Coincidentally, I taught jury nullification two days ago. Then this today.
There was a not guilty verdict in the battered-wife murder case in Queens today.
The jury accepted self-defense, based on a fear of imminent harm, although the husband-victim was shaving at the time, had no gun in his hand, his body was found on the bathroom floor and the faucet was still running when the police arrived, and the defendant shot him multiple times with two guns.
The forewoman of the jury said that the jurors decided to exonerate the defendant because the family's accounts of chronic and vicious abuse rang true. "We believed she was justified with alll the things she went through over the years." However, the jury found her guilty of possessing the second weapon because she shot him even after he no longer posed a danger.
The verdict, the forewoman indicated, was something of a compromise. That appears to means that the defense got at least that one juror who sympathized with the defendant and wanted to acquit on all counts, and the compromise was to find her guilty of something.
The victim's twin brother said that his brother was not the kind of person who was depicted by the defense, and that the trial seemed to focus on the victim's guilt rather than the defendant's.