Jury Nullification: Could It Reduce Racial Disparities?

Jury nullification is an aspect of the criminal justice system that most students, citizens and most importantly jurors lack knowledge of. Shannon Heffernan explains jury nullification in her article titled, Jury Nullification. Jury nullification happens when a jury “finds a defendant not guilty, although the jurors may actually believe he is guilty” (Heffernan 2014: 2). Many believe that jury nullification happens because “jurors don’t agree with a law, or think there should be an exception” (Heffernan 2014: 2). When jury nullification occurs, the defendant cannot be tried again for the same crime, thanks to the double-jeopardy rule, and is then let go.

Jury nullification is not a concept that the criminal justice system wants citizens, especially jurors, to know about. Heffernan discusses how it is discouraged in three different ways:

[First, jurors] take an oath that says [they] will uphold the law. Second, defense lawyers aren't allowed to tell a jury to nullify. Third, most judges give instructions to a jury that basically tell them that they must find a defendant guilty if they broke the law (Heffernan 2014: 4)

This protocol discourages jurors from finding a not guilty verdict when the defendant is actually guilty. Some people have tried to bring awareness to jury nullification, but people involved in the legal system do not like this and tries to keep these people who preach about nullification quiet (Heffernan 2014).

To open the door to the concept of jury nullification defense lawyers could speak about what jury nullification is and educate the community about it before citizen become jurors. If American citizens know what jury nullification is then they might use it more if they believe that a person is being wrongfully persecuted or if they believe laws are too harsh for different crimes. Jury nullification is a tricky concept, because it can also get jurors in trouble for things like perjury, and other laws. People can be rejected for knowing about jury nullification, and if they do not let the lawyer know that they know about the concept when a lawyer inquires about it, they are committing perjury, which is a crime (this is discussed in the video below).

In Heffernan’s article she explains how lawyer Paul Butler describes the first time he experienced jury nullification as a prosecutor.Butler states that the jury nullified because they did not want to see another young Black man because he was so young and had a life ahead of him (Heffernan 2014). He could not believe that jurors decided to not convict the young Black man of the drug offense that he was being charged with, when the man definitely did commit the crime. Butler later reflects on how jury nullification can be useful to reduce racial disparities in the criminal justice system.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqH_Y1TupoQ