JURORS HAVE A DUTY

JUROR Marney Craig laments voting to convict Ed Rosenthal of drug
charges (Opinion, Feb. 7), for which Rosenthal will now endure prison
time. Craig relates that Judge Charles Breyer instructed the jurors
that they could not substitute their sense of justice for their duty
to follow the law.

It is a juror's right and duty to reach a verdict according to his or
her conscience, regardless of the instructions of some black-robed
political appointee. In the words of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia, juries have an "unreviewable and irreversible
power . . . to acquit in disregard of the instructions on the law
given by the trial judge." This principle, known as jury
nullification, has its historical precedent in the acquittal of John
Peter Zenger on libel charges against the English crown in 1734.

It's tragic that Rosenthal will be punished not only for violating an
absurd and arbitrary legislative edict against certain kinds of
gardening, but also because his fellow citizens, like Craig, do not
understand the rights and responsibilities of jurors.

Brett Cashman,
Sunnyvale