February 28, 2012 12:10PM # A Jury’s ‘Secret’ Power By [Tim Lynch](https://www.cato.org/people/tim-lynch) --- SHARE This month’s *Wisconsin Lawyer* has an article entitled “Nullification: A Jury’s ‘Secret’ Power,” by Erik R. Guenther. Here is an excerpt: > When “\[t\]he purpose of a jury is to guard against the exercise of arbitrary power – to make available the commonsense judgment of the community as a hedge against the overzealous or mistaken prosecutor and in preference to the professional or perhaps over-conditioned or biased response of a judge,”should the jury be kept in the dark about its fundamental power to decide the justness of the law as applied in a particular case? Should the power remain a secret (which is referred to only by a pejorative – nullification) rather than be acknowledged as an inherent, appropriate, and recognized part of the jury function? Read the [whole thing](http://www.wisbar.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Wisconsin_Lawyer&Template=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=108899). The feds are still fighting hard to keep the jury’s power ‘secret’—so hard that free speech must be [punished](https://www.cato.org/jury-nullification-and-free-speech/). For additional background, go [here](https://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/v21n1/jury.html) and [here](https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/when-judges-overreach). ##### Related Tags [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).