[fasa99]

The general intent of the jury is to ask, "do you think they broke the law or not" and it's a jury of your peers, from your community, so it's seen as super fair.

On one extreme the jury carefully reviews the law as written and makes a judgement focused on the law. Whether they agree or disagree with the law itself is inconsequential, they must apply it.

On the other extreme (jury nullification) the jury might ignore the law and decide for themselves, then and there, what is right and what is wrong.

In many jurisdictions the jury is encouraged to adhere to the law as written, in some it is "illegal" for the jury to willfully ignore the law but there is no punishment for doing so. The concept of "Jury Nullification" is meant to be a checks & balances if some law exists that is insane or unreasonable or would be morally bankrupt to apply in a particular situation, extreme cases. So the pressure to not apply jury nullification in general is because if it were used in every case, not extreme cases, literally the jury then becomes the congress, the makers of law, and of course everything becomes kind of random and unfair depending on whatever jury you got.

[salawat]

You're being a bit disingenuous here. The legal system fears jury nullification because of precedent, and the complete clusterfuck a nullification makes of interpreting common law. Judges and lawyers basically have to ignore everything about that case. The case law, which is considered "discovered", has to be thrown out, because it'll make no sense otherwise. Stare decisis just doesn't make any sense in a nullification situation. This still doesn't mean nullification doesn't have a place. It is a check of the populace on a prosecutor/law enforcement with an agenda, a corrupt judge, or insane legislators/unconscionable laws. Nullification is the most important, and powerful democratic check on the judiciary available.

It's also a really bad idea to bank on getting. As voir dire (jury selection) is basically the prosecution devoting all their resources to make sure that they don't get a jury stacked with enough jurors willing to nullify. A judge might also declare a mistrial if they get a sense a nullification attempt is in the works or likely. A prosecutor may decline to prosecute, or petition for a change of venue if they get a sense the populace would just nullify anyway. Judges will tend to be very cross and threatening at the prospect, and will lecture at length about how bad it would be if you chose that path, etc.... etc.... It is very much the judicial equivalent of a vote of no confidence in the system, and the system hates being confronted with it.

Long story short, it's a populace's nuclear option with all the baggage that entails. It being employed is a signal that so much is wrong, the populace cannot conscionably allow the system to proceed as normal. It's a wake-up call to all three branches. Legislators that the law they passed may be unconscionable, the executive in that the People cannot endorse their execution of the laws as passed, and the judiciary, in that in no way shape or form can this randomly selected jury abide the status quo.