I posted about nullification not to long ago in the context of State Senator Vince Fumo's fraud trial:

http://is.gd/bDIx

Without overloading your comments with the whole post, here's a portion of it:

...

Juries tracing back to ancient times have, as they felt the circumstances warranted, exercised lenity against certain defendants by finding them guilty of fewer crimes than the evidence proved or handing out lesser sentences. But the supposed "right" to jury nullification was never truly recognized by English or American courts, and in 1895 the United States Supreme Court specifically prohibited the practice by upholding a trial judge’s instructions to a jury that, even if the jury believed a defendant on trial for murder deserved lenity and should be convicted only of manslaughter, that the jury had an obligation to convict that defendant of murder if the evidence established murder. Sparf v. United States, 156 U.S. 51 (1895).

Surprisingly, despite constant requests by criminal defense attorneys to argue nullification to juries continuing even to the present (and trial courts’ constant rulings prohibiting such arguments), the United States Supreme Court has not revisited the issue of jury nullification in nearly 100 years, despite an extensive overhaul of most of the legal ideology upon which the Sparf opinion was based.

But make no mistake: criminal defendants have no right to ask the jury for nullification, and defense lawyers who do so risk judicial sanction and even criminal conviction. United States v. Renfroe, 634 F. Supp. 1536 (W.D. Pa. 1986), aff'd without opinion by U.S. v. Renfroe, 806 F.2d 255 (3d Cir. Pa. 1986).

Yet, here we are today, with Fumo’s and Arnao’s attorneys effectively telling the jury – which is supposed to apply the law given to them by the court to the facts that the jury finds – that the judge has gotten the law all wrong. How can that be?

There are three answers to that question. First, the American legal system recognizes the inherent tension between the judge and the jury, permitting each to intrude upon the other’s domain (the jury intruding upon the law and the judge intruding upon the facts) where necessary to ensure justice is done. It is undeniable that, though a judge may remove a juror from the jury if the juror appears inclined to nullify the law, a judge also may not overturn a jury’s verdict of acquittal and re-try the defendant because of jury nullification. Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 200 n.50 (1976) ("The suggestion that a jury's verdict of acquittal could be overturned and a defendant retried would run afoul of the Sixth Amendment jury-trial guarantee and the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment."). These two principles cannot be reconciled. Their presence together represents a delicate balance necessary for a society in which justice is dispensed by the people, not the government, but in a fair and consistent manner across all trials.

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As you enter Eastchester, the signs say "Home of the Bill of Rights." This strikes me as peculiar since isn't every community its "Home"? The older signs, I think, said "Birthplace of the Bill of Rights," but that perhaps did not fit, sizewise.

You should note, however, that the trial was where the town hall. St. Paul's is in Mount Vernon, it was in Eastchester until Mount Vernon was carved out of it in 1853.
 

Joe:

Any idea if there is a sign or plaque of any kind at St. Paul's to mark its unintended role in helping to create part of the First Amendment?