Do you have definitive proof that our founding fathers were explicitly in favor of jury nullification? Mere assertions are not proof that is why we have the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal trials. Can you provide a citation of a single founding father embracing jury nullification?
“ I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution. ”
—Thomas Jefferson, 1789 letter to Thomas Paine
“ The jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy. ”
—John Jay, first Chief Justice of the United States
Would you vote to convict someone of violating an unConsitutional law? Why do you need a Founder to tell you that Congress and the President can easily overstep their authority and that you may be the only one to prevent an injustice because of it?
John Jay
The Jury has a right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy.” John Jay , 1st Chief Justice USSC 1789 “The jury has the right to determine both the law and the facts.” . Samuel Chase, USSC, 1796 “The jury has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth of both law and fact.” Oliver Wendell Holmes, USSC 1902 “The law itself is on trial quite as much as the cause which is to be decided.” Harlan F. Stone, USSC 1941 “The pages of history shine on instances of the jury’s exercise of it’s prerogative to disregard instructions of the judge.” . US v. Dougherty, 473 F 2nd 1113, 1139, (1972)
Thomas Jefferson
“It is left, therefore, to the juries, if they think the permanent judges are under any bias whatever in any cause, to take on themselves to judge the law as well as the fact. They never exercise this power but when they suspect partiality in the judges, and by the exercise of this power they have been the firmest bulwarks of English liberty.”