Jury Nullification - a Constitutional Right

[lprgcFrank]

I picked this up from the Volokh Consipracy today...
I think that we need to be aware of this as one of the tools to protect our firearms rights.

Personal observation - this is another example of how the framers of the constitution had a clear understanding and, like the second amendment, got corrupted over time and needs to get dusted off so people know their rights as jurors.

http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2...tml#1218815216.

"There is little question that, at the Founding, jurors were triers of both the law and the facts. In essence, this provided a popular check on an overreaching legislature and a supine judiciary, although a check that would only operate on a case-by-case basis. A jury could find that a statute was unjust generally, or only as applied in the particular case. This would affect the general enforceability of a statute only if many juries agreed. Although juries retain the power to refuse to apply an unjust law, beginning in the Nineteenth Century, judges started prohibiting lawyers from advocating this to a jury upon pain of contempt. The Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA) is a non-profit organization aiming to inform all Americans about their rights, powers and responsibilities when serving as trial juror. "

http://www.fija.org/

from http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/...-the-ointment/
"Like so many of America’s early leaders, John Adams was a strong proponent of jury nullification. Here’s Adams: “It is not only the juror’s right, but his duty, to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court.” C.F. Adams, “The Works of John Adams,” 253-255 (1856)"