Then, recommending trial by jury to the French in 1789, Jefferson wrote to Tom Paine, "I consider... as the only anchor ever yet imagined by
man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution...."
One may say that Jefferson is not talking about nullification, but just about a jury taking the interpretation of the law into its own hands--though that is
already well beyond what a jury is allowed to do now, especially if a jury undertook to apply its own interpretation of the Bill of Rights. On the other hand,
we have the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, in Unites States v. Dougherty, 1972, saying:
[The jury has an] unreviewable and irreversible power...to acquit in disregard of the instructions on the law given by the trial judge...The
pages of history shine on instances of the jury's exercise of its prerogative to disregard uncontradicted evidence and instructions of the
judge; for example, acquittals under the fugitive slave law.
I personally agree with this, .....are you seeking to make an analogy? |
