Judges Are Told to Keep Jurors Focus on Evidence
By Benjamin Weiser
New York Times Service

NEW YORKStepping into a legal debate with racial and
political overtones, a federal appeals court has declared that judges
have a duty to make sure jurors do not ignore the evidence or law in a
case and instead impose their own values to acquit or convict a
defendant.
The ruling by the court of appeals for the second circuit in
Manhattan offered the strongest denunciation yet by the federal courts
of the practice known as "jury nullification," in which a juror might
vote, for example, to acquit a defendant for racial reasons, rather than
considering the strength of the case against him.
Calling such an action "a violation of a juror's sworn duty to
follow the law as instructed by the court," Judge Jose Cabranes wrote
for a unanimous threejudge panel that "trial courts have a duty to
forestall or prevent such conduct" by admonishing or even dismissing
jurors from a case.
The decision stemmed from a drug case tried in Albany, New
York, in which jurors complained to the judge that one juror, the only
black member of the panel, appeared opposed to applying the drug
laws in the case, believing that the defendants had "a right to deal
drugs," the opinion said.
After interviewing the jurors, the trial judge concluded that the
black juror felt that the defendants "were in a disadvantaged situation"
and would not vote to convict "no matter what the evidence was." The
judge removed the juror and the 11 remaining jurors voted to convict.
In its ruling Tuesday, the appellate court actually overturned
the convictions, saying that the juror in this case may truly not have
been convinced of the defendants' guilt and that the judge was wrong
to conclude that he was disregarding the law. But the appeals court said
the judge was right to investigate the juror's motivation, and sed the
case to take a strong stand gainst nullification.
"We categorically reject the idea hat, in a society committed
to the rule of aw, jury nullification is desirable, or hat courts may
permit it to occur when t is within their power to prevent," Mr.
Cabranes wrote.
The decision comes as the legal comnunity is embroiled in a
debate over ace and the justice system, and whether t is ever
appropriate for jurors to inentionally disregard the law, in acquitting or
convicting, as a form of protest. The appellate court noted that jury
nullification has deep roots in U.S. jurisprudence. It protected fugitive
slaves from being sent back to the South in the period before the Civil
War, as northern juries refused to convict. But the court noted that
there were also "shameful examples of how nullification has been used
to sanction murder and lynching."