Teach jurors their rights and power

Any perceived attack on our freedom of speech is met with a firestorm of protest from bloggers and the media. Yet full frontal assaults on jurors rights are met with a shrug. Most people are not even aware of their power to decide if the law is a good one.

Very few citizens have the opportunity to influence legislation; however the jury box is the great equalizer, where any one can have their say on the law. Ultimately, citizens can prevent erosion of all of their other rights through jury nullification. Our founding fathers understood how a citizen jury can prevent tyranny, and cited the deprivation of the “benefits of trial by jury,” in our Declaration of Independence as one of the King’s “injuries and usurpations.”

This letter is a rare example of the issue being mention in the press:

Jury nullification is an integral part of our judicial system, serving as one of the checks and balances required by a free society. The fact that it is unknown to most jurors has contributed greatly to the decline of our court system.
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In 1991 FIJA National promoted the first Jury Rights Day celebration, commemorating the acquittal of William Penn on Sept. 5, 1670, by an independent jury, on charges of preaching an illegal religion to an illegal assembly. The judge fined and imprisoned the jury for refusing to bring in a conviction, but a high court established that jurors may not be punished for voting their consciences.