Pot pass: jury nullification.

• Author: Sullum, Jacob
• Position: Citings

A New Hampshire law that takes effect this January allows a defense attorney to "inform the jury of its right to judge the facts and the application of the law in relation to the facts." In September a Belknap County jury illustrated the importance of the nullification power recognized by that provision when it acquitted a marijuana grower of growing marijuana.

Doug Darrell was arrested in 2009 after police spotted his plants from a helicopter flying over his home in Barnstead. The Belknap County Attorney's Office, evidently eager to get rid of a case involving just If pot plants and no distribution, offered Darrell a series of increasingly lenient plea deals, culminating in an offer of no jail time or fine in exchange for pleading guilty to a misdemeanor. Darrell's lawyer, Mark Sisti, says the 59-year-old Rastafarian turned all the offers down because "he didn't think he was guilty of anything; it's a sacrament in his religion."

So Darrell went to trial on a charge of manufacturing a controlled drug, a Class B felony that carries a penalty of three and a half to seven years in prison. Sisti argued that punishing Darrell would be unjust in light of the fact that he was growing cannabis for his own religious and medicinal use. Not surprisingly, the prosecution disagreed.

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