Below is my column on campaigns on the left to enlist citizens in jury nullification. It is the latest assault on the integrity of our courts. Long supported by far-left law professors and pundits, it encourages potential jurors to disregard the evidence and the law in rendering a form of social justice.
Here is the column:
“You have this superpower.”
That statement from Qiana Johnson is part of reported training material for residents to engage in “jury nullification,” whereby jurors ignore the law and incriminating facts in a given case to nullify any prosecution.
Notably, Johnson is the newly elected clerk of Prince George’s County Circuit Court in the Maryland suburbs of Washington. She is part of a growing left-wing movement gaining traction with voters that calls for radical changes to the U.S. legal system.
The effort is to engineer “Twelve Angry Men” scenarios on real juries — but unlike in the movie, the jurors are actually being trained to ignore evidence and deliberations in favor of political outcomes.
In her election campaign for her current job, Johnson had to overcome questions about her own criminal record. But many voters are willing to give others a second chance when they show evidence of rehabilitation and contrition. The more immediate concern might be embracing a practice that is expressly barred by courts.
One such document allegedly declares, “You have this superpower, and that superpower is you are able to nullify that goddamn jury.”
Far-left professors have long advocated that juries use jury nullification. Georgetown Law professor and MSNBC legal analyst Paul Butler has long advocated that Black jurors engage in nullification in cases involving Black defendants. Butler wrote in the Washington Post in 2016: “Confronting the racial crisis in criminal justice, jury nullification gives jurors a special power to send the message that Black lives matter.”
The problem of biased jurors has long plagued the legal system. It can work both ways in ignoring the law to refuse or secure convictions. Past cases involving President Trump and other Republicans have raised bias concerns over the jury pool in cities such as Washington, D.C., and New York City.
But jury nullification is different; it is a direct assault on the very foundation of the American court system. The juror is the thumping heart of that system — a group of empowered citizens who swear to consider cases without prejudice or prejudgment.
It is not a crime to advocate jury nullification. Moreover, there are legitimate concerns raised by investigations into such groups. about chilling the rights of free speech and association. In my view, such advocacy is protected speech under the First Amendment.
But that is not always the case for lawyers, who can face professional consequences. Many courts bar lawyers from arguing for jury nullification. Calling for jury nullification can also present sanctionable conduct for lawyers in a given case.
Even if this is protected speech, voices in both parties need to denounce these efforts. It effectively encourages jurors to lie when they take their oath to follow the law and to shed any outside bias or prejudgment. It is an effort to enlist jurors in using cases to achieve political and social goals at the expense of the rule of law.
The professors and pundits supporting these campaigns are actively seeking a hostile takeover of the courts without explaining to these citizens the implications of such dishonesty. Indeed, Chairman James Comer has detailed how groups like Freedom Trainers are allegedly seeking to enlist potential jurors while, according to the committee, instructing trainees not to “signal the agenda.”
Instead of addressing the impact of politicizing our jurors, these groups are portraying nullification as “a powerful tool for ensuring fairness and justice.”
These efforts are coming at a time of full assault on our judicial system from the left. Leading Democrats are calling for the packing of the Supreme Court, to reverse decisions with which they disagree. Every leading Democratic candidate for the 2028 presidential nomination has now thrown the court to the baying mob.
Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is only the most recent, declaring, “We should seriously look at expanding the court while the Democrats are in power.”
From the trial jury to the Supreme Court, many on the left now seek to take control of institutions that have long been the rock of this Republic. If successful, justice will become merely an extension of politics.
What is so disconcerting is that there is no longer any pretense of principle. Law professors are demanding that pledges to pack the Court be used as litmus tests for politicians, and senators are calling for an instant liberal majority on the Court to carry out the “will of the people.”
Liberal professors have long demanded revolutionary change to “reclaim America from constitutionalism.”
The attack on the American jury may be the most insidious of these efforts. Our legal system invests average citizens with the power to do justice. Every community plays a role in upholding the principles of blind justice. As with court-packing, jury nullification is a previously odious practice now being portrayed as a noble cause. It is part of the conditioning of voters to accept foundational changes to our constitutional system, to further a radical agenda harmful to the nation.
The juror’s role was indeed a “superpower,” but not the one these professors and pundits are pushing. It is a power against prejudice and partisanship; it is the power of doing simple justice in a nation committed to the rule of law.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
OT, but related to the law and people’s depending on AI to make their . . . analysis,
‘Botch Job’: After Judge’s Ruling Riddled With AI Errors, Appeals Court Allows Mississippi DEI Ban To Take Effect
https://www.thecollegefix.com/botch-job-after-judges-ruling-riddled-with-ai-errors-appeals-court-allows-mississippi-dei-ban-to-take-effect/
That is right. A flawed legal analysis. Made by a judge. Using AI.
Just goes to show you have have a law degree, even be a judge, use AI and still be an idiot.
*Just goes to show you can have a law degree, even be a judge, use AI and still be an idiot.
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Home-safety tips:
Great advice. A list of things to remember for those who cannot remember.
calling hullbobby!
That was a memo left behind by the Biden admin staff.
Demented PSYCHO ANON who thinks everyone is Estovir!
Jury nullification in pursuit of justice is absolutely essential as a check upon tyranny.
I was once on a jury where the defendant was being prosecuted for shooting and wounding an assailant who had forcibly invaded his home. The judge instructed us jurors to reach a verdict only on whether the defendant was guilty of shooting the plaintiff, not whether he was justified in doing so. Yes, the fact was that the defendant was guilty of shooting the plaintiff, but we jurors found him not guilty on the basis of the basic right self-defence, something the legal system increasingly is trying to eliminate. Law and justice are not always the same. Jury nullification is an important defense against unjust law.
Well, numbnuts, that’s the difference between prosecution and defense. Obviously the judge’s instruction was a mistrial on appeal. Disregard the defense?
Send a person to prison on the grounds that, after losing their job, their home, their car, and their family, they had a possibility of getting a new trial on appeal?
Maybe someone in prison decides to kill them. How does the wrongly convicted person get justice then?
OMG! It was judicial nullification of the Constitution that allowed “Crazy Abe” to deny a constitutional right to secession and plunge the nation into the catastrophic Uncivil War.
It was judicial nullification of the Constitution that allowed Social Security and Medicare to survive under the guise of promoting the “general Welfare,” despite their benefits being concentrated among only 18.7% of the population.
And it was judicial nullification of the Constitution that effectively erased the limits of Article I, Section 8, allowing the federal government to regulate virtually everything while eviscerating individual liberty and property rights under the Fifth Amendment. The consequences extend to government control over wages, prices, rents, whom we may sell to or rent to, and zoning, building, and planning decisions.
When the judiciary abandons constitutional limits, enumerated powers become unlimited powers, private property becomes a government-regulated privilege, and individual liberty becomes whatever the government permits. Industries are left to navigate a maze of regulations that, in effect, displace the freedom and self-regulation that a constitutionally limited government was designed to protect.
That is not constitutional government. It is government by judicial permission.
“The Dictatorship of the Majority”
“The Dictatorship of the Poor”
OMG! There is no constitutional right to secession, nor even mention of secession in the Constitution, nor was there ever any right of secession declared among the states ratifying the Constitution. Those states were given several days to amend, suggest, or reject any Articles therein, before signing/ratifying it.
But the Constitution DOES expressly give the Courts and SCOTUS the final constitutional interpretation and declaration of the “law of the land.” (texas v. white did exactly that, regarding secession.)
As to your remaining examples of jury nullification, it does not appear that you understand what jury nullification means? are you confusing it with congressional non-signatories? Please site the captions of the cases to which you allude, thanks.
“cite” not “site.” excuse me, please.
Please cite the Constitution for a prohibition of secession.
Please note that with reference to the power of secession, the 10th Amendment states:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Please note that multiple state constitution ratification documents state, “…the delegated powers of government could be ‘resumed’ or ‘reassumed’ by the people if the federal government perverted those powers to their injury, oppression, or if it became necessary to their happiness,” or something to that effect.
Is it possible for representatives from a state to enter discussions within congress to leave the union? Perhaps buy their way out?
Please cite the Constitution for “interpretation.”
AI Overview
The word “interpretation” does not appear anywhere in the text of the United States Constitution.
Corrupt decisions by corrupt and/or incompetent courts do not amend the Constitution per the prescribed constitutional amendment process.
Article 3—The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court.
The judicial branch has the power ONLY to judge. The judicial branch has no power to modify or amend the Constitution or to legislate.
Merriam-Webster
judge
1: to form an opinion about through careful weighing of evidence and testing of premises
The Confederates took secession to court? I always thought they kicked things off by firing on Fort Sumter.
This is just another scam to get individuals that are not taught to think critically. They unknowingly put themselves at risk while the individuals promoting it get away based on free speech. Then when the individual is charged they can claim to be a victim of the justice system instead of holding the people that told them to do it accountable
The scammers on two fronts.
It should have been The scammers win on two fronts
p.s. I found this posted on internet social media:
hsjung7517
November 11, 2025 at 1:01 PM
For those considering jury nullification for Luigi Mangione, keep your support offline. Public declarations will disqualify you during background checks. Stay neutral to ensure you’re selected, as nullification is his only hope given the damning evidence. He acted against a man who valued profit over lives, committing an ethically right act despite its unlawfulness. It’s just to free him, even if he’s guilty.
I mentioned the above as example of how the parameters of jury nullification could be expanded. Another wary-filled example could be race-based nullification, e.g., “Racially Based Jury Nullification: Black Power in the Criminal Justice System.” The Yale Law Journal 105, no. 3 (December 1995): 677-725, or any nullification premised on no more than some sort of identification with a defendant, irrespective of law.
Republicans have made America worse, so now it is up to the Democrats to make America great again.
That is a true oxymoron!
You’re an idiot! The only thing standing between maintaining our Constitutional Republic, and its destruction from the Islamo-Marxists (democratic party) is Republicans. The democratic party INO, has made their agenda and goal crystal clear… to destroy/dismantle every system of govt, and every institution; including the constitution, and implementing a govt controlled by mob rule, eliminating individual rights and freedoms in favor of “the warmth of collectivism,” to ensure they hold permanent power. America is basically the only bastion of individual freedom and prosperity left in the world, as Europe, the UK, Canada, etc., have gone the way of restricting freedoms, and have fallen to the Red-Green Alliance. If America goes the way of the rest of the West, the world is doomed, and all of Western society devolves into chaos and lawlessness, where the violent mob rules. Republicans are far from perfect; they’ve pissed me off plenty, but they believe in our Constitutional Republic. And the alternative is terrifying!
In some states such as Arizona, to avoid mentioning the subject of jury nullification, potential jurors are often asked a general question at the end which goes something like ‘Is there anything else you haven’t told us?’ (i.e., ‘do you support jury nullification?’).
When answering this question, if a potential juror supports jury nullification but does not tell the court so and the case results in a hung jury, he can be required to pay the cost of enpanelling another jury.