I have a question for you attorneys out there. What is the reality concerning jury nullification??

For example, let's take a hypothetical case where the local sherif is prosecuting someone for the sole reason that he had a preban upper on a postban lower.

In reality, the reason the sherif is pushing this is because the defendant got his niece pregnant (or some other personal reason). Otherwise the defendant is an upstanding member of the community.

What if the jury sees through this and decides to ignore the law and find the defendant Not Guilty. The jury didn't want to find him guilty with a minor sentence since that would mean a felony on his record.

What happens in a case like this ??

I mean technically the fellow was indeed guilty.

Can the judge overule the jury ? If so, why bother with a jury ?

Thanks for any enlightment.

Ed

The judge can not over rule a jury to find someone guilty.  In most cases, a judge can only over rule a jury to find someone not guilty.  What the judge can do is question the jury.  If the jury members ADMIT that they believed the guy was guilty but chose not to enforce the law, then the judge can set aside the verdict and order a new trial.  If the jury does not admit this, however, then the not guilty verdict must stand.

Basically if you are going to do something like this and you are on a jury, and the judge questions you afterward, then you have to stick with the story that you believe the individual to be innocent (no matter how crazy it may seem).

See if these sites are of any help.

[url]http://nowscape.com/fija/fija_us.htm[/url]

[url]http://www.erowid.org/freedom/jury_nullification/jury_nullification.shtml[/url]

Keep your "assault weapon" out of the sheriff's niece!

Without regard to the kind of alleged violation,

I am not an attorney, but I have heard of such things as "directed verdict" and judges finding that the facts do not support the vedict of the jury.

Not sure whether this can apply to convict an accused person, though, or even if it can happen in criminal vs. civil cases, and of course the law may vary with the jurisdiction.

As far as I know, jury nullification has been reduced to a covert thing, some places lawyers can NOT tell you about it, and the judge will make you swear to apply the law as he gives it to you.  In the jury room, It might be dangerous (and unnecessary) to talk to other jurors about "jury nullification".  This might be all the judge needs to take action to remove or discipline you, or both.

If I believed the person should not be convicted, would the best thing be to advocate that the defendant is simply not guilty, without trying to explain why?  I don't know.

A deadlocked jury generally means there is a chance of another trial with another jury.
However, a jury persuaded to a "not guilty verdict" would seem to be the end of it.

Unless, like in the Rodney king cop-screwing case(s),  a different jurisdiction decides to try the factual case as a violation of THEIR law.

Then apparently that is not double jeopardy, though it seems unjust to me.

A local Sherrif won't be filing charges for an AW violation, anyway, because that is a violation of FEDERAL law, and anyway the decision to actually prosecute rests in the hands of the prosecuting attorney, who is charged to see through petty BS charges.

Typical "punishment" for AWB violations (when not combined with other, more serious charges)is forfeiture of the weapon and no criminal charges are filed; the prosecutors feel that it is an extremely weak and arbitrary law that would not withstand much jury scrutiny; the comment made to me was "All the defense has to do is show the weapon next to its perfectly legal, postban equivalent, and we would probably never get a conviction."

[url]http://www.fija.org[/url]