Jury Nulification

Jury Nullification 1

Jury Nullification

Omeka Gordy

CJA/344

Ken Jones

May 27,2013

Jury Nullification 2

Jury 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