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September 5th Jury Rights daySubmitted by Bill St. Clair on Thu, 2008-09-04 00:11.
For Immediate release ### Friday marks the 338th anniversary of when jurors refused to convict William Penn of violating England's Conventicle Acts, despite clear evidence that he acted illegally by preaching a Quaker sermon. In refusing to convict Penn, the jurors ignored what they knew to be an unjust law. This is known as jury nullification. By refusing to enforce what they knew was an unjust law, the Penn jurors served justice, and provided a basis for our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, religion, and peaceable assembly. For refusing to find Penn guilty, the judge sent four of Penn's jurors to prison. Their exoneration fixed forever the English and American doctrine that jurors have the responsibility to decide both matters of law and fact in any case before them. Individual jurors are last line of defense for people who are prosecuted under bad laws by overzealous prosecutors and court officials. The Founders intended that jurors would use their rights and responsibilities to judge the law and the facts in every trial, and do justice. The Sixth and Seventh Amendments were included in the Bill of Rights to guarantee that every person brought to trial has Juror Protection. Juror nullification is integral to our judicial system. It is one of the "checks and balances" of justice required by a free society. An individual juror has the authority to stop an unjust prosecution by refusing to convict. No reason for the verdict is required. Most Grand and Petit Jurors do not know about their authority. This authority must be restored to protect us. Our Founders embraced juror nullification as necessary to a free society. Nullification is the test that all laws must pass. Juror nullification has been used by jurors throughout our history to "nullify" unpopular and unjust laws, ranging from laws against witches, publishing the truth, free speech, religion, hiding slaves, and Prohibition. The Fully Informed Jury Association (www.fija.org) is dedicated to educating all Americans about the authority of the Juror. FIJA publishes and distributes educational material but depends upon grassroots activists to inform jurors of their rights and to undertake state-level lobbying or ballot-issue efforts. ### Contact: add new comment | quote | 246 reads
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BlogrollLewRockwell.comQuotesEvery man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission. -- L. Neil Smith Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings. -- L. Neil Smith Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents. -- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report (PDF) on gun control laws Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap") "A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim." -- L. Neil Smith Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP" Why Did It Have to be... Guns? Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put. If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you. If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims. What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him? -- L. Neil Smith "Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you." -- Mike Vanderboegh The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war. -- Bill St. Clair TTLB |
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