Nullification in 13

Definition of jury nullification

Function: noun

Date: 1982

: the acquitting of a defendant by a jury in disregard of the judge's instructions and contrary to the jury's findings of fact

However ethnicity-based jury nullification

America is a completely diverse country, and is becoming more heterogeneous. Likewise juries are increasingly reflecting our differences. In 1968, congress required juries be selected from a fair cross selection of community. A widespread presumption in the law is that giving jurors nullification instructions would result in “chaos”—jurors guided not by law but by their emotions and personal biases. We propose a model of juror nullification that posits an interaction between the nature of the trial (viz. whether the fairness of the law is at issue), nullification instructions, and emotional biases on juror decision-making. Mock jurors considered a trial online which varied the presence a nullification instructions, whether the trial raised issues of the law's fairness (murder for profit vs. euthanasia), and emotionally biasing information (that affected jurors’ liking for the victim). Only when jurors were in receipt of nullification instructions in a nullification-relevant trial were they sensitive to emotionally biasing information. Emotional biases did not affect evidence processing but did affect emotional reactions and verdicts, providing the strongest support to date for the chaos theory.

Ethnicity definitely plays a role in courtroom proceedings, in our current state in society, it is not always about a jury of your" peers." This has been proven time and time again, hence the reason attorneys choose the individuals they do when selecting a jury.

A current example of ethnicity-based nullification, would have to be the case of the Trayvon Martin case, in which the defendant George Zimmerman was acquitted of the murder of a seventeen year old African-American Florida male. Even with clear evidence, the jury believed he...