DDO OT Semifinals: Jury Nullification

Jury Nullification as defined by USlegal.com is :"Jury nullification occurs when a jury returns a verdict of "Not Guilty" despite its belief that the defendant is guilty of the violation charged. The jury in effect nullifies a law that it believes is either immoral or wrongly applied to the defendant whose fate that are charged with deciding."http://definitions.uslegal.com...I am pro Jury nullification, these are my arguments in favor of it: 1) Jury nullification allows jurors to protest laws that they find unjust The Sedition Act of 1798 outlawed the right of people to publish any material that talked negatively about government, and it was one of the first acts in American history to be subjected to jury nullification. What happened was that the american public was very opposed to such acts, and naturally sympathized with those who were arrested under its terms. One of the ways people protested this law though was to acquit those who were clearly guilty of violating the law because the jurors agreed that the law was unsound and unjust. Other acts of Jury nullification arose to protest people arrested under the Fugitive Slave Law, to defend people who were arrested for speaking out against the Vietnam War, and even used to free people who were arrested under Prohibition laws. http://www.isil.org...Jury nullification is perhaps the biggest tool that people on jury duty posses to fight against laws that they all agree are unsound, unjust, and even unconstitutional. 2) Jury nullification allows jurors to protest against punishments associated with guilty verdicts of a particular crime that seems overly-cruel. Jury nullification originated in England just prior to the arrival of the Magna Carta where jurors acquitted people guilty of crimes not because they found the laws to be unjust, but because they found the penalties and punishments associated with a guilty verdict to be unjust. Although jurors that gave acquittals were later harassed very extensively by their own government, it was the earliest form of protest that the common people had against injustices they saw in government and its laws, and is still a valuable tool for a people to have to prevent their government from becoming more tyrannical then it already is. 3) Jury nullification is a part of the checks and balances used to restrain a tyrannical government. Jury nullification is a right that all Americans have to protest and actively fight against laws passed by the government that they find to be either unjust or carry too harsh of a penalty with a guilty verdict, making jury nullification a key tool to have when fighting blatant tyrannical government laws. Jury nullification is essentially the 'Veto' that the american public can use against laws they find unjust. 4) To restrict jury nullification would be to restrict the first amendment. The people of the United States have the right to protest and the right to petition against their government for a crime the government has committed because jury nullification is essentially a protest of government, which is a right that is protected within the Constitution under the first amendment. Ill end here for now so that my opponant can have character space to introduce her own arguments against jury nullification.