please respond to Christopher with 150 words
I do not believe that jurors should have to explain their decision. The main reason being is that it’s completely redundant. The defendant knows why he is on trial, if he’s guilty he knows he did it and doesn’t need it to be explained to him. On the other hand, if he’s innocent he knows that he’s innocent and that doesn’t need to be explained to him. The entire courtroom has seen the facts of the case, have witnessed the arguments made, have even had a hand in picking the jurors, so there is no reason as to why they should doubt the jury’s decision. By requiring jurors to explain their verdict, it may impact the decision they make due to public backlash, especially if they do not argue the verdict well, which could lead to someone who is guilty being declared innocent due to the jury not wanting to receive backlash.
Generally I am against the idea of juror nullification because it makes the individual the sole arbiter of the law and what is right and wrong, rather than the Constitution. By being an American citizen, you agree with the social contract and the norms of society, which includes obeying and abiding by the laws of the land. As a member of the jury, you are doing your duty to see that the law is properly carried out. By engaging in jury nullification, you make yourself the sole arbiter of the law and put yourself above the Constitution and the social norms that our society has laid out. That is assuming that the law you are protesting is constitutional; if not, then jury nullification is justified because it is our duty as Americans to protest against unconstitutional laws. But, if it is a situation like the one outlined in the PowerPoint, in which a juror doesn’t want to prosecute someone who did a crime because of their skin color, then it is absolutely ludicrous because at the end of the day, we need the law to be applied equally to all men, and if we don’t then we have no society to live in.
