Will Jury Nullification Be Only Hope for Wisconsin Raw Milk Farmer?

Jury nullification is lawful in Wisconsin, but one may not ask for it expressly:

[Vernon] Hershberger’s fate may well hinge on whether jurors selected for that trial are willing to go along with a strategy raised earlier this year on the Farm-To-Consumer Legal Defense Fund.

“A question that has been raised about the trial is: can the jury hearing the case legally engage in jury nullification and return a verdict of not guilty on the charges no matter what the facts and the law of the case are? The answer is yes,” wrote fund attorney Pete Kennedy.

It may take walking a fine line, however. According to Kennedy, Wisconsin law makes jury nullification a right of the jury, but “the defendant has no right to demand that the jury exercise its power of nullification.” In other words, its there as an option, you just cannot ask for it.

It’s a desperate times, desperate measures approach, but it’s something on which the Loganville, Wisconsin farmer may have to rely.

Via Food Safety News.