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In 1998, the National Institute of Justice awarded a grant to the National Center for State Courts ("NCSC") to examine the frequency and various causes of hung juries. One of the factors that the NCSC project staff investigated was jurors' perceptions of the fairness of the law they were asked to apply in felony trials as well as jury and case characteristics that are often associated with jury nullification. The project also asked judges and other court actors to rate the strength of the evidence in the case. Thus, the project enabled researchers to examine jurors' views, the evidence, and case outcomes to explore whether concerns about the fairness of the law led to verdicts that were inconsistent with the weight of the evidence. In this Article, we attempt to define jury nullification, a more complex task than it first appears. We provide a brief overview of evolving public and legal opinion about jury nullification, and current judicial responses to perceived instances of nullification when they occur. We then discuss the theoretical and methodological relevance of the NCSC study to existing questions about jury nullification. Finally, we report the research findings of the study related to jury nullification and discuss the policy implications of those findings for the criminal justice community. This abstract has been taken from the authors' introduction.
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