Editing Jury nullification (section)

====Judicial opinion====
In the 1895 case of ''[[Sparf v. United States]]'', written by Associate Justice [[John Marshall Harlan]], the US Supreme Court held 5-4 that a trial judge has no responsibility to inform the jury of the right to nullify laws.<ref>{{ussc|name=Sparf v. United States|156|51|1895}}.</ref> That decision, often cited, has led to a common practice by US judges to penalize anyone who attempts to present a nullification argument to jurors and to declare a mistrial if such argument has been presented to them. In some states, jurors are likely to be struck from the panel during ''[[voir dire]]'' if they do not agree to accept as correct the rulings and instructions of the law as provided by the judge.<ref name= PeoplevEstrada2006/>

In later rulings the courts continued to prohibit informing juries about jury nullification. In a 1969, [[Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals]] decision, ''[[U.S. v. Moylan]]'', 417 [[F.2d]] 1002 (4th Cir.1969), the Court affirmed the concept of jury nullification, but upheld the power of a court to refuse to permit an instruction to the jury to this effect.<ref name= USvsMoylan1969/> In 1972, in ''[[United States v. Dougherty]]'', 473 [[F.2d]] 1113, the [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit]] issued a ruling similar to ''Moylan'' that affirmed the ''de facto'' power of a jury to nullify the law but upheld the denial of the defense's chance to instruct the jury about the power to nullify.<ref name= USvsDougherty1972/>

In 1988, the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit|Sixth Circuit]] upheld a jury instruction: "There is no such thing as valid jury nullification." In ''United States v. Thomas'' (1997), the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit|Second Circuit]]  ruled that jurors can be removed if there is evidence that they intend to nullify the law. The Supreme Court has not recently confronted the issue of jury nullification. In 2017, a jury was instructed: "You cannot substitute your sense of justice, whatever that means, for your duty to follow the law, whether you agree with it or not. It is not for you to determine whether the law is just or whether the law is unjust. That cannot be your task. There is no such thing as valid jury nullification. You would violate your oath and the law if you willfully brought a verdict contrary to the law given to you in this case." The [[Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit|Ninth Circuit]] upheld the first three sentences of the jury's instruction and overruled the remainder but deemed that instruction a [[harmless error]] and affirmed the conviction.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://reason.com/blog/2017/06/20/although-juries-can-acquit-the-guilty-9t|title=Juries Can Acquit the Guilty, 9th Circuit Says, but 'There Is No Right to Nullification'|date=2017-06-20|work=Reason.com|access-date=2017-06-25|language=en}}</ref>