Juries have always had the power to acquit against the evidence, and telling them otherwise violates the Sixth Amendment and due process.
A New York jury acquitted publisher John Peter Zenger of seditious libel in 1735 in what the National Constitution Center correctly calls “.” Three centuries later, another New York jury was falsely instructed that it lacked that power, thereby rendering its guilty verdict against another high-profile defendant, former President.” Though apparently standard in New York, the italicized language flatly contradicts founding-era theory and practice regarding the prerogatives of criminal juries.
More importantly, however, and as the Supreme Court has recently emphasized in the Second Amendment context, it is not for us to relitigate founding-era constitutional commitments and to decide which ones are “ The power to acquit against the evidence is one that juries have possessed since before the ratification of the Constitution and continue to possess today, by whatever name it is called.
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