I would suggest to anyone interested in the topic to read The Trial of John Peter Zenger. It represents an extreme case of judicial process manipulation that would have been very difficult to defeat without the help of a sympathetic jury.
As the Joe Fridays of the world are very eager to point out, nullification DOES subvert the rule of law. So I don't support its' use for every situation. But bad laws and rigged justice also undermine the rule of law -- we still have bad laws (drug offenses, generally) and rigged justice (the Duke lacrosse team case, more of an attempt at rigged justice) even today.
That said, nullification is not that powerful of a threat to the system, because the system has ways of dealing with partiality such as voir dire, change of venue, rules of evidence.
The lengths NY state is going to silence free speech and enforce the "blinders of fact" principle seem a little extreme.
Just remember -- the law is meant to serve the people, not the other way around.
The big issue I see with nullification is that, once you grant it is justified unjust laws, you make it so that any law can be nullified in a given case, depending on the particular jury selected.
Good! you might say. But now imagine you're in the rural South, trying a case of what was effectively a lynching. If you say that jurors can ignore the facts of the case and the law, no matter how much evidence you offer that a particular person is a murderer, they can ignore it for white supremacy.
This is on top of issues about fairness and equal application of the law. Whether and how much you're punished would vary even more depending on the makeup of the jury, even if the crime is the exact same.
As the Joe Fridays of the world are very eager to point out, nullification DOES subvert the rule of law. So I don't support its' use for every situation. But bad laws and rigged justice also undermine the rule of law -- we still have bad laws (drug offenses, generally) and rigged justice (the Duke lacrosse team case, more of an attempt at rigged justice) even today.
That said, nullification is not that powerful of a threat to the system, because the system has ways of dealing with partiality such as voir dire, change of venue, rules of evidence.
The lengths NY state is going to silence free speech and enforce the "blinders of fact" principle seem a little extreme.
Just remember -- the law is meant to serve the people, not the other way around.