I have jury duty today. Although I feel bad at leaving my students at school with a sub, I feel I need to report and do my civic duty. As a teacher of American Government I like to set a good example when I can. My issue is that of Jury Nullification. I believe that doing my civic duty includes using my moral conscience to decide guilt. If this means that as a member of a jury I would need to break the law to set a person free who committed an illegal, but just action; so be it.
As I began to round out my years in college, I started to broaden my horizons in my reading. After reading several works by Howard Zinn, I was able to learn of the Plowshares 8. You can read the details here:
Plowshares 8
Zinn detailed the concept of Jury Nullfication as a reasoned way of setting free people who break the law with moral justification.
My friends at Merriam-Webster define Jury Nullfication as:
the acquitting of a defendant by a jury in disregard of the judge's instructions and contrary to the jury's findings of fact
Jury Nullification has also been in the news recently. Julian P. Heicklen, a retired college professor, was recently charged with jury tampering in New York after distributing literature about Jury Nullification to people (including potential jurors) entering a New York City Court House.
Heicklen case
My internal dilemma centers on my own desire to nullify a charge against a defendant who has committed a justifiable crime or a victimless crime. In Pennsylvania newly inaugurated Governor Tom Corbett is set to release a budget featuring major budget cuts including potential major cuts to education. Should I do Governor Corbett a favor and help him cut the bloated prison budget in PA by nullifying a potential guilty verdict that will cost the tax payers in PA countless thousands of dollars? Should I save the taxpayers the cost of incarcerating a non-violent drug, gambling, or prostitution defendant? I doubt very highly that I’ll be on a Plowshares 8 type case, so should I nullify the costly punishment for an action I believe should be legal?
Odds are that I’ll be dismissed without being empanelled in a jury, but we’ll see what the day holds.