FOR PUBLICATION    
            
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT:            ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE:

LEANNA WEISSMAN                STEVE CARTER
Lawrenceburg, IN                    Attorney General of Indiana
                            
                MARTHA WARREN-ROSENFELD
                Deputy Attorney General
                    Indianapolis, Indiana
_____________________________________________________________________________        

WILLIAM O. MEEKS,                           )
                                                 )
Appellant-Defendant,                             )                                                    )
        vs.                                      )    No. 39A05-0106-CR-262
                                                 )
STATE OF INDIANA,                                )
                                                 )
Appellee-Plaintiff.                              )

                                             
APPEAL FROM THE JEFFERSON CIRCUIT COURT
 

Our state constitution also intentionally allows you latitude to refuse to enforce the law’s harshness when justice so requires. This should not be taken lightly nor exercised whimsically, but only exercised upon a sincere and solemn belief that justice of this case requires its application.

Appellant’s App. at 74. The trial court instructed the jury on the first paragraph, but not the second paragraph, of Meeks’s tendered jury instruction. Subsequently, the jury found Meeks guilty as charged. In determining Meeks’s sentence, the trial court considered the mitigating factors that he had led a law-abiding life for almost eight years, that his purpose for violating the law was benign, that Meeks was a kind and generous person who meant no harm by his actions, and that his actions had neither caused nor threatened harm. Appellant’s App. at 109. The trial court then sentenced Meeks to the minimum sentence of two years imprisonment.See footnote Meeks now appeals.

Rucker, supra, at 481. In his article, Justice Rucker examines the historical circumstances that gave rise to the concept of jury nullification articulated in Article I, Section 19. He traces the common law principle of jury nullification to its English roots in Bushell’s Case, 124 Eng. Rep. 1006 (C.P. 1670)—the post-medieval trial of William Penn and William Meade. See footnote Id. at 449. The jury in Bushell’s Case refused to convict Penn and Meade for unlawful assembly after they delivered speeches at a Quaker meeting in London, England. See footnote Id. at 449-50. Even after the court ordered that the jury be deprived of food, water, and heat until it returned a guilty verdict, the jury held out and refused to return the verdict requested by the court. Id. at 450-51. As a result, the court fined and imprisoned the jurors until, on a writ of habeas corpus, the justices abolished the practice of punishing juries for their verdicts. Id. at 451.
The principle of Bushell’s Case—the jury’s right to protect citizens from oppressive government—was observed in colonial and post-revolution America. See footnote Id. at 452. According to Justice Rucker, in drafting Article I, Section 19 of our State constitution, the framers intended to preserve this right of ordinary citizens to check and control the power of the government. Id. at 477. Justice Rucker states:
Certainly the jury’s right to determine the law meant something to the framers. If it did not mean that the jury could alter, abolish, or amend the law, and if it did not mean that the jury could set aside the law on the basis of having a differing opinion of what the law was, then what did it mean? Considering the apparent purpose for which the provision was adopted, as informed by the history of Indiana’s constitutional scheme, one may reasonably conclude that it means the jury has a right not to apply the law when their conscience so dictates.

Id. Meeks contends that Justice Rucker’s interpretation of Article I, Section 19 is proper, and that disallowing the jury “to alleviate the harshness of the law if justice so dictates is contrary to the language and intent of the framers of our constitution.” Appellant’s brief at 8.
It is apparent from the proliferation of case law on the subject of jury nullification, that our supreme court has engaged in an extensive and in-depth analysis of this issue. The court has carefully scrutinized the text, intent, and historical underpinnings of Article I, Section 19, and, since it decided Fleenor in 1987, has adhered to the principle that the constitutional right of the jury to determine the law in criminal cases does not include the right to disregard or ignore the law as it exists. See Canaan v. State, 541 N.E.2d 894, 910 (Ind. 1989); Bivins v. State, 642 N.E.2d 928, 946 (Ind. 1994). While this court is permitted to criticize supreme court precedent, we are constrained not to offer such criticism where, as here, there has been recent and repeated articulation of the same principle. Accordingly, we decline Meeks’s invitation to criticize our supreme court’s ruling on jury nullification and hold that the trial court properly instructed the jury regarding its rights and obligations under the Indiana Constitution. Thus, we conclude that the trial court did not err in refusing to give Meeks’s tendered instruction on jury nullification.
Affirmed.
NAJAM, J., and BAILEY, J., concur.