Quote Quoting jk
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Bottom line: they can and do and the reasons may stay a total mystery to all but them.
I never said otherwise, so I’m not sure what you are arguing with me about. But the fact that the jury is not supposed to do it, that the court instructs the jury on what it is supposed to do, that a judge can remove a juror if somehow it becomes evident that the juror will employ nullfication, and that the defense cannot argue jury nullification all mean that the defendant could not rely on nullification as her hope for avoiding conviction. Indeed, that hope would be extremely thin at best in most cases. About the only cases where a defendant might realistically have a high hope for it is where it is known that a particular law is deeply unpopular in the community where the case will be tried. As most everyone believes kidnapping a child is wrong, I think presenting jury nullification as the solution to the kidnapper’s legal problem in the OP’s novel would not be very realistic. Of course, in fiction the writer doesn’t have to stick to realism, but the writer takes a risk that if she strays too far from reality the reader won’t buy into the story.