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Jury Nullification - Judge Has Questions

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Location: Virginia

I served on a jury recently. I'll spare all the gory details, but some of the charges ended in a hung jury while others were decided upon (some guilty, some not).

As a juror, I believed the defense's claim of self-defense, so I voted not guilty on all charges INCLUDING counts of discharging a firearm in a public place. My fellow jurors tried to tell me that I HAVE to vote guilty because the defendant did discharge a firearm in a public place per the written description of the charge provided to us by the court, but I refused to convict due to the fact that I believed it was self-defense. My fellow jurors didn't believe me, so we asked the judge if a juror has the right to vote however they choose, even if they believe a crime has occurred. The judge of course confirmed my right as a juror.

Fast forward to today - the judge wants to talk to me about these questions as the foreman. I know I didn't do anything wrong or illegal, and I definitely didn't pressure anybody to change their vote. I just said that I wouldn't vote that way since it's self defense and informed the rest of the jury of their rights. But I still feel anxious about the situation, and I'm concerned that I'll be blacklisted from future jury service. And I want to be the one to talk to the judge because if they ask someone else, I fear I may be misrepresented.

My general question(s) are these:

  1. If I retell the story as I did in this post, is it likely that I will still be in the rotation for jury duty?

  2. Would my conversation put the case (for the case that we already closed, the convictions that were unanimous) at risk of a retrial?

  3. Any other general advice would be helpful.

submitted by /u/mm21053
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