It is good to choose a trial by jury if you are being charged for a crime that is legally wrong but morally right where public opinion would be on your side.

I had to do it a couple of years ago.
The person had robbed 2 stores and left blood on the door. Thing was he had worked at the store 2 years earlier.

Being that we were just ordinary people we had no knowledge of how long DNA would stay on the door for but one guy in the jury did know. It had to have been relatively fresh for them to positively ID him.

We had to disregard what the other jury member had told us as the lawyer had never mentioned it during the trial.

He got off scot free.

The system doesn't always work...

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Originally Posted by shazamataz

We had to disregard what the other jury member had told us as the lawyer had never mentioned it during the trial.

He got off scot free. The system doesn't always work...

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Hello shaz:

Here in the US, the jury is free to discuss ANYTHING when they deliberate. That's the idea behind a jury. I'll bet you could have done the same thing down under. Yes, it's true, the judge will tell you differently, but see below. The jury is the ULTIMATE decider in the fate of its peers. That's as it should be.

The case that solidified jury nullification was an English case... It used to be that judges INSTRUCTED juries how to rule, and if they didn't conform, they would be imprisoned!

By the late 17th century, the court's ability to punish juries was removed in the Bushell case. It involves a juror on the case against William Penn. In 1670, William Penn and William Mead were arrested for illegally preaching a Quaker sermon and disturbing the peace.

Four jurors, led by Edward Bushell refused to find them guilty but instead of dismissing the jury the judge sent them back for further deliberations. Despite the fact that the judge demanded a guilty verdict, the jury this time unanimously found Penn guilty of preaching but acquitted him on the charge of disturbing the peace and acquitted Mead of all charges. The jury was then subsequently kept for three days without "meat, drink, fire and tobacco" to force them to bring in a guilty verdict and when they failed to do so the judge ended the trial.

As punishment the judge ordered the jurors imprisoned until they paid a fine to the court. Four jurors refused to pay the fine and after several months, Edward Bushell sought a writ of habeas corpus. Chief Justice Vaughan, sitting on the Court of Common Pleas, discharged the writ, released them, called the power to punish a jury "absurd" and forbade judges from punishing jurors for returning a verdict the judge disagreed with.

So, you could have convicted the guy.

excon