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"Jury acquittals in the colonial, abolitionist, and postbellum eras of the United States helped advance insurgent aims and hamper government efforts at social control. Widespread jury acquittals or hung juries during the Vietnam War might have had the same effect. But the refusal of judges in trials of antiwar protesters to inform juries of their power to disregard the law helped ensure convictions, which in turn frustrated antiwar goals and protected the government from the many repercussions that acquittals or hung juries would have brought." Steven E. Barkan, Jury Nullification in Political Trials, Social Problems, 31, No.1,38, October, 1983.
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