Jury Nullification

“The jury has a unalienable right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy.” John Jay, 1st Chief Justice United States Supreme Court, 1789

“The jury has the right to determine both the law and the facts.” Samuel Chase, U.S. Supreme Court Justice 1796, Signer of the unanimous Declaration

“The jury has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth of both law and fact.” Oliver Wendell Holmes, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1902

Central to the history of trial by jury is the right of jurors to vote “not guilty” if the law is unjust or unjustly applied. When jurors acquit a factually guilty defendant, we say that the jury “nullified” the law. The Founding Fathers believed that juries in criminal trials had a role to play as the “conscience of the community,” and relied on juries’ “nullifying” to hold the government to the principles of the Constitution. “Trust in the jury is, after all, one of the cornerstones of our entire criminal jurisprudence, and if that trust is without foundation we must re-examine a great deal more than just the nullification doctrine.” Judge David L. Bazelon. There may be no feature more distinctive of American legal culture than the criminal trial jury. Americans have a deep and stubborn devotion to the belief that the guilt or innocence of a person accused of crime can only be judged fairly by a “jury of his peers.” this notion is a particularly American one, although it was inherited from English common law during the colonial era.

KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS

A series of resolutions drawn up by Jefferson, and adopted by the legislature of Kentucky in 1799, protesting against the “alien and sedition laws,” declaring their illegality, announcing the strict constructionist theory of the federal government, and declaring “nullification” to the “the rightful remedy.”

The lawyers that created the Constitution wanted to make sure that regardless of what the issue was, regardless of who came up with this or that, that the final arbiter would be a lawyer. They added that the courts could decide not only on the law but on the facts. If an appellate court (which includes the Supreme Court) can decide on the facts as well as the law, they can overturn a jury decision. That gave the lawyers the ability to overturn the will of the people as presented in a Grand Jury or a Petit Jury. The Judicial Act of 1789 / Judiciary Act gave them that ability.