Policy Resources
Model Legislaton
FIJA is an educational organization, not a legislative advocacy organization. Historically, legislation has been extremely unsuccessful in ensuring fully informed jurors. First among the fatal flaws of the legislative route is that legislators would need to pass laws that tell jurors they don't have to enforce the other laws the legislators are busy passing. A close second is that judges, who are mostly chosen from the ranks of prosecutors, would need to implement and enforce these laws regarding jurors' right to nullify effectively. By and large, neither of these groups has an incentive to fully and accurately inform jurors about their right to engage in jury nullification to deliver just verdicts.
The Fully Informed Jury Association exists because exercising jury nullification to deliver just verdicts is both a right and a power that jurors already have in every jury box and deliberation in the United States. There is no need to pass a law to empower them. All that is required is for people to learn about and use the right they already have. Rather than begging legislators to pass a law that works in opposition to legislators' and the rest of the government's power-seeking interests, we go straight to prospective jurors to fully inform them about their current rights and how to exercise them effectively.
Nonetheless, every year we receive a handful of requests for model legislation by folks who want to attempt the legislative route or students participating in mock Congress and similar educational activities. If this is an area you are interested in, you can browse the model legislation on this page:
Key Jury Legislation
Key jury legislation
Laws Regarding Jury Rights
Every juror on every jury in the United States has the right to vote their conscience. Jurors may not legally be punished for their verdicts. This is a common law right dating back over 800 years through United States and, even before that, English history.
Sometimes governments have sought to give that right extra protection with specific codification in constitutional or statutory law. Other times they have attempted to weaken and undermine it through legislation.
One of our popular resources is a summary of specific references to the authority of juries to conscientiously acquit contained within state constitutions as an added codification of the right of jury nullification to further fortify our common law tradition. Previously offered only in .pdf format, FIJA now offers this material as an interactive webpage, complete with dozens of embedded links to the specific state constitutional provisions and other references cited. All of the references have been checked and, where noted, the text has been updated to account for amendments passed since the piece was originally published.
Rise and Fall of New Hampshire's Jury Nullification Statute
As a companion piece for those who are looking to find out about New Hampshire's unique statutory language—which is in their revised statutes, not their state constitution—FIJA offers a detailed overview of that particular piece of history. In this article, we provide documentation of the various stages in the rise and fall of the New Hampshire statute, which was ultimately eviscerated by the New Hampshire Supreme Court.
We are also in the process of fact-checking and preparing for online publication a wealth of new information on jury-related statutory laws in the fifty states, data on key jury-related Supreme Court decisions, and more.
