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Hello John,

For the past couple of days, part of my attention has been directed to the first-degree murder trial of Darrell Brooks. This morning he was convicted of 6 counts of first-degree murder and dozens of other criminal counts related to deaths and injuries he caused by driving an SUV into the 2021 Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

What on earth could this have to do with jury nullification?

In a bizarre twist, Brooks, who represented himself, for some reason decided that he wanted to inform jurors about their right to exercise jury nullification. This resulted in a lengthy exchange between Brooks and the judge just prior to closing arguments, which I live tweeted yesterday ([link removed]).

As I pointed out on Facebook ([link removed]), this was an odd case for a defendant to try and mount a jury nullification defense. Usually, if people DO believe someone is guilty of intentionally killing several innocent people by hit-and-run, they do not want to nullify even if they are fully informed about jury nullification. And if they DON'T believe it has been proven beyond reasonable doubt the accused is guilty of such crimes, then no jury nullification is needed.

My impression from what I saw of this trial is that Brooks was not seriously trying to argue a jury nullification defense. Rather, he seemed to me to be using whatever tactics he could to run the trial off the rails and simply not be tried. Your mileage may vary.

Given that, though, I also found it quite odd how hard the judge worked to keep the jury from being fully informed about jury nullification. Here's a video clip of just part of her efforts to keep jurors from hearing mention of it:

([link removed])

It really highlighted for me how little respect judges have for jurors. Oh, sure, they make everyone stand when the jury comes and goes from the courtroom as a token gesture.

But they think 12 semi-randomly selected people would all want someone who has murdered six innocent people, including an 8-year-old child, not to mention injuring many more, let loose in society without consequence? That if they hear the slightest mention of jury nullification, they need to be instructed against using it in a case like this?

To use my polite words, I will simply say I find that disrespectful. Extremely disrespectful.

On a more positive note, one side effect of this odd situation was that for the first time that I have ever seen, FIJA's Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) ([link removed]) page answering the question "What is jury nullification?" ([link removed]) was the NUMBER 1 search result on Google! I've seen it as high as the second or third link, not including the "People also ask" and "Top stories" sections, but this is the first time I've seen it at the top.

And it has really shown in FIJA's website metrics. Since jury nullification became an issue in this trial on Monday to the time I'm writing this, we have had 58,494 website visits, most to the "What is jury nullification?" ([link removed]) page. For context, we usually get a TOTAL of a few hundred thousand website views annually.

As I'm gradually adding information to and sharing the FAQ around, we've been seeing some pretty good spikes when news stories like this prompt people to learn more. For example, from the Monday through Friday of the last week of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, the FAQ "What happens if there is a hung jury?" ([link removed]) was viewed more than 88,000 times.

By the way, there's an easy to remember shortcut link you can use when directing people to the FAQ:

[link removed]

None of this would be possible without you, the FIJA family, financially supporting work like this and sharing the information around in your communities and social networks. It is crucial that people have a trusted source that will provide them the information judges and prosecutors work so hard to confuse them about and conceal from them.

THANK YOU so much for your support in creating the premier online source for accurate information on jury nullification. 

For Liberty, Justice, and Peace in Our Lifetimes,

Executive Director
Fully Informed Jury Association

P.S. Did I mention we ranked above Wikipedia AND Cornell Law School's Legal Information Institute!?! I may put the below picture up on my refrigerator!

Cornell's page in particular is pretty anti-jury nullification, so this is a sweet moment. (If you search for it to see what they are saying, please use something other than Google so as not to give Cornell any help up in the rankings of what is BY FAR the world's most popular search engine.)





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