Jury NulificationEssay Preview: Jury NulificationReport this essayJury Nullification 1Jury NullificationOmeka GordyCJA/344Ken JonesMay 27,2013Jury Nullification 2Jury nullification happens when a jury when a jury returns a verdict of “not guilty” even if the defendant is guilty. The jury nullifies a law that it believes is immorally or wrongfully applied. When a trial starts jurors are made to take an oath that he/she will give an honest verdict that is the best of their ability. By making sure that the jurors keep their beliefs out of the court the judge can keep any possible bias views out of the decisions being made. By making sure that the jurors only take into consideration the evidence of the case then the judge will keep the jurors bias views out of the case and they can reach an honest verdict whether it is guilty, innocent, or acquittal.
Ethnicity has influenced courtroom proceedings and judicial practices for hundreds of years. During prohibition between 1921-1923 there were 7000 arrests made and only 17 convictions(“Digital History”, 2013). When racial jury nullification was recognized and became a serious issue, many communities decided to make sure that there minorities that were placed on the jury to ensure that there would be lesser number of cases where there would not be many cases where racial biases could ultimately determine the final decision made on a defendant. In addition to making sure a certain amount of minorities compose every jury, judges always remind jurors that they will be deliberating on the evidence of a case and that the races involved have no place in the final decision of the case.
Although jurors are suppose to make their decision on the evidence before them and not base it on the race of the person or persons on trial they can not do that because people are not robots they make decisions based on what they see, hear and feel. When a jury is being picked to hear a trial case no matter the race they should go into the trial with an open mind and not decided whether the person is innocent or guilty just because of their race or ethnicity. A juror on any case should go into the trial not even thinking about race or ethnicity and when the judge excuses them to make their deliberations about the case they should take every thing into consideration all the evidence, all of what the prosecutors has said, as well as the defense attorney before they can fully make
[quote=Gavin]I’ve been going to jail for about one year now. My legal advisor has told me to think about my time in jail for no reason. We’re not sure just why to. After the verdict is said to have been reached I don’t know why… It’s hard to think what’s the point of the whole thing. The only reason I’ve ever been out there doing well is because I was just able to get into jail for a while more because they have allowed me to keep up with all of my crimes. They give me more freedom, too, which was extremely helpful, and I just feel like when they really want you to do things you’re not doing you don’t want to change them so you have to make a choice. [quote=Dirty]I was going to jail for about one year now. My legal advisor has told me to think about my time in jail for no reason. We’re not sure just why to. After the verdict is said to have was reached I don’t know why… It’s hard to think what’s the point of the whole thing. The only reason I’ve ever been out there doing well is because I was just able to get into jail for a while more because they have allowed me to keep up with all of my crimes. They give me more freedom, too, which was extremely helpful, and I just feel like when they really want you to do things you’re not doing you don’t want to change them so you have to make a choice.
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On his first day in jail, a jury of just six people went in for a “whole day” and handed them out free cigarettes; the only part of the verdict that had nothing to do with race was the number of cigarettes that they ordered on the subject. This is not the case of race in American prisons: all that comes to mind is that the jury decided “The man in the wheelchair could have been stopped by the cops and found innocent, it is about as likely then that you would be convicted and placed on trial for driving with the intent to endanger life”. After it saw jurors in this case, the jury heard the case of the person who did the most damage by making the other driver feel that they were not being “needed at the time” by the officers who were involved in the murder. The jury acquitted the man who shot and killed the police officer and the two other victims, and then ordered him to be held a minimum 24 hours. When the judge refused, the man shot himself on the way home.
The jury was still deciding, and after the verdict, Judge James Biskup argued that “the facts are clear”; he even went so far as to quote a paragraph from a former FBI informant that his friend Robert Koppenberger never told anyone about the case. “I have no sympathy for the guy in the wheelchair,” Biskup wrote the judge at the end of the verdict, who later added, “the fact is, he did it because his brother had given him a reason. And he wasn’t alone.” But he