Jury Rights

     When researching this topic, I was stunned to uncover this secret weapon of the American citizen  called " jury nullification". This is by far the most underutilized right of the American Citizen. Serving on a jury is the only time that an average person has more power than the American President and Congress combined.
With the advancement and growth of our government it seems the average person is becoming less and less interested in their individual rights. It is almost like people have given up. Most people still think we are a democracy, the United States of America is a Constitutional Republic, not a democracy. This means the legal system is meant to abide by a set of rules and must recognize the individual rights outlined in the U.S. Constitution. In fact not only is the government supposed to recognize our rights but they are supposed to protect them. What we are seeing now is our rights being taken away. It will not happen overnight. It happens slowly and nobody notices until its too late. If people stop caring and don't fight back, our Constitution will fade away. As Americans we are called to be skeptical of government, its healthy to the republic. The U.S. Constitution is written to limit the government's power and put it into the hands of the individual.
With "jury nullification" the jurors can decide that a law is unconstitutional and therefore it does not apply to a particular case.
     This is incredible power is unknown to most of the public. Why don't we hear about this? My opinion is that the U.S. Government doesn't want us to. According to them they are the final authority.... not the people.
"Jury nullification" brings the final decision back to "we the people".
This is very scary to a government who is determined to rule us , not work for us.
A hypothetical example of "jury nullification"-  A case in which a man is on trial for illegal gun possession. The man has not harmed or threaten anyone and has the weapon secured. He is arrested because he does not have a firearm's identification card (F.O.I.D). Which is required under Illinois law. In a case like this the jury can decide that the man is guilty of breaking the law, but the verdict would be to nullify the law (only in this case) because it is unconstitutional. The U.S. Constitution states that our right to bear arms "shall not be infringed".
Therefore it is ultimately an "illegal" law. Wow... no wonder we don't hear about this. This is the original intent of our country, freedom, limited government and individual responsibility.- BDB
(Google Images)

Sources-
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html

http://fija.org/