Essay On Jury Nullification
The same circumstances of the conclusion occurred in 2006 with the Krieger case.
Krieger suffers from a disease and by law is granted the use of marijuana as a treatment.
However, Krieger organized a club to help others with the same problem by giving away the marijuana to the ‘customers’. The court saw this as a form of trafficking and thus charged him afterwards. The jury found it was hard to convict the man because of his good intentions but the judge at trial clearly stated “retire to the jury room to consider what I have said, appoint one of yourselves to be your foreperson, and then to return to the court with a verdict of guilty.” The judge at trial directed the jury to follow his instructions and to accept the verdict. Justice …show more content…
Therefore in light of that, the judge had misbehaved in accordance to law.
Thus with these situations of the judge instructing the jury to choose a verdict, there would need to be a new trial. Although the idea of jury nullification is beneficial to the society, problems with allowing their emotions to side with the defendant as happened in this case and others will bias the juror’s judgments. Therefore to simply prevent this from happening, rather the jury having the absolute power to come with a verdict, the jurors should have a limitation of power.
The judge at trial should share the same power equal to the jury and altogether come to a conclusion based on both the moral values of the community and the legal knowledge of the judge. As said in the dissent of Justice Fraser, “a trial judge is required to do what he or she can to guard against jury nullification or what may be characterized as a perverse acquittal, jury nullification will not be a valid factor in analyzing trial fairness for the accused.” That being said, the judge at trial must be allowed to have the power to engage in the decision making process of the juries. Although the judge at trial overstepped their boundaries of forcing a verdict of
Krieger suffers from a disease and by law is granted the use of marijuana as a treatment.
However, Krieger organized a club to help others with the same problem by giving away the marijuana to the ‘customers’. The court saw this as a form of trafficking and thus charged him afterwards. The jury found it was hard to convict the man because of his good intentions but the judge at trial clearly stated “retire to the jury room to consider what I have said, appoint one of yourselves to be your foreperson, and then to return to the court with a verdict of guilty.” The judge at trial directed the jury to follow his instructions and to accept the verdict. Justice …show more content…
Therefore in light of that, the judge had misbehaved in accordance to law.
Thus with these situations of the judge instructing the jury to choose a verdict, there would need to be a new trial. Although the idea of jury nullification is beneficial to the society, problems with allowing their emotions to side with the defendant as happened in this case and others will bias the juror’s judgments. Therefore to simply prevent this from happening, rather the jury having the absolute power to come with a verdict, the jurors should have a limitation of power.
The judge at trial should share the same power equal to the jury and altogether come to a conclusion based on both the moral values of the community and the legal knowledge of the judge. As said in the dissent of Justice Fraser, “a trial judge is required to do what he or she can to guard against jury nullification or what may be characterized as a perverse acquittal, jury nullification will not be a valid factor in analyzing trial fairness for the accused.” That being said, the judge at trial must be allowed to have the power to engage in the decision making process of the juries. Although the judge at trial overstepped their boundaries of forcing a verdict of