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The Interplay Of Race And False Claims Of Jury Nullification, Nancy S. Marder
The Interplay Of Race And False Claims Of Jury Nullification, Nancy S. Marder
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
After the verdicts in the OJ Simpson and Stacey Koon/Laurence Powell cases, many in the press explained the juries' acquittals as instances of jury nullification. However these were unlikely to have been instances of nullification, particularly because the jurors explained that their verdicts were based on reasonable doubt. One motivation for these false claims of jury nullification was the homogeneity of the juries-a largely African-American jury in the case of Simpson and a largely white jury in the case of Koon/Powell. Nullification became the term by which press and public attempted to discredit verdicts rendered by juries they distrusted. A …
Fictions, Fault, And Forgiveness: Jury Nullification In A New Context, David N. Dorfman, Chris K. Iijima
Fictions, Fault, And Forgiveness: Jury Nullification In A New Context, David N. Dorfman, Chris K. Iijima
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Recently, critics of the Anglo-American jury system have complained that juries in criminal trials have been ignoring the law, in favor of defendants who claim that they lack criminal responsibility because they are afflicted by the various victimization syndromes now popularized in the mass media. In this Article, Professors Dorfman and Iijima counter this characterization of the "runaway" jury and argue that juries are not ignoring the law, but rather, are exercising a primary power of the jury, to nullify the application of the law when such application to a particular defendant is unjust. The Authors trace the development of …