Jury Nullification: The Evolution of a Doctrine
| Author | Clay S. Conrad |
|---|---|
| Published | 1998 |
| Format | Book |
| Original | Read the original |
TL;DR — Houston lawyer Clay Conrad’s history of the jury’s power to acquit against the law, from Bushell’s Case and colonial trials to modern courts. Cato Institute edition.
First co-published by the Cato Institute and Carolina Academic Press in 1998; this is the 2014 Cato Institute Press edition. Conrad, a Houston criminal-defence lawyer, traces jury independence from pre-revolutionary England (Bushell’s Case, Fox’s Libel Act) through the founding era (Georgia v. Brailsford, the Fries and Chase trials), Lysander Spooner’s arguments, the Supreme Court’s turn against the doctrine in Sparf (1895) and Prohibition, to the modern era.
Later chapters take on “scapegoating the jury” — the claim that nullification mainly means bigoted acquittals in lynching and civil-rights cases — and argue that independent juries remain a check on unjust prosecutions.
What it is: a legal history with a clear advocacy position, from a libertarian think tank’s press. The rights-holder posts the full PDF on its own site; this copy is byte-identical in size to it.
Where this came from
- A copy saved in October 2026.
- Cato Institute: https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/jury-nullification.pdf
337 pages. A copy is archived locally against link rot; the header links the original source.