CALIFORNIA
San Francisco Chronicle
Bob Egelko
Updated 09:20 p.m., Monday, July 9, 2012
The case of William Lynch, who admitted beating a priest in retaliation for a sexual assault 35 years earlier, was a classic example of jury nullification – jurors’ power to acquit a defendant based on their sense of justice or subjective feelings, rather than the law’s definition of guilt or innocence.
Juries used that power in 1670 to free William Penn over a British judge’s vehement objections, and later to exonerate foes of slavery, Prohibition and the Vietnam War draft – and, less nobly, Southern lynch mobs.
On Thursday, a Santa Clara County jury used that power to clear Lynch of the most serious charges against him and deadlocked on a lesser charge, despite what appeared to be clear-cut evidence of his guilt on that charge.
“It’s a way of saying the law isn’t perfect,” said Michael Saks, an Arizona State University law professor who has written extensively about jury behavior. “Maybe it’s a good thing that when circumstances call for it, 12 citizens … will try to do better than the legal system.”
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