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Senate to Take Up Jury Nullification Legislation

The Senate will consider a bill today that would let defense attorneys tell jurors they can acquit a defendant even if there is sufficient evidence proving his guilt.

Yesterday, a day before the Senate would take up the bill, Rep. Susan DeLemus, a Rochester Republican, introduced a similar bill to the House Judiciary Committee… She introduced her bill, she said, because she wasn’t “super clear” if the previous version had actually found support in the Senate. A subcommittee of the Senate has recommended the full Senate pass the proposal.

Click through for the full article.

On January 18th, 2012, two billboards with ads promoting police accountability and Jury Nullification will be displayed in the Richmond area. The initiative is being headed by Nathan Cox, an Army Veteran and activist for the cause of Liberty, during the week of MLK’s birthday.

It was King who stated: “One may well ask How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others? The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”

Dr. King understood well that just because one be in a position of power, doesn’t mean that person will act in a moral way. Two organizations that advocate justice and liberty are being promoted by Nathan Cox, who believes that people have the right to be treated fairly and equally by all, whether you wear a badge or a robe.

The second organization Mr. Cox would like to promote is FIJA (fija.org), or the Fully Informed Jury Association. FIJA is a non profit organization whose goal it is to inform citizens of their rights as a juror and that the juror’s mission should be to “protect fellow citizens from tyrannical abuses of power of government.” It has become the belief that the juror’s sole duty is to help decide the innocence or guilt of a fellow citizen as well as pass down punishment upon them. Jury nullification is one right of a juror that FIJA teaches about. The founders thought it was important for the people to have a counter to bad laws and practices, so made it possible for a jury to acquit defendants who are technically guilty. An example of how jury nullification works is during the time of slavery. Some jurors would refuse to convict people who were supposedly guilty of helping to free a slave. Slavery is immoral and therefore the people felt they needed to use jury nullification to work toward justice for slaves and those who helped them.

Click through for the entire press release.

This is great to put on the backs of brochures or on other Jury Nullification handouts!

Jurors Need to Know That They Can Say No

How one feels about jury nullification ultimately depends on how much confidence one has in the jury system. Based on my experience, I trust jurors a lot. I first became interested in nullification when I prosecuted low-level drug crimes in Washington in 1990. Jurors here, who were predominantly African-American, nullified regularly because they were concerned about racially selective enforcement of the law.

Across the country, crime has fallen, but incarceration rates remain at near record levels. Last year, the New York City police made 50,000 arrests just for marijuana possession. Because prosecutors have discretion over whether to charge a suspect, and for what offense, they have more power than judges over the outcome of a case. They tend to throw the book at defendants, to compel them to plead guilty in return for less harsh sentences. In some jurisdictions, like Washington, prosecutors have responded to jurors who are fed up with their draconian tactics by lobbying lawmakers to take away the right to a jury trial in drug cases. That is precisely the kind of power grab that the Constitution’s framers were so concerned about.

Click through for the entire editorial.

Freedom by Jury

We should be celebrating September 5 with at least as much exuberance and respect as we celebrate July 4 or Thanksgiving. It’s Jury Rights Day.

Little is made of the date. Most people are completely unaware of its historic significance and have never heard that jurors have rights. Yet it was on that date in 1670 when a group of jurors in London used their right and power to invalidate an unjust law.

We can draw a direct link between several of our First Amendment guarantees to jurors who decided that some laws are so bad that they would refuse to convict defendants prosecuted under those laws, even when directed to do so by a presiding judge.

It’s jury nullification. Some jurors risked their own freedom to exercise that right.

Click through to read the entire article.

The Sentence: A Take on the DeChristopher Case

I’m not suggesting that Benson wears jackboots, but the treatment DeChristopher got wasn’t much better than what he’d have received in a Third Reich tribunal. He was prevented from testifying—to any significant degree, anyway—that his motivation was to halt crimes against the environment, to thwart a land grab in which public-land leases were being sold at a fraction of their value (there are no “minimum bids,” and a good-old-boy system may exist among drillers), that he was prevented from later buying the properties he’d won, or that the Interior Department later invalidated most of the leases because environmental-impact studies had not been done and some parcels were within eyeshot of prized national parks.

Another example of unfairness was that the prosecution’s key witnesses said he’d been sent and read a regular flow of press clippings about DeChristopher and his group Peaceful Uprising. The content of those items, however, was never made available to the jury.

I attended the July 26 sentencing hearing expecting more of the same. I was pleasantly surprised, however, that DeChristopher and his attorneys were finally allowed to say what they would have been able to present at trial if we didn’t live in an age when judges can pre-censor exactly what a jury hears and deprive it of material facts needed to come to a fair verdict. The jurors’ historical options should have included the power to void the charges altogether due to the unfairness of the law itself … a basic principle of Common Law called jury nullification.

I won’t go into the details of DeChristopher’s eloquent address, but I thought it had fallen on completely deaf ears since Benson’s remarks that followed were a sermon on the necessity for all citizens to bend to the rule of law and operate only within the system to work for change.

Man Found Guilty Of Violating Anthony Free Speech Zones

An Orange County man who believes jurors can ignore laws they disagree with was sentenced to jail time for his efforts to spread the word about his beliefs.

Judge Belvin Perry found Mark Schmidter guilty of contempt of court charges.

Man who distributed fliers during Casey Anthony trial is sentenced

Roofing contractor Mark Schmidter learned the hard way Tuesday what can happen when you defy the administrative orders of Orange-Osceola Chief Judge Belvin Perry.

Following a trial Tuesday, Perry found Schmidter guilty of “indirect criminal contempt” for violating two such orders. One deals with handing out pamphlets outside the courthouse aimed at influencing jurors. The other prohibits First Amendment activities outside specially designated “free-speech zones.”

Perry sentenced Schmidter, 64, to roughly five months in the Orange County Jail — 141 days for violating his first order, regarding jury pamphlets, and 151 days for his second order, regarding free-speech zones. The sentences are concurrent. Perry also handed him a $250 fine for each violation.

Unfortunately, Schmidter was sentenced to 5 months in jail out of a maximum possible 6 months.

We encourage everyone to obey the unconstitutional orders as long as they are in force, to challenge them through appropriate channels, and to share FIJA’s message with everyone in Orlando and the rest of Florida except for Perry’s tiny turf.

Every once-in-awhile events occur that provide some optimism that real people – rather than the sock-puppets who speak on behalf of institutional interests – have a firm grip on reality. The jury in the Casey Anthony trial did precisely what they were directed to do by the court: deliberated on the evidence presented to them, and concluded that there was not the requisite degree of certitude to allow them to find this woman guilty of the murder charges brought against her.

This was more than the percaled agents of “justice” could take. They know a “guilty” person when they see one: it’s whoever is charged with a crime by the state! The cable-TV bobbleheads – let’s call them Dennis Dullard and Amelia Airhead – began screaming for vengeance, . . . not so much against Ms. Anthony, but against the jurors! Their screeches of rage were echoed by other lobotomized voices, one of whom urged doing away with the jury system altogether. Charles Dickens’ Madame Defarge was resurrected! Another shrieked at the “idiots on the jury,” while another asked the most irrelevant question as it pertained to this defendant: “who killed Caylee then?”

Read more at LewRockwell.com

Recently by Ryan McMaken: Privatize Marriage Now

Perhaps not since the feds hanged Mary Surratt for Abe Lincoln’s assassination have so many been so happy at the thought of seeing a woman lynched. To the outrage of bloodthirsty, bleary-eyed couch potatoes from sea to shining sea, Casey Anthony was found not guilty of the murder of her daughter.

The case itself is far less interesting than the reaction to it. In spite of all the drama that the despicable “news” media attempted to inject into it, the actual trial was humdrum. In typical fashion, the prosecution built its case on mostly circumstantial evidence and on character assassination. The jury concluded that the prosecution had not proven guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. A not-guilty verdict was returned. Case closed.

This is exactly how the legal system is supposed to work. People are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, and guilt must be established beyond a reasonable doubt. We’re not supposed to convict people of capital crimes because we find them distasteful or annoying.

None of that matters to the great American lynch mob, which, not even being present at the trial, finds itself so magnificently insightful and so morally pure, that its shrill cries for justice echo with unparalleled histrionic fervor down the virtual halls of Facebook and Twitter.

But of course, we all know that Anthony was guilty because Nancy Grace told us so. Nancy Grace! Here’s a woman who makes Father Coughlin look like a man possessed of great reason and tolerance. Trotting up endless trains of “experts” who assured us of Anthony’s guilt, and never tiring of providing the most shallow analysis of every moment of the trial, CNN made it clear that had it been around to report on Anne Hutchinson’s trial in 1637, the network would have ensured that no penalty short of public disemboweling would have been suitable for such a loathesome instrument of The Devil. Indeed, Grace herself assured us that “the devil is dancing” over the Anthony verdict. May the gods have mercy on anyone forced to endure Thanksgiving dinner with a woman so shrill and maudlin as this.

And it is the reaction to the verdict that is, by far, the most interesting part of this national carnival of self-righteousness. Following the verdict, celebrities – many of whom are apparently famous for nothing more than being famous – made their solemn pronouncements about the sheer injustice of the trial.

D-List celebrity Vivica Fox, that modern heir of both Cicero and Solon, declared on Twitter that “My heart is ripped apart! How dare those idiots on that Jury not see the truth? That b—- killed her kid! Who the hell killed Caylee then?” Fourth-rate comedian Kevin Nealon said things almost as brilliant.

The pronouncements from the moralists among the non-famous were essentially identical in their moral indignation and in their metaphysical certitude that Anthony is, in fact, the most guilty person since Osama bin Laden. And, since Americans were perfectly fine with killing him when unarmed and in captivity, we surely can find it in our hearts to give Casey Anthony the same treatment.

The moralizing is even more intolerable when considered from a larger context, and the American ideal of “justice” in this case is enforced so selectively as to give even the most cynical observer pause.

The contradictions are so glaring, in fact, that even Rush Limbaugh, for the first time since Bill Clinton left office, said something insightful when he pointed out that had Casey Anthony – assuming she’s guilty – simply killed Caylee five minutes before giving birth to her, Anthony would be hailed as a hero by virtually everyone at CNN.

And of course, how many toddlers have been incinerated by American bombs or poisoned by American depleted uranium in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade? Who cares? Those toddlers didn’t even have the decency to be cute Anglo-Saxons.

But, before we throw a noose over a tree branch for Casey Anthony, there are a few lessons we can first learn from the trial:

Number One: We should take nothing we see in the media at face value: In spite of decades of evidence to the contrary, many people still think that they can make well-informed decisions about things based on what they’re given through television “news” programs. In fact, we the viewers are purely at the mercy of what the anchors and produces want us to see. All of the Americans who think that they followed the case “closely” still have access to only a fraction of the information available to jurors. Even someone who watched every single minute of the trial via live video feed can still only see what the camera is showing at any given minute, and can only hear what the microphones pick up.

In addition, the government has much greater access to the media than the defendant in most cases. From day one of an investigation, the media will generally, without criticism, repeat whatever is said by the police about the suspects. Once the case passes to the hands of the district attorney, the media will then dutifully report whatever is said by the prosecutors. The accused meanwhile is shown to the public through mug shots and in video of being shuttled from jail to the courthouse.

Number Two: Government prosecutors are not to be trusted. Does this point even need to repeated? Prosecutors routinely make prosecutions for political reasons. Cushy political appointments, elected offices and jobs as state and federal judges are at stake. The Duke Lacrosse Team, Tim Masters, and Lisl Auman can tell you all about it. In addition, prosecutors are virtually never held accountable for anything. The disbarment of Michael Nifong is a rare case of this, and his punishment amounts to little more than a slap on the wrist compared to what he wanted to do to the accused.

Number Three: We don’t know how we would react if one of our children ended up dead. The prosecution’s case rested heavily on using Casey Anthony’s strange and distasteful public behavior following the death of her daughter to paint her as a callous murderer. The moralists all declared that “we would never act that way.”

Yet, in real life, people do strange things when under enormous levels of stress, shock, and dismay. Some honest people might willingly admit, that if their children turned up dead, they might go on a three month bender unparalleled in the history of drunkenness. That’s what an honest person might admit, anyway. All of Anthony’s accusers, on the other hand, would no doubt show up to work on time the next morning and swing by the church on the way home and calmly light a candle.

What sort of person would act strangely and erratically following the untimely death of a child? A normal one.

Number Four: Intellectually honest atheists and Christians (and probably many others) agree: There is no true justice in this world. For the Christians, justice comes after this life. For the atheists, there’s no justice in any life, since we’re all just headed for oblivion, and Hitler and Sophie Scholl both ultimately met the same fate.

Thus the public rending of garments and the calls for justice, no matter what the cost, is both dangerous and unrealistic. History is filled with unsolved murders; many of them horrific. They’ll never be solved. The killers will never be brought to justice. Once we include wars in the analysis, the prospects for justice are even more bleak.

The jury felt there wasn’t enough evidence to convict. Should they have convicted anyway so that they could feel good about themselves? Any decent legal system should preclude the possibility of conviction in the face of insufficient evidence. This is why the ancient Jews required that at least two witnesses must agree on what happened. Nothing less could bring convictions. Anything else amounts to heaping one injustice upon another. One of the few commentators on this case not calling for the immediate execution of Casey Anthony noted that:

This case is good for the criminal-justice system and here’s why: if people actually read the jury instructions about reasonable doubt, there would be a lot more acquittals…What this verdict does is demonstrate that unless the prosecution is able to show us how, why, when, and where the crime was committed, a jury is not going reach a decision that could end up sending a defendant to his death.

Unfortunately, the jury members will need to defend themselves from the moral outrage of the likes of Nancy Grace, but they can take heart in the fact that everyone will forget about them once something more interesting comes on TV.

July 8, 2011

Ryan McMaken [send him mail] teaches political science in Colorado.

Copyright © 2011 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

Jury can send message on medical marijuana law

Being on a jury can be one of the greatest experiences of citizenship. It is a duty that you should not take lightly or try to dismiss. As a juror, you have the power to send a message regarding unjust laws. The name for this is jury nullification.

Click through to read the entire letter.

FIJA’s new Fresh Air brochure has been inaugurated to rave reviews and enthusiastic orders. Share it by ordering from the Media Catalog, share it via email with your friends by sending the PDF you can find in the Library, or print you own from that PDF. Share it around! We hope you are enjoying the Fresh Air!

“Citizens in our (once) free republic founded under the English common law system, have both the power and the right to vote according to conscience when they sit on a jury and can vote not guilty even in the face of the law and in the face of the evidence. The defendant also has a right to expect that his jury will be fully informed of their rightful power to vote “not guilty” if they believe justice requires it, regardless of the evidence. Anything less is not a real jury trial.”

Read more here.

“Jury nullification plays a vital role in a healthy legal system. It allows people to vote their conscience and nullify bad laws, thus sending a strong message to legislators. This is how alcohol prohibition was overthrown. This is how marijuana prohibition will be overthrown.”
Read the rest of the article here.

“Without justice, what are kingdoms but great bands of robbers?” – St. Augustine

The jury system is one of the few remaining checks on the system available to those of us who love freedom. We must utilize this tool to the fullest measure if we ever hope to non-violently fight tyranny. Yes, it is a hassle but we needn’t look far to see all the evils visited upon us when this righteous check on tyranny and lunacy is neglected. With freedom comes responsibility. The jury system is the government coming before you asking for permission. In that sense we are not “tainting ourselves by participating in the system” as some would have us believe. Rather it is “The System” coming before us seeking acquiescence and we need not cater to their wishes…

Read more here

Jury nullifies felony pot charge, reduces to misdemeanor

There was little question about whether Robert ‘Bob’ Constantine actually grew marijuana on his property in rural Grafton, but the jurors failed to reach a verdict on the felony charge of manufacturing a ‘controlled substance’.

They opted instead for a lesser misdemeanor conviction. A full acquittal would have been best, of course, but considering the possible outcome, Bob and his friends consider it more of a lesser victory than a lesser defeat.

Bob represented himself, with a public defender at his side, appealing directly to the jurors, always forthright in his communication, always even keeled, and speaking from the heart.

His closing argument included a detailed explanation of the rights and responsibilities of jurors, such as:

1. Jurors are free to vote based on their conscience, and are the conscience of the community; they can vote not guilty if they feel the law is unjust, unfair, oppressive, or otherwise unacceptable;
2. Jurors do not have to come to a unanimous decision; any number of jurors who have reached a firm decision do not have to go with the majority, rather, they can hang the jury for retrial, or
3. Jurors can choose to convict for a lesser offence and/or a lesser punishment.

In Bob’s case, all three of the above saved him from a felony conviction. Instead, he will be serving 60 days in jail, paying a $1000 fine, and be subjected to probation.

Pursuant to the ACLU’s filing to show cause why the Administrative Order issued by Belvin Perry should not be overturned, Perry’s office has filed the response (click here to download and read) which follows my comments.

I am sure that everyone else has already noticed that there is a further attempt to demonize jury nullification by comparing it to devil worship or some such, which is standard practice for almost all government employees in the justice branch of government. It is a well-established and accepted fact that jury nullification does not interfere with the orderly administration of justice, but is instead the primary factor in the administration of justice under our constitutional and common law form of government. That is why we are guaranteed right to the protection of trial by jury. I would refer anyone to the Magna Carta, which establishes human rights under the law and the protection of those rights by the jury. The jury, as we all know, is the substantive and final authority on the application of law, precisely because the jury has the ability to refuse to enforce venal, vicious, or unfair laws or prosecutions which government may attempt to impose upon the people.

There can be no honest or rational appeal (to protection of the orderly administration of justice) against the jury and its inherent rights and obligations to consider the law, consult among fellow jurors as to the propriety and justice of the law and its application, and to render a verdict which manifests justice. Without such inherent rights and obligations of the jurors, government could pass any over-reaching or venal law desired, and the people would be helpless against that law. The private and final deliberations of the jurors and the verdict they render, is the orderly administration of justice.  To deny this fact is to betray the very foundation of our justice system.

For a government employee to prohibit the free speech education of any person—whether a juror or not—about the rights of jurors and potential jurors to peacefully protect themselves from harmful  laws is a violation of human rights.  To limit the rights of anyone to teach the authority of the jurors anywhere is a contradiction of the intent, scope, and application of justice under the right to trial by jury.

Again, one cannot argue for the “orderly administration of justice,” which has, at its foundation, the informed and independent juror, while arguing against providing the jurors with this knowledge of their authority and proper role in our justice system.  One cannot, in good faith or honesty, argue against providing that information to all jurors in any instance, at any time or place. Quite the contrary: under our system of justice, all jurors should be informed of this authority at the time they are first requested to serve on jury duty.

Government servants such as Belvin Perry, who are our servants and employees, have forgotten their place.

Iloilo Marguerite Jones

Yakima jury acquits medical marijuana grower

It took a superior court jury in Yakima just 25 minutes Thursday to acquit a man accused of having too many plants at a medical marijuana dispensary.

Man Acquitted in Medicinal Marijuana Case

A Yakima man arrested last year for growing 200 marijuana plants in his home, is acquitted of drug charges this week… Hicks stood trial for charges of possesion [sic] of marijuana with intent to deliver, and possession of more than 40 grams of a controlled substance.

Kirsten Tynan, of the Fully Informed Jury Association, discusses jury nullification, the power by which everyday Americans can end the war against cannabis.

Judge Perry’s unlawful order can be found here (pdf). FIJA’s letter to the judge, as well as Florida’s governor and attorney general, questioning this unlawful order can be found here. FIJA’s media release concerning potential legal action in the event of an unsatisfactory response to the letter can be found here.

Jurors are so convinced that a Cleveland teen should not have been charged with assaulting another teen that they’ve gone beyond acquitting him. A few are writing angry letters to police and intend to donate their jury pay to him.

McCloud was charged with leading a gang of teens that beat a Martin Luther King Jr. High School student and threatened him with a gun Oct. 13 a little after 1 p.m. as the student walked home from the Shaker Square rapid station. McCloud had been in jail since that night awaiting trial.

Jurors said the case against McCloud on charges of kidnapping and felonious assault quickly evaporated in the courtroom of Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Michael Astrab.

As they were leaving the courthouse, jurors Ana de Freitas Boe, an English professor at Baldwin-Wallace College; Jeanne Knotek, an obstetrician and gynecologist; and alternate juror Richard Nagin discussed ways to help McCloud.

The three have committed to donating their jury stipend to a fund for McCloud. Boe said the amount is too small to compensate McCloud for his jail time, but the jurors intend it as a “show of support.”

Apparently, this defendant isn’t the first in the area to have suffered malicious and abusive prosecution by government officials:

Last November, The Plain Dealer reported that Cuyahoga County Prosecutor William Mason had pursued criminal charges against hundreds of people over the last 10 years with little or no evidence against them.

Juror nullification happens any time a jury refuses to enforce a misguided prosecution, a bad law, or a misapplied law. Nullification can happen in any instance when jurors exercise their authority to protect someone from any over-reaching government action. We applaud these jurors for not only protecting this defendant from abusive prosecution, but for going the extra mile to restore him at least partially.

Hello Ilo, On my way to talk to the students at USF today, I received a phone call from Anthony Colarossi, Senior Reporter at the Orlando Sentinel. Mr. Colarossi started asking me questions about the recent administrative order, (which is attached) made by Chief Judge Belvin Perry, Jr. on Monday, January 31, 2011. I explained that I did not know about this order, but obviously the educational materials that are handed out have struck a nerve with the judicial system.

The order (click here for the full document in pdf format) states among other things:

NOW THEREFORE, I, Belvin Perry, Jr., in order to facilitate the efficient administration of justice, pursuant to the authority vested in me as Chief Judge of the Ninth Judicial Circuit of Florida under Florida Rule of Judicial Administration 2.215, hereby order the following, effective immediately, and to continue until further order:
1. The dissemination of all leaflets and other materials to summoned jurors containing written or pictorial information tending to influence summoned jurors, as well as approaching a summoned juror for the purpose of displaying a sign to, or engaging in oral protest, education or counseling with information tending to influence summoned jurors on any matter, question, cause, or proceeding which may be pending, or which may by law be brought, before him or her as such juror, shall be prohibited on the Orange County Courthouse complex grounds.
The term “courthouse complex” and any restrictions on expressive conduct contained herein shall apply to the Orange County Courthouse complex grounds, which includes the adjacent courthouse parking garage, the courthouse courtyard, and all other grounds surrounding the courthouse, from the intersection of Orange Avenue and Livingston Street, to the intersection of Livingston Street and Magnolia Avenue, to the intersection of Magnolia Avenue and Amelia Street, to the intersection of Amelia Street and Orange Avenue, to the intersection of Orange Avenue and Livingston Street. The public sidewalks that comprise the boundaries of this designated perimeter are excluded from this designation of the courthouse complex grounds.
2. The dissemination of all leaflets and other materials to summoned jurors containing written or pictorial information tending to influence summoned jurors, as well as approaching a summoned juror for the purpose of displaying a sign to, or engaging in oral protest, education or counseling with information tending to influence summoned jurors on any matter, question, cause, or proceeding which may be pending, or which may by law be brought, before him or her as such juror, shall be prohibited on the Osceola County Courthouse complex grounds.
The term “courthouse complex” and any restrictions on expressive conduct contained herein shall apply to the Osceola County Courthouse complex grounds, which includes the adjacent courthouse parking lot, the courthouse courtyard, and all other grounds surrounding the courthouse, from the intersection of Bryan Street and Rose Avenue, to the intersection of Rose Avenue and Patrick Street, to the intersection of Patrick Street and Bryan Street, to the intersection of Bryan Street and Rose Avenue. The public sidewalks that comprise the boundaries of this designated perimeter are excluded from this designation of the courthouse complex grounds.
3. Regardless of whether the conduct at issue occurs on the courthouse complex grounds, any person who influences the judgment or decision of any grand or petit juror on any matter, question, cause, or proceeding which may be pending, or which may by law be brought, before him or her as such juror, with intent to obstruct the administration of justice, may be in violation of section 918.12, Florida Statutes.
4. Anyone engaging in the type of expressive conduct as contemplated by this Order may be in violation of section 918.12, Florida Statutes, and/or may be found in contempt of court.

This appears to be an intimidation tactic by a bully issued under color of law to circumvent the First, Fifth, and Seventh Amendments to the United States Constitution. While it may be more convenient for the court to have a jury that is easily steered by orders from the bench and selective filtering of the information it is permitted access to, it is NOT the purpose of a jury merely to rubber stamp the decision it is led to by the government. Were this the case, a jury would not be needed at all.

Rather, it is the primary function of the independent juror to protect his or her fellow citizens- both the defendant and the rest of us who will be affected by the outcome of the case and the legal precedent it will set- from abuse by government. As the only people (aside from the defendant) involved in the court proceedings who are not making a living by perpetuating the system as dictated by government officials, jurors have not only a right, but a responsibility, to act independently- to think for themselves, to consult their consciences in deliberations, to judging the fairness and applicability of the law as well as the facts of the case , and to deliver justice when rendering a verdict.

FIJA is an educational organization that seeks to inform jurors of their right and responsibility to deliver justice in all cases where they sit in judgment of another human being. FIJA does not seek to influence jurors in any particular case. Our campaign in Florida, as everywhere else, has been a general educational outreach effort to ALL potential jurors including distributing brochures near courthouses and on college campuses, speaking with community groups around the state, and so on to reach all members of the community. FIJA Director Iloilo Jones invites the judge to review any and all of the FIJA literature (available in our Library) and to point out any instance of such influence or of undue disregard for the functions of the court.

Although we just received word of this late last night, FIJA staff has been hard at work this morning:
1. Roger Roots, a member of our Advisory Board, is reviewing the document and our legal options for challenging this unlawful order.
2. We have begun fundraising efforts to support a legal challenge to the order. If you would like to contribute to FIJA’s efforts, information on making a contribution via our website, my telephone, or by mail is located here.
3. We are asking ALL FIJA activists in Florida to suspend ALL educational activity in the immediate vicinity of the courthouse which this order covers, until this administrative order, which is a heinous, unlawful, corrupt violation of human rights, can be challenged and set aside.
4. Instead, we are requesting that all FIJA activists, in Florida and elsewhere, distribute the brochure located here. Note: The point of this flyer is NOT educational outreach material. This flyer does not address jurors, nor does it discuss the issue of jury nullification. Rather, this flyer is directed to Judge Belvin Perry, Jr. and challenges the legality of his administrative order. We also ask that everyone, everywhere continue to distribute all other FIJA literature, except near the courthouse which is under this draconian order.

Our goal is always, in whatever we do, NOT to give the government the pleasure and satisfaction of arresting peaceful people. Our goal is to embarrass them by pointing out the contradictions of their own actions.

As they transpire, we will post further developments in our efforts to get this draconian order rescinded. If you would like to discuss this situation, we invite you to join us on our Discussion Forum.

Legislation would empower jurors
by Bob Constantine, Grafton

Presently, judges have a great deal of unchecked discretion, some would say too much discretion, when considering whether they will allow jury nullification information and arguments to be brought up in “their” courtroom. If it’s a juror’s right to nullify, why shouldn’t jurors be informed? Why don’t they want you to know?

Too often the “impartial” judge seems to favor the state and its prosecutors. Some would say judges have leaned toward aiding the state in obtaining a guilty finding when no victim or no identifiable harm occurred.

Should HB 146 pass, the power and the knowledge of that power of our right to judge our peers will return to where it rightfully belongs: you, the juror.

Click through to read the entire letter and add your comment at the bottom if you would like.