Jury nullification

Abstract: Introduction The English Origins of the Modem Jury: From Trial by Ordeal to the Decline of the "Little Parliament" Criminal and Civil Juries in America from Colonial Times to the Present Day: Evolution, a Heroic Role, and Controversy A Jury of Peers: Democratic Goals Jury Selection: Juror Bias, Juror Challenges, and Trial Consultants Problem Cases: Pretrial Publicity The Tasks of the Jury: Evidence Evaluation and Jury Decision-Making Processes Judging the Jury: Evaluating Jurors' Comprehension of Evidence and Law Trials in a Scientific Age: Juries Judging Experts Judging Criminal Responsibility: Erroneous Convictions, the CSI Effect, and the Victim's Role Deciding Insanity: Mad or Bad? Jury Nullification: The War with the Law Death Is Different: Juries and Capital Punishment Civil Liability: Plaintiff vs Defendant in the Eyes of the Jury Deciding Compensatory Damages: Million-Dollar Questions Punitive Damages: Coffee Spills and Marlboro Cigarettes Juries and Medical Malpractice: Antidoctor, Incompetent, and Irresponsible? Concluding: The Verdict on Juries Index

Abstract: The relationship between race and jury decision making is a controversial topic that has received increased attention in recent years. While public and media discourse has focused on anecdotal evidence in the form of high-profile cases, legal researchers have considered a wide range of empirical questions including: To what extent does the race of a defendant affect the verdict tendencies of juries? Is this influence of race comparable for jurors of different races? In what ways does a jury's racial composition affect its verdict and deliberations? The present review examines both experimental and archival investigations of these issues. Though the extant literature is not always consistent and has devoted too little attention to the psychological mechanisms underlying the influence of race, this body of research clearly demonstrates that race has the potential to impact trial outcomes. This is a conclusion with important practical as well as theoretical implications when it comes to ongoing debates regarding jury representativeness, how to optimize jury performance, jury nullification and racial disparities in the administration of capital punishment. Language: en

Abstract: What happens when a person's commonsense view of justice diverges from the sense of justice he or she sees enshrined in particular laws? Does the perception of one particular law as unjust make an individual less likely to comply with unrelated laws? This Article advances the Flouting Thesis-the idea that the perceived legitimacy of one law or legal outcome can influence one's willingness to comply with unrelated laws-and provides original experimental evidence to support this thesis. The results suggest that willingness to disobey the law can extend far beyond the particular unjust law in question, to willingness to flout unrelated laws commonly encountered in everyday life (such as traffic violations, petty theft, and copyright restrictions), as well as willingness of mock jurors to engage in juror nullification. Finally, this Article explores the relationship between perceived injustice and flouting and offers several possible explanations, including the role of law in American popular culture and the expressive function of the law in producing compliance. I. Introduction Do ordinary citizens flout the law in response to a specific instance of perceived injustice? The idea that general lawbreaking can emerge from one unjust legal doctrine or decision has intuitive appeal. For example, Professor David Cole has argued that constitutional doctrines that allow untrammeled police discretion-such as that which led to the brutal beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles or the tragic police shooting of Amadou Diallo in New York-can undermine the public's perception of the legitimacy of law enforcement generally.1 This loss of legitimacy and distrust of the fairness of the legal system, Cole argues, can in turn lead to more widespread lawbreaking.2 The Rodney King example is instructive in this regard. In 1992, the acquittal of the four police officers who beat Rodney King touched off the worst civil unrest seen in any American city in nearly thirty years. The streets of Los Angeles became the site of chaos and lawlessness. For four days, city residents looted stores, destroyed property, assaulted and shot one another, and set buildings on fire. When it was over, more than fifty people were dead,3 nearly 12,000 people were arrested,4 and over 800 buildings were burned to the ground.5 Undoubtedly, the causes contributing to the expression of community frustration during this time were numerous and complex.6 However, there is no doubt that the perceived injustice of the acquittals of the police officers was a "proximate" cause of the 1992 civil unrest in Los Angeles.7 The 1992 Los Angeles example is an extreme one to be sure. At the same time, it suggests further, more general questions-questions that are at bottom empirical-about whether, and under what circumstances, citizens' perceptions of injustice lead to diminished deference to the law generally. Does perceived injustice in our legal system-whether in the form of wrongful convictions or acquittals, excessive punitive damage awards, outmoded public morals statutes, sentencing disparities between crack cocaine and powder cocaine, or mandatory minimum sentencing regimes lead to greater willingness to flout the law in the everyday lives of ordinary people? Further, assuming that this is the case, does flouting typically manifest itself not in mass unrest but in more subtle, lower-level, and harder-to-detect ways, such as littering, tax cheating, theft of services, and jury nullification? The idea that there is a relationship between perceived injustice of specific laws and diminished general compliance with the law has been either proposed or assumed by many theorists in a variety of contexts.8 For the purposes of discussion in this Article, I call this idea the Flouting Thesis. Despite its prominence, there is, however, a glaring absence of empirical evidence regarding the Flouting Thesis, which has been widely assumed but never proven.9 Investigating the possibility that lawbreaking can flow from perceived injustice is central to our understanding of how to secure citizen cooperation and compliance with legal rules, and so the lack of empirical investigation regarding the Flouting Thesis is puzzling. …

Abstract: It is not news to anyone familiar with criminal law and sentencing that we live in punitive, unforgiving times Although scholars have sought to explain the rise in punishment and the incarceration boom of the past few decades, very little work has focused on the reasons why forms of mercy have been on the decline Specifically, scholars have not done much to explore why the unreviewable power to be merciful through pardons and nullification is currently looked upon with such disfavor While the same political climate that produces greater punishment also depresses mercy, that account is an incomplete one As this Essay explains, skepticism about the jury's nullification power and executive clemency has its roots in another development: the rise of the administrative state and the key concepts of law that have emerged alongside it This Essay argues that administrative law weakens these exercises of mercy in two key respects First, with the rise of administrative law, our legal culture has come to view unreviewable discretion to decide individual cases as the very definition of lawlessness, and a variety of doctrines ensure that almost all exercises of agency discretion are reviewable Second, the development of the administrative state is a significant part of the reason that our legal culture focuses on the courts - and courts alone - to prevent unfair applications of the law Jury nullification and an unqualified executive power to grant clemency sit uneasily beside this administrative state because both forms of mercy give untrained individuals unreviewable power to make important decisions Despite this tension with administrative law, this Essay concludes by highlighting key differences between administrative power and the exercise of mercy in criminal cases and offering some preliminary thoughts on why unreviewable decisions to grant leniency should still have a place in the criminal justice system