Research into those cases shows that prosecutors, judges and cops, often Klan members themselves, often threw the case. In the Byron de la Beckwith case, two uniformed police officers testified that Beckwith was 200 miles away at the time Medgar Evers “got himself shot.” In another case, the coroner ruled that the lead pellets in the deceased’s face were “dislodged dental fillings.”

The juries were often scapegoated for the official misconduct of others. Remember that the federal civil rights cases generally ended in convictions — with juries chosen from the same communities, but with different judges, prosecutors and investigators.

2. Anyone who has ever defended a case against a deputy district attorney will not be shocked to learn that one has a rather shaky grasp of basic constitutional law.

3. As you suggest, the anonymous alleged prosecutor is all wet and comically thuggish when he suggests that advocating jury nullification in the abstract is a crime. (Such advocacy has been successfully prosecuted, as I recall, when it involved people handing jury nullification pamphlets to jurors in a particular case during their deliberations — but because that constituted a criminal attempt to influence a deliberating jury, not because it constituted advocacy of a crime).

4. As some of the comments at Agitator suggest, the history of jury nullification is not solely about individuals bravely defying government overreaching. It’s also been used on a crass racial basis — by whites to refuse to convict defendants of anti-civil-rights violence in the South, and by minorities elsewhere, some argue. Jurors may have some detestable views about what constitutes justice, so when we ask them to disregard the law in favor of their personal views of justice we may get some detestable results. That’s the bargain.

I’ve lost cases I prosecuted because of jury nullification and won cases I’ve defened because of jury nullification. Honestly, I’m conflicted.