Court Opinion

ID: 9477109
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:14:09.098074+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:41.865219
License: Public Domain

MERRITT, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I disagree with the Court’s disposition of this case. I would reverse the case and remand it for a new trial. It is clear to me that the District Court erred in responding to the jury’s specific question concerning “jury nullification” raised after several hours of jury deliberation. The jury returned to the courtroom concerned about the issue of “jury nullification.” The jury wanted to know to what extent it had the right to acquit the defendant because it disagreed with the government’s prosecution. It wanted to know what was meant by the idea of “jury nullification.” The Court responded by telling the jury that it had no power to engage in jury nullification and that was the end of the matter. It told the jury in effect that it had no general authority to veto the prosecution. This is simply error. The Court should have explained the jury’s function in our system. Our Court has made it clear in the past *1022that the jury does have veto power and the jury should have been so instructed. For example, in United States v. Wilson, 629 F.2d 439, 443 (6th Cir.1980), in an opinion which I wrote for a unanimous panel we stated:
In criminal cases, a jury is entitled to acquit the defendant because it has no sympathy for the government’s position. It has a general veto power, and this power should not be attenuated by requiring the jury to answer in writing a detailed list of questions or explain its reasons. The jury’s veto power was settled in Throckmorton’s case in 1544 according to Professor Plucknett:
In Crompton’s treatise on the jurisdiction of courts (1594) we read:
“Note that the London jury which acquitted Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, Knight, about the first year of Queen Mary, of high treason, was called into the Star Chamber in October, 1544 (sic), forasmuch as the matter was held to have been sufficiently proved against him; and eight of them were there fined in great sums, at least five hundred pounds each, and remanded back to prison to dwell there until further order were taken for their punishment. The other four were released, because they submitted and confessed that they had offended in not considering the truth of the matter.”
Throckmorton’s prominent share in Wyatt’s rebellion put his guilt beyond the slightest question, but he was a protestant hero to the Londoners, and the jury’s verdict was purely political. From now onwards the jury enters on a new phase of its history, and for the next three centuries it will exercise its power of veto on the use of the criminal law against political offenders who have succeeded in obtaining popular sympathy. Plucknett, A Concise History of The Common Law 133-34 (5th ed. 1956).
The District Court gave short shrift to this legal tradition and made no effort to explain to the jury its historical role as the protector of the rights of the accused in a criminal case. Our Court unfortunately has done no better.
I would reverse the case and remand it for a new trial with instructions that the Court advise the jury, if requested, concerning the jury’s “general veto power,” in accordance with the Wilson case and the historical prerogatives of the jury to return a general verdict of not guilty.