The recent mistrial in the case of U.S. Army Master Sgt. C.J. Grisham shows the lack of education of the Bell County jurors.
The mistrial occurred because only one juror of the six understood his rights and responsibilities as a juror. Initially, according to a member of the jury, L. J. Cotterill, the jury agreed:
“we all agreed that the charge itself and the case itself was garbage. This entire matter should have been resolved by two grown men acting like grown men apologizing for their part in a bad situation and buying each other a beer and then going to a range together.”The problem was that the jury did not know their rights and power to find "not guilty" if justice demanded it, and to ignore a judges instructions. The ability to ignore a judge's instructions is one of the most important parts of jury duty. It derives directly from English common law and the landmark case of Peter Zenger in 1734.
If a jury is bound to follow the judges instructions, they become, in effect, nothing more than government employees, instead of free people with a duty to hold the government as well as citizens accountable.
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