With regard to Vin Suprynowicz's article today - I am familiar with jury nullification (mostly from reading LRC articles) and realize that most Americans are unfamiliar with jury nullification because it is neither explained in court nor taught in school. But Mr. Suprynowicz has relayed the story of William Penn's connection to jury nullification, and now I am appalled that I was not taught jury nullification!
The jury said if they couldn’t see the law, they weren’t going to convict. In fact, God bless them, they unanimously acquitted William Penn, who was thus free to emigrate to America, where he subsequently got his picture on a box of oats, and presumably did some other stuff.
Some of that "other stuff" lead to a deep-seated respect for William Penn in the area that I was raised (in Pennsylvania, named after William's father). Like many places in PA, my hometown has a Quaker heritage and still has a Quaker meeting house and school. The public high school was renamed to Penn Wood High, and the junior high schools were named Penn Wood East and Penn Wood West, in the 80's. The name of the school district is - you guessed it - William Penn School District.
We were taught, repeatedly, about William Penn and religious freedom, but I never once heard that the reason he was not jailed in England was because of jury nullification. It was glossed over: He was persecuted in England, his father was high-ranking, and so he fled to the US.
