Jury Nullification

[Indium Flappers]

An article from Reason magazine on the Free State Project says that they were able to use jury nullification to let a defendant, charged with growing cannabis, go free.

All this activism produced a high-profile victory in 2012, when a jury that included Converse acquitted a Rastafarian named Douglas Darrell of marijuana cultivation charges after Belknap County Judge James O’Neill read New Hampshire’s rarely heard model jury instruction regarding nullification: “Even if you find that the State has proven each and every element of the offense charged beyond a reasonable doubt, you may still find the defendant not guilty if you have a conscientious feeling that a not guilty verdict would be a fair result in this case.” At the time of Darrell’s trial, New Hampshire law let judges decide whether the nullification instruction was appropriate on a case-by-case basis. O’Neill decided it was after Darrell’s lawyer argued with the prosecution about the justice of convicting him, in light of the fact that he was growing cannabis for his own religious and medicinal use.

What opinion do the fair, freethinking, fora-folk frequenting this board have of jury nullification?

[Dardedar]

This has been going on for years and I have no problem with it.

[Indium Flappers]

This has been going on for years and I have no problem with it.

Cool.