## Facts

- Seven anti–Vietnam War protesters entered Dow Chemical’s Washington, D.C. offices during a demonstration.
- The group scattered papers, damaged office furniture and equipment, and defaced the premises by spilling a blood-like substance.
- The defendants sought to present their own political and moral defense and made timely, unequivocal requests to discharge appointed counsel and represent themselves.
- The district court denied those motions and required appointed counsel to serve as the primary advocates at trial.
- After a jury trial, the defendants were convicted of two counts of malicious destruction of property (over $100) and convicted of unlawful entry as a lesser-included offense; they were acquitted of burglary.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court erred by denying the defendants’ timely and unequivocal motions to proceed pro se (with or without standby counsel).
2. Whether a defendant is entitled to a jury instruction, or to argument, informing jurors they may acquit regardless of the law and evidence (jury nullification).
3. Whether the court’s charge, including supplemental instructions, coerced the jury into returning guilty verdicts.

## Decision

- The court reversed the convictions and remanded for a new trial because the district court wrongly denied the defendants’ timely requests for self-representation.
- The court held that a defendant has no right to a jury-nullification instruction and no right to argue jury nullification to the jury.
- The court rejected the claim that the instructions coerced the jury, finding no impermissible pressure on holdout jurors.

## Legal Principles

- A timely, unequivocal request to represent oneself must be granted; erroneous denial requires reversal and a new trial.
- Although juries have a de facto power to acquit contrary to the law and evidence and such acquittals are not reviewable, that power does not create a defendant entitlement to have the court explain it.
- Trial courts may instruct jurors that they must apply the law as given by the court and may bar defense efforts to urge jurors to disregard the law.
- A supplemental charge is not reversible as coercive absent language or context that overbears jurors’ independent judgment.

## Conclusion

The D.C. Circuit ordered a new trial because the defendants were improperly denied self-representation, while reaffirming that jury nullification may exist as an unreviewable acquittal power but need not be disclosed by instruction or argument, and finding no coercion in the jury charge.


United States v. Dougherty, 473 F.2d 1113 (D.C. Cir. 1972)