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Originally Posted by ShootistPRS
It is only on of a few ways to nullify a law. The easiest and most available to the common man is jury nullification.
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Don't be silly.
Jury nullification does nothing to nullify a law. The law exists and continues to exist and can be applied.
It is merely the expression of a jury's disinclination for some reason to convict a person who quite probably is guilty of the crime charged. It is the natural consequence of the prohibition of double jeopardy and works because the prosecution may not appeal a jury verdict of acquittal -- even when under the evidence and law the defendant was unquestionably guilty.
On occasion the reasons for an acquittal against the weight of the evidence and law could be noble. But the reasons may also be ignoble, such as when at times in our history a jury of White men in some States would resolutely refuse to convict a clearly guilty White defendant of the murder of a Black person.
As to being easy, that's hardly a foregone conclusion. For jury nullification to work the jury must acquit. That means that all the jurors necessary for acquittal must agree even when they have accepted based on the evidence that the defendant is guilty, and they must so agree even though they had been instructed by the judge that they are to apply the law as explained by him to the facts as they, the jury, find. Thus what might be characterized as an ultimate remedy can be preserved for only the most egregious cases.
While a single juror can generally cause a hung jury, and hung jury merely results in a mistrial; and the defendant can be retried.