Questions a juror is never invited to ask.

The verdict is. An acquittal is final under the double jeopardy clause, cannot be appealed by the prosecution, and cannot be set aside by the judge, whatever the jury's reasons. No juror in the United States can be prosecuted or fined for a verdict; that protection dates to Bushel's Case in 1670. What most courts deny is a right to nullify: a right the judge must announce, that lawyers may argue, and that a juror may declare. Courts describe nullification as a power the system cannot prevent rather than a right it endorses. In practice: the verdict is beyond reach; the speech about it, inside the courtroom, is not.

No. Not fined, not jailed, not held in contempt for the verdict itself. The one modern case in which a juror was punished, Laura Kriho in Colorado in 1997, rested on what she had failed to disclose under oath during jury selection and on statements from the jury room, not on her vote, and even that conviction was overturned on appeal in 1999. The lesson of Kriho is about honesty in jury selection, not about the verdict.

No. A general verdict in a criminal case is one word, and no juror is required to justify it to the judge, the lawyers, or the other jurors. Deliberations are secret. After the verdict, Federal Rule of Evidence 606(b) and its state equivalents bar the court from taking testimony about what was said or thought in the jury room, with narrow exceptions for outside influence and, since Peña-Rodriguez v. Colorado (2017), clear statements of racial bias.

No. A judge can set aside a guilty verdict that the evidence does not support, and an appeals court can reverse a conviction. Neither can touch an acquittal. The Supreme Court has held this repeatedly, including in Fong Foo v. United States (1962), where the trial judge had directed the acquittal himself on grounds the Court thought plainly wrong and the acquittal still stood.

Yes, in some circumstances, and this is the most important limit to understand. A prospective juror who says during jury selection that they will not apply the law can be excused for cause. A sitting juror can be removed during deliberations if the court finds, beyond doubt, that the juror is refusing to apply the law rather than disagreeing about the evidence (United States v. Thomas, 2d Cir. 1997; People v. Williams, Cal. 2001). The courts have also said that removal is improper where there is any possibility the juror is simply unpersuaded by the evidence, because the secrecy of deliberations must be protected. The practical consequence: the power is exercised through the verdict, not announced in advance.

You have to answer the questions you are asked, truthfully, because you answer them under oath. A false answer is perjury and is the one thing that can convert a protected verdict into an unprotected crime. If you are asked whether you can follow the court's instructions and you cannot honestly say yes, say so; you will likely be excused, which is the system working as designed. Nothing on this site should be read as advice to shade an answer.

You may deliberate freely, and deliberation includes talking about whether a conviction would be just. But a juror who announces a flat refusal to apply the law, as opposed to arguing the evidence and the justice of the result, risks being reported by the other jurors and removed under the cases above. Jurors who have moved a room have generally done it by argument about the case in front of them.

Only partly. Civil verdicts are reviewable in ways criminal acquittals are not: a judge can grant judgment notwithstanding the verdict or order a new trial, and either side can appeal. The double jeopardy protection that makes a criminal acquittal final has no civil counterpart. The jury's discretion in civil cases is real, especially on damages, but it is not nullification in the sense these pages describe.

An acquittal requires every juror to vote not guilty and ends the prosecution permanently. A hung jury happens when the jurors cannot agree; the judge declares a mistrial and the state may try the defendant again. Since Ramos v. Louisiana (2020) every felony conviction in the country requires unanimity, so a single juror who will not convict can always prevent a conviction, but only a unanimous jury can prevent a retrial.

No, and this has nothing to do with nullification. Jurors are instructed not to investigate, not to read coverage, and not to discuss the case outside the jury room, because the defendant is entitled to be judged on the evidence presented in court. Violating that instruction can get you removed, can cause a mistrial, and in serious cases can be punished as contempt. The protection for verdicts does not extend to misconduct on the way to one.

Prosecutors have tried three times in the last fifteen years and lost three times. A federal judge in New York dismissed the indictment against Julian Heicklen in 2012; the Colorado Supreme Court threw out the charges against Mark Iannicelli and Eric Brandt in 2019; the Michigan Supreme Court vacated Keith Wood's conviction in 2020. Each court read its jury tampering statute to reach attempts to influence a juror in a specific case, not general speech to the public. None of them held that courthouse leafleting is protected in all circumstances, and a pamphleteer who targets the jurors of a particular trial is in different territory.

Almost never, and in most courts the judge will say the opposite: that the jury must apply the law as instructed whether it agrees or not. That has been the rule in federal court since Sparf v. United States (1895), and most states follow it. Defense lawyers are generally forbidden to argue nullification to the jury and can be sanctioned for trying. The handful of states whose constitutions say the jury judges the law have mostly been read by their own courts to mean something narrower. See the state-by-state fold below.

“In the trial of all criminal cases, the Jury shall be the Judges of Law, as well as of fact, except that the Court may pass upon the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain a conviction.” Maryland's courts have confined this to genuine disputes about what the law is, and instruct juries that the court's statements on settled law are binding. The words remain in the constitution and are read to jurors.

“In all criminal cases whatever, the jury shall have the right to determine the law and the facts.” Indiana courts tell juries that this does not permit them to disregard the law as instructed, and defense counsel may not argue otherwise, but the provision survives and the instruction acknowledges it.

“In criminal cases ... the jury shall be the judges of the law and the facts.” Georgia's courts have held since the nineteenth century that the jury applies the law as given by the court, and the provision is treated as describing the jury's role in applying law to fact rather than a license to set law aside.

“In all criminal cases whatever, the jury shall have the right to determine the law, and the facts under the direction of the Court as to the law.” The qualifying clause is how Oregon's courts read it: the jury determines the law under the court's direction, which in practice means as instructed.

The only modern attempt to put the instruction in a statute. The 2012 law allowed the defense to inform the jury of its right to judge the application of the law, and the first acquittal under it followed within months. The state supreme court read the statute narrowly in State v. Paul (2014), and later bills to strengthen it have not become law. The history page has the full account.

Federal courts and the remaining states follow Sparf v. United States (1895): the judge instructs the jury to apply the law as given, counsel may not argue nullification, and the jury is not told that an acquittal is final and unreviewable. The power exists in all of these courts in exactly the same measure as in Maryland or Indiana, because it rests on double jeopardy and Bushel's Case, not on any state's constitution. What differs is only whether anyone in the courtroom is allowed to say so.