Nullifying juries more interested in justice than some prosecutors

From Glenn Harlan Reynolds at USA Today:

The fact that jurors can let the guilty go free intended to protect us from unjust laws.

If you are a member of a jury in a criminal case, even if you think the defendant is guilty of the crimes charged, you are entirely free to vote for acquittal if you think that the prosecution is malicious or unfair, or that a conviction in that case would be unjust, or that the law itself is unconstitutional or simply wrong. And if you do so, there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

Judges and prosecutors know this. But they don’t want jurors to know it, which is why we occasionally see cases like this one, in which jury-information activist Mark Iannicelli was arrested and charged with “jury tampering” for setting up a small booth in front of a Denver courthouse labeled “Juror Info” and passing out leaflets. Putting up a sign and passing out leaflets sounds like free speech to me, but apparently Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey feels differently.

The last time I noticed a case like this was in 2012, where a retired chemistry professor did pretty much the same thing. Federal District Judge Kimba Wood dismissed the indictment. At the time, NYU Law professor Rachel Barkow commented, “I don’t think sensible prosecutors should have even brought this case.” Well, sensible prosecutors didn’t.

And if “prosecutorial discretion” is okay, then juries should have the same authority.

Yes, they should.