Do you think that contempt of court through judicial discretion is unjust especially in jurisdictions that allow for jury nullification? Lawyers conduct character assassinations in the witness box all the time, and judges don't always enforce contempt rulings consistently even within the same day. I know character assassinations are something most philosophers and even some lawyers frown upon but as long as that CAN lead to uncovering the truth why not let up to twelve jurors decide for themselves--because judges either don't care or are unable to recognize this (not that they should) why does it matter what the judge thinks and why should lawyers care either? Juries decide serious cases and the role of judges in any just society is merely to enforce procedures, and even then they are not required by law to inform juries of the option of jury nullification and are not required to defend their state-protected deontic legitimacy.

Justice Joseph Story of the U.S. Supreme Court once wrote, “Every person accused as a criminal has a right to be tried according to the law of the land—the fixed law of the land, and not by the law as a jury may understand it, or choose, from wantonness or ignorance of accidental mistake, to interpret it.” Justice Story’s outlook has largely prevailed in American courts, and the standard formulation in most jurisdictions today is that though juries do indeed have a very real power to disregard (or “nullify”) a judge’s instructions in reaching a verdict, they are nevertheless duty-bound, morally, to follow those instructions, even though they cannot be punished for violating that duty. The task of a trained judiciary, according to this view, is to interpret complicated laws correctly—something that ordinary citizens are sometimes unequipped to do. The judiciary’s role also goes beyond the mere enforcement of procedures. Instead, judges must interpret complex statutes in the light of case law, and an...