The Washington Post has a fascinating report on what happened inside the jury room in the Moussouai case:
Only one juror stood between the death penalty and Zacarias Moussaoui and that juror frustrated his colleagues because he never explained his vote, according to the foreman of the jury that sentenced the al-Qaeda operative to life in prison last week.
The foreman, a Northern Virginia math teacher, said in an interview that the panel voted 11 to 1, 10 to 2 and 10 to 2 in favor of the death penalty on three terrorism charges for which Moussaoui was eligible for execution. A unanimous vote on any one of them would have resulted in a death sentence.
The foreman said deliberations reached a critical point on the third day, when the process nearly broke down. Frustrations built because of the repeated 11 to 1 votes on one charge without any dissenting arguments during discussions. . . .
Juror nullification in action. Under current procedures there was no other choice for the nullifying juror than to remain anonymous and silent with his or her objections if they went to the propriety of the death penalty or the legal standard. A juror can be removed and replaced with an alternate, or even subjected to contempt in some cases, for defying the law as given. Agree with the lone holdout or not, it took great determination and discipline, and courage of conviction.
I don’t see how this is “juror nullification in action.” Maybe it is, but without an explanation we’ll never know. Maybe the juror’s decision to dissent was based on proper grounds, and maybe not.
Why nullification? The same juror must have agreed to find that Moussouai was eligible for the death penalty during the first sentencing phase. If the holdout truly had a beef with the legal standard or the death penalty itself, why wouldn’t he or she have ended this charade at that point?
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