[btilly]

It’s a property of the system, not a intentionally designed feature.

It was not intentionally designed into common law, but when the Constitution specified when trial by jury should be used, it was widely understood that this was the power that juries had. And this was approved of by the founding fathers. For instance Thomas Jefferson said, "I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution."

Therefore jury nullification may be an accidental property of common law, but it is NOT an accidental property of the US system of law.