&gt; Jury nullification occurs when a jury acquits a defendant, despite evidence, because they either believe the law is immoral or wrongfully applied.<p>Historically, &quot;wrongfully applied&quot; meant &quot;victim was an uppity negro who deserved what that nice white defendant did to him&quot;.<p>Also, there is nothing in the nullification power that limits its use to acquitting. That same power can also be used for anti-nullification, to convict when the jury thinks the defendant should be punished despite the evidence and law saying not guilty. Historically, this too has tended to be used for racist reasons.<p>The typical counter to this from nullification advocates is that the judge or an appeals court can overturn a conviction when a jury uses anti-nullification to convict.<p>The problem with that is simple: the judge or appeals court generally has no way of knowing that it happened. In most cases, the prosecution does present witnesses and evidence and a somewhat plausible case. The judge cannot tell that the conviction was from anti-nullification rather than from the jury believing the prosecution&#x27;s case.<p>An important aspect of a good justice system is that similarly situated defendants are treated equally. Routine nullification instructions would severely undermine that. If we require a unanimous jury of 12 to convict, then it only takes about 5% of the jury pool to believe that a given law should be nullified to result in 50% of juries having a member who will nullify.<p>Nullification should only be a last resort, for use after the normal political process for changing bad laws has failed. It needs checks and balances to prevent its massive misuse--and the only method anyone has been able to come up with is the hack of not telling people about it. The theory is that in the kind of breakdown of the system where it is appropriate the jury will discover it on their own.