December 2014 LSAT Section 4 Question 17

Under the legal doctrine of jury nullification, a jury may legitimately acquit a defendant it believes violated a law...

manvir on December 25, 2019

Why is C wrong?

I thought one of the premises was that objectivity is necessary. So if jurors are unable to make a decision without their biases affecting it isn't the author arguing that the premise is false?

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tomgbean on January 1, 2020

The author says juries "often make serious mistakes." He doesn't say that juries cannot make a decision without biases.

BenMingov on January 14, 2020

Hi Manvir, thanks for the question!

There are two points that I think are worth making based on your question. Firstly, I will second what Tomgbean said about the author never stating nor implying that juries cannot make unbiased decisions.

Additionally, the statement about objectivity being necessary is not attacked. The author is not saying that the doctrine does not rely on objectivity (this would attack the premise), rather the author is stating that if it relies on objectivity and objectivity isn't always the case, then there is too much room for error. This would be the undesirable consequences referred to in the correct answer choice.

This is why answer choice C is incorrect. Because there is no attempt to show that a premise is false.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any other questions.