Having already created the greatest crime drama in television history, the writers of HBO's
The Wire have now also delivered an unusually powerful indictment of the drug war. While the program itself raises many questions about the practical application of our nation's drug laws, this forceful statement removes all doubt about where its authors stand:
If asked to serve on a jury deliberating a violation of state or federal drug laws, we will vote to acquit, regardless of the evidence presented. Save for a prosecution in which acts of violence or intended violence are alleged, we will â to borrow Justice Harry Blackmun's manifesto against the death penalty â no longer tinker with the machinery of the drug war. No longer can we collaborate with a government that uses nonviolent drug offenses to fill prisons with its poorest, most damaged and most desperate citizens. [Time]
I can think of few things more satisfying than ruling against the drug war in a court of law. Alas, however, I expect not to be offered such an opportunity any time soon given the readily accessible archive of evidence that would lead any prosecutor to send me home well before opening arguments.
On that note, my colleagues David Borden and David Guard once refused jury service outright in protest of the drug war's corrosive effect on the criminal justice system. They were found in contempt of court and sentenced to serve community service indefinitely so long as they refused to perform their civic duty. They eventually capitulated, but only after generating
press coverage in
The Washington Post. To my knowledge, neither has been called to serve since.
Ultimately, the value of jury nullification as a weapon against the drug war is difficult to measure, but we have everything to gain by actively educating the public about the right to vote one's conscience when serving on a jury. I've learned anecdotally of many instances of nullification, usually at the hands of a concerned citizen who would never have stood out within the jury pool. Beyond that, I suspect that the prospect of nullification is already influencing prosecutorial behavior in dramatic, though invisible, ways. The best example may be California, where federal harassment of medical marijuana providers rarely results in formal charges.
The U.S. Constitution, worn thin through decades of drug war destruction, does still bestow upon us the privilege of standing in judgment of our peers. Let us cherish this noble duty and exercise our constitutional right to put the drug war itself on trial, wherever and whenever the opportunity arises.