Source: International Herald Tribune May 22 1997 contact: New York Times contact: Judges Are Told to Keep Jurors Focus on Evidence By Benjamin Weiser New York Times Service NEW YORKStepping into a legal debate with racial and political overtones, a federal appeals court has declared that judges have a duty to make sure jurors do not ignore the evidence or law in a case and instead impose their own values to acquit or convict a defendant. The ruling by the court of appeals for the second circuit in Manhattan offered the strongest denunciation yet by the federal courts of the practice known as "jury nullification," in which a juror might vote, for example, to acquit a defendant for racial reasons, rather than considering the strength of the case against him. Calling such an action "a violation of a juror's sworn duty to follow the law as instructed by the court," Judge Jose Cabranes wrote for a unanimous threejudge panel that "trial courts have a duty to forestall or prevent such conduct" by admonishing or even dismissing jurors from a case. The decision stemmed from a drug case tried in Albany, New York, in which jurors complained to the judge that one juror, the only black member of the panel, appeared opposed to applying the drug laws in the case, believing that the defendants had "a right to deal drugs," the opinion said. After interviewing the jurors, the trial judge concluded that the black juror felt that the defendants "were in a disadvantaged situation" and would not vote to convict "no matter what the evidence was." The judge removed the juror and the 11 remaining jurors voted to convict. In its ruling Tuesday, the appellate court actually overturned the convictions, saying that the juror in this case may truly not have been convinced of the defendants' guilt and that the judge was wrong to conclude that he was disregarding the law. But the appeals court said the judge was right to investigate the juror's motivation, and sed the case to take a strong stand gainst nullification. "We categorically reject the idea hat, in a society committed to the rule of aw, jury nullification is desirable, or hat courts may permit it to occur when t is within their power to prevent," Mr. Cabranes wrote. The decision comes as the legal comnunity is embroiled in a debate over ace and the justice system, and whether t is ever appropriate for jurors to inentionally disregard the law, in acquitting or convicting, as a form of protest. The appellate court noted that jury nullification has deep roots in U.S. jurisprudence. It protected fugitive slaves from being sent back to the South in the period before the Civil War, as northern juries refused to convict. But the court noted that there were also "shameful examples of how nullification has been used to sanction murder and lynching."