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) page answering the question "What is jury nullification?" 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?" 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?" 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:
https://fija.org/FAQ
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.