Does the jury have a political function?

Does the jury have a political function?

Iloilo Jones (Executive Director of Fully Informed Jury Association) gives expert video advice on: Why do we have juries?; What was the first trial by jury?; What is 'The Jury Selection and Service Act'? and more...

The jury has a very specific political function. If you go back and look at history you can see that juries, when they refused to convict people who were harboring runaway slaves under the Fugitive Slave Act, they helped to get rid of slavery in this country because the government couldn't enforce the Fugitive Slave Act. Nobody would find anybody guilty. The jurors back then really knew that they had this power to protect human rights, so they wouldn't find anyone guilty. During prohibition, the jurors refused to convict people who were selling and manufacturing whisky. That helped to overturn prohibition. During the Vietnam Era, jurors refused to convict conscientious objectors so they could not be put in prison for refusing to go to Vietnam. All of these, by their refusal, caused the lawmakers of our country to have to go back and re-examine the laws they had passed and realize that they weren't supported by the people.