrs. Eshenbachers’ case is true in all but her name. You know the routine, “the names were changed to protect the innocent”.
It was an interesting case and it had some surpising results, not the least of which is there are now opium poppies growing all around the county. As far as I know, no one makes use of the fact, simply because of all the effort and special equipment it takes to actually produce opium from them. People sought out seed to plant in the flower beds in support of Mrs. Eshenbacher and because they are pretty after all.
The second unintended result is the fact that the case spawned a lot of Fully Informed Jurors, something that has made it difficult for the court to deal with since.
As for my two cases, I didn’t go into specifics because even though they were simple cases, a full explaination is going to take up lots of space and I’m not sure it is germain to the topic at hand.
I’ll share the first and if anyone is interested, I’ll go into the other one.
About fifteen years or so ago, I bought a used 12 ga. shotgun at a pawn shop. It was an impulsive purchase based on my fond memories of hunting ducks with my grandfather. Later that fall, I purchased a box of shells along with all the necessary licenses and went duck hunting.
In the middle of my hunt, I was approached by a plainclothes fish and game officer who inspected my gear. He discovered that a portion of my shotgun shells were made of steel and the rest were lead, which had just been made illegal that year because of lead poisoning in waterfowl. He wrote me a ticket and I asked him to confiscate the evidence because I was probably going to contest the ticket. He did not keep my gear, but did seal it for the reason I asked.
So here is the problem: I did not knowingly use lead shot. The shells in the box and the shotgun all were identical and the only indication that they were steel was marked on the box itself, not the shells.
The $75.00 ticket would not have been worth fighting over except for the fact that I was at the time a seasonal white water river guide and the income I made off of that pretty much kept my family alive in the spring of the year. My guides license clearly states that ANY violation of Idaho’s fish and game regulations is cause to revolk your guides license.
I approached the only local attorney that could take a criminal case and told him my story. His response was that for 750.00 the case would not even go to trial but would be dropped. I was pretty suprised at that. I intrepreted it to mean: 250 for me, 250 for the judge and 250 for the state.
Outraged, I was determined to plead not guilty, ask for a jury trial and defend myself, thinking that surely my peers having known me for years as an ethical man and hearing of my support for the change to steel shot, would in the end find me not guilty.
I completely bungled my case, primarily in the Voir Dire process as far as I can tell. I had absolutely no idea what it was and did nothing to help pick the jury.
It probably also didn’t help my case that the jury saw approximately 20 uniformed fish and game officers on the prosecutors side who were there to learn how to testify in a case of this sort because it was the first one to come to trial here in the state.
I admire that jury still today, because that was one very nasty job they had and they did it anyway. Inside that sealed pack along with all shotgun shells, spent and unfired were two ducks and the contents of my lunch, which as I recall was a liverworst sandwich. That pack spent the six months or so waiting for trial in the back of my pickup truck. The smell had died down pretty much by then, but what hadn’t turned gelatinous was petrified. Petrified ducks, by-the-way are pretty gross looking. Even liverworst believe it or not petrifies. The actual trial went pretty fast and the jury retired to deliberate and look over the evidence.
While we awaited the decision, I talked with the officers and it came out why I had taken the case to court in the first place. Turns out they would not have taken my guides license, but no one bothered to tell me prior to my pleading not guilty.
It took hours for the jury to come out, the officers thought they had lost the case because it was taking the jury so long to come to a decision.
I was found guilty. I still know in my heart that I was not knowingly guilty, but I felt better in knowing that I had had my say and that 12 people took time significant time out of their busy lives to listen to my tale of woe.
A couple years went by before I felt right in asking any of my jurors what transpired in the jury room and why they determined that I was guilty. I was disapointed to learn that while some of them thought the evidence was compelling, they thought that if I was serious about my case, I would have hired an attorney to represent me.
And by the way Hamlet I in no way disparged jurors or any jury in any way, and I resent the accusation.
I agree with everything you say, but for some reason, unknown to me Mrs. Eshenbachers attorney felt that she had a better chance with a jury instead of going with the judge’s opinion only.
Again I agree, but if you think that judges are bastions of blind justice, I’ve got some lake front property here in Idaho I’d be interested in selling you. Judges are biased too. How can any thinking person be un-biased?
I honestly don’t know, I invite you to read the link, which is word for word the same as the pamphlet in my posession and tell me. That was one of my hopes in starting this thread is that we would determine wheter it was correct or not. It would appear so far, that there is no mumbo jumbo involved.
Again, I can’t be certain that any member of a jury is biased, I don’t believe any one is un-biased. As far as misinformation about the laws, it is up to the prossecution not only to prove the guilt of the accused, but it is up to them to fully explain the laws in question and clear up any misinformation any juror has. The jury also may request of the judge in the case for any explaination of the law that they fail to understand.
I am one of those people who try court cases, albeit in a backwater of a backwater, and I have had some experience with jury nullification. It came up here when our local state legislative representative tried to push a bill through the state legislature that would make the jury the sole judge of both the facts and the law, that is, that the law in any given case for that case only would be what ever the eight or twelve citizens on the jury thought it was, or should be, on that particular day. The Representative had been elected on the basis of being kind to his mother and, if not acting pursuant to God’s direct revelation, consulting with Him on all decisions. Surprisingly, God always agreed with him and told our boy that he was right in step with the All Mighty. The guy had such a low key, cornpone style that the senior citizens voted for him in large numbers and elected him to the State Legislature for two terms. He campaigned extensively in nursing homes. After that he took a job with Gary Bowers’ organization after chairing Alan Keys presidential campaign. When his jury nullification bill was working its way through the legislature he and the others backing the bill made no bones about the purpose of the bill. In his view it was to allow juries to consider pureness of motive in arson cases when the target of the arson was an abortion clinic. His view was that if a criminal act was done for a righteous purpose, the jury ought be allowed to acquit on that basis alone. His bill differed from classic jury nullification in that it required the judge to instruct the jury that the instructions on the law were not binding and the jury could do what ever it wanted no matter what the judge said the rules for the trial were. Calmer heads prevailed and the bill never got out of committee.
The Representative was the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and was a practicing lawyer. In the local bar he was known as “our learned brother, the idiot.”
I get the idea that proponents of jury nullification do not understand the latitude that is afforded to a jury as things now stand and all to often have their own ax to grind. The wish to grant a special “pure motive” defense and a conviction that all or some drug laws are unwise and unjust seem to be typical grounds for jury nullification agitation simply because few legislatures have bought the argument and there is slight indication that any will. As others have pointed out, jury nullification has a potential to lose a tiger that will be very hard to put back in its cage. It seems to me that if recognized or widespread there is a potential in jury nullification to turn juries into an instrument of majoritarian tyranny base on the status and personality of the parties to the trial. The tyranny would be exercised through the private judgment of the few vendrymen making up the jury. It presents the specter of turning a jury trial into a complete crapshoot. It threatens the the loss of any predictability in the law. It invites the flaunting of the will and judgment of the community expressed through its elected representatives by the substitution of the will and judgment of a few individuals. It is a bad idea that assumes that the law and the courts are merely the instruments and agents of some irresponsible dictator. It is flat a very bad idea.
As I understand the British (maybe only English) system, the presiding judge instructs the jury not only on the law and the procedure but also on the judge’s opinion of the evidence and the result the jury should reach. If the jury does not come back with the recommended finding there can be hell to play. This is based on observing a couple of trials at the Old Bailey some 30 years ago. A Canadian or British practioner may want to correct me on this.
In the US, however, the jury is told what the law is and told what their options are for a decision, e.g., you may find the defendant guilty of murder I, murder II, voluntary manslaughter, negligent manslaughter, assault causing serious injury, or you may find the defendant not guilty. The jury is the sole finder of the facts. The jury is told that it can accept or reject any and all of the evidence. The jury can reject evidence no matter how authoritative or uncontradicted it might be (this is just what happened in the O.J. Simpson case from my point of view). A jury that doesn’t want to convict and doesn’t have the mother wit to realize that all they have to do is reject a critical piece of evidence is a jury that is made up of morons.
If there is sufficient public sentiment to legalize drugs or the bombing of abortion clinics it is certain that laws criminalizing those things will be repealed. In the meantime, unless a jury is unanimous in the matter (unlikely), all nullification does is hang the jury and pretty well guarantee that the whole thing will be done again at the same expenditure of time and money as the first time. In effect, the jury nullification type says: " I am better equiped to decide public policy than the legislature, and better suited to know the law than judges and lawyers." A pretty arrogant view, don’t you think.