I support the principle of jury nullification, though with the caveat that it has been badly used by both black juries to let off blatantly guilty perpetrators from the neighborhood, AND historically by whites to protect white perpetrators against black victims.
OTOH, the principle also remains that an individual should be tried in the jurisdiction in which he is accused of committing the crime. This was made into law in the Constitution specifically because colonists were being brought back to England for trials, and that was happening as a workaround against jury nullification. Clearly the Founding Fathers understood that, and still chose to err on the side of jurisdiction.
What I will say to that is that the arresting officer can decline to arrest, the prosecutor can decline to prosecute, the judge can throw the case out, the president or governor can grant clemency. The legal system allows leniency at at almost every point but legal scholars argue that juries can't decide that a conviction would be unjust, and I guess I will always disagree. The abuse you describe is also possible at each of the other steps along the way I mention, and no one serious suggests taking away, say, a judge's ability to declare a mistrial.
That said, with the technology so widely available, officers with nothing to hide should be embracing it. If they can be trained to call out the registration of every car they approach on foot, they can be trained to switch on their body cameras at the onset of a confrontation or even casual encounter.
I wish we could trust police to do the right thing, but in too many cases we simply cannot. I'm fine with police being able to turn the cameras off for lunch or a bathroom break or whatever, but while they're on duty those cameras should be ON.
Thanks
