Jury Nullification Pros And Cons

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Historically, jury nullification has been in the U.S. sense the 1930s during the prohibition era when the transportation and sale of alcohol was unlawful. According to research, in previous times jurors have ignored unpopular laws that are applied by the government and still do today (When the Jury Ignores the Law, 2015). Giving jurors the right to exercise the power of jury nullification would be unlawful and injustice. Some history about jury nullification goes all the way back to English law. Research shows that it was created to check and balance on the government power and nullification has a big influence in American history today (The Life of the Law, 2015). Historically, during the revolutionary war it was unlawful to speak out toward the British, but juries would find the offenders innocent and also nullified to keep “bootleggers” …show more content…

Jury Nullification have various negative aspect of it. It has the power to distress the justice system. For example a jury that consider child pornography to be unlawful have the power to nullify. According to research, a jury that have knowledge of over populated prison rates and suppose the offender was aimed for their race can also nullify. A jury that suppose a harmless offender is a victim instead of a perpetrator can nullify (Mathews, 2014). Therefore, jury nullification is no good in most cases because it is not lawful nor justice in society. According to research, allowing jurors to have the power of jury nullification will cause them to forget about the laws and decide if the offender is guilty or not based on emotions (When the jury ignores the law, 2015). Nullification power would allow dangerous offender to be free without paying for their consequences. Therefore, the jury should decide the verdict based on the facts that are presented in

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