FIJA, etc.
Mark Pitcavage
DejaNews, but failed.
So, with apologies, let me clear something up raised several days ago:
I do not consider the EFF "extremist," but had them on my links page
because they had archived several articles about the militia movement.
I do consider the FIJA "extremist," for a variety of reasons,
including the people who started it, many of the people who continue
to make it up, its goals, its tactics (including illegal ones), and
the effects of jury nullification, particularly when it is used to get
white supremacists and anti-government bombers, etc., out of jail.
Mark Pitcavage, Ph.D.
The Militia Watchdog, http://www.militia-watchdog.org
Mark Jones
<spa...@militia-watchdog.org> spake thusly:
>I tried to find the earlier thread I accidentally came across in
>DejaNews, but failed.
>
>So, with apologies, let me clear something up raised several days ago:
>
>I do not consider the EFF "extremist," but had them on my links page
>because they had archived several articles about the militia movement.
>
>I do consider the FIJA "extremist," for a variety of reasons,
>including the people who started it, many of the people who continue
>to make it up, its goals, its tactics (including illegal ones), and
>the effects of jury nullification, particularly when it is used to get
>white supremacists and anti-government bombers, etc., out of jail.
Name three. Demonstrate that jury nullification was the reason they
walked.
Mark Pitcavage
wrote:
The 1996 trial of the Spokane Phineas Priests, which resulted in a
mistrial thanks to one sympathetic juror who refused to convict, no
matter what.
You should not be surprised at this; after all, in the extreme right
jury nullification is routinely suggested as a way to avoid being
convicted for anti-government crimes ranging from tax evasion to bomb
plots. The extreme right encourages its members to always get on
juries so that they can vote not to convict, and often engages in
attempts at jury tampering, such as passing out copies of the
so-called "citizen's handbook" to potential jurors at
extremist-related trials, so much so that court security personnel are
routinely warned to watch out for it. Some extremists manage to get
hold of whole jury lists so they can send nullification propaganda to
everybody who might be in the jury of a case involving a comrade in
arms.
The founding fathers of the jury nullification movement include some
of the most prominent right-wing extremists in the country, including
white supremacist Red Beckman. Indeed, the prominence of white
supremacists in the movement led Jewish member Nancy Lord, the 1988
vice presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party, to resign from
FIJA. The FIJGA, the other main nullificationist group, seems to
include an even higher percentage of hard-core right-wing
supremacists.
The jury nullification movement is a very interesting mix. Hardcore
anti-government extremists, potheads, and a few mixed-up idealists.
Aaron M. Renn
>The 1996 trial of the Spokane Phineas Priests, which resulted in a
>mistrial thanks to one sympathetic juror who refused to convict, no
>matter what.
Uh, in this case all that would result would be a retrial. Holdout jurors
are not always nullifiers either. In a very prominent internet child sex
case here in Chicago, the original trial was an 11-1 hung jury. A
friend of mine was on the jury and said that the holdout was upset about
not being made jury foreman, and simply refused to deliberate or
reconsider his decision. A retrial resulted in a conviction I believe.
>You should not be surprised at this; after all, in the extreme right
>jury nullification is routinely suggested as a way to avoid being
>convicted for anti-government crimes ranging from tax evasion to bomb
>plots.
Actually, the left is probably as much or more involved in the jury
nullification movement. Witness the calls for black jurors to acquit
black drug defendants and such based on the US legal system's supposed
racist nature.
>The extreme right encourages its members to always get on
>juries so that they can vote not to convict, and often engages in
>attempts at jury tampering, such as passing out copies of the
>so-called "citizen's handbook" to potential jurors at
>extremist-related trials, so much so that court security personnel are
>routinely warned to watch out for it. Some extremists manage to get
>hold of whole jury lists so they can send nullification propaganda to
>everybody who might be in the jury of a case involving a comrade in
>arms.
Is there something wrong with handing out leaflets in front of a public
building? Personally, I think telling people about their rights
as jurors (something the judge will never do) is a great thing.
Do you hate Miranda warnings and the ACLU "bust card" too? I consider
these essentially similar.
I am from Indiana originally, and our state constitution explicitly
states that a jury has the right to decide the law and the facts.
I haven't seen judges going out of their way to point that out though.
There's a thought: we need to read jurors their rights before sending
them in to deliberate.
>Mark Pitcavage, Ph.D.
>The Militia Watchdog, http://www.militia-watchdog.org
Ah, now I understand why you are seeing right wing nuts behind every
tree.
--
Aaron M. Renn (ar...@urbanophile.com) http://www.urbanophile.com/arenn/
Aaron M. Renn
Vicki Rosenzweig
>On Sat, 08 Jan 2000 04:27:59 GMT, Mark Pitcavage <spa...@militia-watchdog.org> wrote:
<snip>
>
>>The extreme right encourages its members to always get on
>>juries so that they can vote not to convict, and often engages in
>>attempts at jury tampering, such as passing out copies of the
>>so-called "citizen's handbook" to potential jurors at
>>extremist-related trials, so much so that court security personnel are
>>routinely warned to watch out for it. Some extremists manage to get
>>hold of whole jury lists so they can send nullification propaganda to
>>everybody who might be in the jury of a case involving a comrade in
>>arms.
>
>Is there something wrong with handing out leaflets in front of a public
>building? Personally, I think telling people about their rights
>as jurors (something the judge will never do) is a great thing.
>Do you hate Miranda warnings and the ACLU "bust card" too? I consider
>these essentially similar.
>
It depends, I think, on what the leaflets say. It's certainly
*legal* to hand out leaflets in front of a public building,
but that doesn't make it either (a) moral or (b) advisable.
For an extreme case: how would you feel about someone handing
out leaflets urging jurors to acquit all rape defendants on
the grounds that women's testimony shouldn't be used against
a man? Or urging them to acquit all, and only, white defendants
because white people didn't deserve to go to jail, no matter
what they'd done?
A fair trial is one whose outcome is not preordained. An honest
juror should not, when s/he walks into the courthouse before
being seated on a jury, have decided how s/he will vote.
A defendant has the right to a jury that will consider the
case, rather than convicting because the prosecution wants
it or because the defendant has the wrong color skin; the rest
of us have the right to a jury that will consider the case
rather than acquitting because the defendant has the right
color skin.
All else aside, as a practical matter, if any substantial
group of people becomes convinced that the murder of one of
their number will go unpunished, you have a recipe for riots
and vigilante justice. And if any substantial group becomes
convinced that a murder *by* one of their number will go
unpunished, you have a recipe for the breakdown of civil order.
>I am from Indiana originally, and our state constitution explicitly
>states that a jury has the right to decide the law and the facts.
>I haven't seen judges going out of their way to point that out though.
>
>There's a thought: we need to read jurors their rights before sending
>them in to deliberate.
>
>>Mark Pitcavage, Ph.D.
>>The Militia Watchdog, http://www.militia-watchdog.org
>
>Ah, now I understand why you are seeing right wing nuts behind every
>tree.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig | v...@redbird.org
r.a.sf.f faq at http://www.redbird.org/rassef-faq.html
Sue Mason for TAFF!
Aaron M. Renn
>>Is there something wrong with handing out leaflets in front of a public
>>building? Personally, I think telling people about their rights
>>as jurors (something the judge will never do) is a great thing.
>>Do you hate Miranda warnings and the ACLU "bust card" too? I consider
>>these essentially similar.
>>
>It depends, I think, on what the leaflets say. It's certainly
>*legal* to hand out leaflets in front of a public building,
>but that doesn't make it either (a) moral or (b) advisable.
>For an extreme case: how would you feel about someone handing
>out leaflets urging jurors to acquit all rape defendants on
>the grounds that women's testimony shouldn't be used against
>a man? Or urging them to acquit all, and only, white defendants
>because white people didn't deserve to go to jail, no matter
>what they'd done?
True enough. But in this country those people who use their right of
free speech to expound views people find morally objectionable
usually only marginalize themselves. The KKK comes to mind here.
Do you honestly think that a leaflet urging someone to acquit all rape
defendants would really cause that to happen?
>A fair trial is one whose outcome is not preordained. An honest
>juror should not, when s/he walks into the courthouse before
>being seated on a jury, have decided how s/he will vote.
>A defendant has the right to a jury that will consider the
>case, rather than convicting because the prosecution wants
>it or because the defendant has the wrong color skin; the rest
>of us have the right to a jury that will consider the case
>rather than acquitting because the defendant has the right
>color skin.
True again. But fully informed jury advocates (which would include
me, though I'm not affiliated with any organizations on this) don't
want people to pre-judge cases. Rather, they want juries to know
that they are not legally bound to make a decision based on the
judge's instructions if in their judgement that decision would be
wrong. No jury should feel obligated to convict under an unjust law.
Juries are (in my opinion) a vital part of the system of checks and
balances in American governance. High school civic classes tend to
focus on the checks and balances among the three branches of the federal
government, but there are others as well. The relationship between
the states and the federal gov't in our federalistic system, for
example. And the rights of the people: the right to vote for elected
office holders, free speech rights, and the requirement for people to
be convicted by a jury of their peers. The jury box is (or could be)
as powerful a part of the system of checks and balances as judicial review.
>All else aside, as a practical matter, if any substantial
>group of people becomes convinced that the murder of one of
>their number will go unpunished, you have a recipe for riots
>and vigilante justice. And if any substantial group becomes
>convinced that a murder *by* one of their number will go
>unpunished, you have a recipe for the breakdown of civil order.
Only if you feel that the unanimous verdict of 12 people from the
community is likely to be viewed as unfair by that community. I
personally don't think so.
Avram Grumer
<v...@redbird.org> wrote:
> A fair trial is one whose outcome is not preordained. An honest
> juror should not, when s/he walks into the courthouse before
> being seated on a jury, have decided how s/he will vote.
> A defendant has the right to a jury that will consider the
> case, rather than convicting because the prosecution wants
> it or because the defendant has the wrong color skin; the rest
> of us have the right to a jury that will consider the case
> rather than acquitting because the defendant has the right
> color skin.
There are some trials whose outcomes _should_ be preordained. If someone
is on trial for, say, creating an offensive comic book, I'd be delighted
if the court were unable to find jurists who were willing to convict.
--
Avram Grumer | av...@bigfoot.com | http://www.bigfoot.com/~avram/
If music be the food of love, then some of it be the Twinkies of
dysfunctional relationships.
Mark Pitcavage
wrote:
>On Sat, 08 Jan 2000 04:27:59 GMT, Mark Pitcavage <spa...@militia-watchdog.org> wrote:
>>The 1996 trial of the Spokane Phineas Priests, which resulted in a
>>mistrial thanks to one sympathetic juror who refused to convict, no
>>matter what.
>
>Uh, in this case all that would result would be a retrial.
It did result in a mistrial, and thank god, they were convicted in the
subsequent trial, where attorneys were much more careful during jury
selection.
>Holdout jurors
>are not always nullifiers either. In a very prominent internet child sex
>case here in Chicago, the original trial was an 11-1 hung jury. A
>friend of mine was on the jury and said that the holdout was upset about
>not being made jury foreman, and simply refused to deliberate or
>reconsider his decision. A retrial resulted in a conviction I believe.
This was nullification; the extreme right actively promotes
nullification for just such events.
>>You should not be surprised at this; after all, in the extreme right
>>jury nullification is routinely suggested as a way to avoid being
>>convicted for anti-government crimes ranging from tax evasion to bomb
>>plots.
>
>Actually, the left is probably as much or more involved in the jury
>nullification movement. Witness the calls for black jurors to acquit
>black drug defendants and such based on the US legal system's supposed
>racist nature.
I subscribe to several jury nullification publications, and with the
exception of various potheads, it is difficult to see many signs of
the left in them.
>>The extreme right encourages its members to always get on
>>juries so that they can vote not to convict, and often engages in
>>attempts at jury tampering, such as passing out copies of the
>>so-called "citizen's handbook" to potential jurors at
>>extremist-related trials, so much so that court security personnel are
>>routinely warned to watch out for it. Some extremists manage to get
>>hold of whole jury lists so they can send nullification propaganda to
>>everybody who might be in the jury of a case involving a comrade in
>>arms.
>
>Is there something wrong with handing out leaflets in front of a public
>building? Personally, I think telling people about their rights
>as jurors (something the judge will never do) is a great thing.
>Do you hate Miranda warnings and the ACLU "bust card" too? I consider
>these essentially similar.
In the first place, they are not "juror rights." In the second place,
when you hand out material to the jury pool before a case asserting to
them that they can refuse to convict, and hinting that they should, it
is jury tampering.
Mark Pitcavage
wrote:
>I am from Indiana originally, and our state constitution explicitly
>states that a jury has the right to decide the law and the facts.
>I haven't seen judges going out of their way to point that out though.
There is a big difference between "determining the law" and deciding
to ignore it because you don't like it, which is what jury
nullification argues.
Scraps deSelby
Hey Mr Pitman, this is he who used to be t.weber7, though I travel under a
different label these days. Good to see you, and hope you stick around.
--Scraps
--
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Soren deSelby, Manager on Duty
scraps....@mtvmail.com
scr...@speakeasy.org
"These days, sincerity isn't kid stuff -- self-referentiality is."
--Robert Christgau
Mark Jones
<spa...@militia-watchdog.org> spake thusly:
>On Sat, 08 Jan 2000 03:22:49 GMT, sin...@pacifier.com (Mark Jones)
>wrote:
>
>>And yea, verily, on Fri, 07 Jan 2000 23:12:02 GMT, Mark Pitcavage
>><spa...@militia-watchdog.org> spake thusly:
>>
>>>I tried to find the earlier thread I accidentally came across in
>>>DejaNews, but failed.
>>>
>>>So, with apologies, let me clear something up raised several days ago:
>>>
>>>I do not consider the EFF "extremist," but had them on my links page
>>>because they had archived several articles about the militia movement.
>>>
>>>I do consider the FIJA "extremist," for a variety of reasons,
>>>including the people who started it, many of the people who continue
>>>to make it up, its goals, its tactics (including illegal ones), and
>>>the effects of jury nullification, particularly when it is used to get
>>>white supremacists and anti-government bombers, etc., out of jail.
>>
>>Name three. Demonstrate that jury nullification was the reason they
>>walked.
>
>The 1996 trial of the Spokane Phineas Priests, which resulted in a
>mistrial thanks to one sympathetic juror who refused to convict, no
>matter what.
Well, that's one.
>You should not be surprised at this; after all, in the extreme right
>jury nullification is routinely suggested as a way to avoid being
>convicted for anti-government crimes ranging from tax evasion to bomb
>plots. The extreme right encourages its members to always get on
>juries so that they can vote not to convict, and often engages in
>attempts at jury tampering, such as passing out copies of the
>so-called "citizen's handbook" to potential jurors at
>extremist-related trials, so much so that court security personnel are
>routinely warned to watch out for it. Some extremists manage to get
>hold of whole jury lists so they can send nullification propaganda to
>everybody who might be in the jury of a case involving a comrade in
>arms.
They may encourage their members to get on juries, but since they
don't decide who gets called, and since they're a tiny minority, I
don't see a horrendous threat there. Nor do I see anything wrong
with telling potential jurors about their right to refuse to convict
someone under laws they consider unconstitutional or otherwise
unjust.
Cops have discretion on whom to arrest and on what charges.
Prosecutors have discretion on whom to indict and whether or not to
press charges. Judges have all sorts of authority. The notion that
jurors should be free to refuse to act as a rubber stamp for
whatever charges the state chooses to make--to exercise discretion
in _their_ official capacity--doesn't fill me with dread.
>The founding fathers of the jury nullification movement include some
>of the most prominent right-wing extremists in the country, including
>white supremacist Red Beckman. Indeed, the prominence of white
>supremacists in the movement led Jewish member Nancy Lord, the 1988
>vice presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party, to resign from
>FIJA. The FIJGA, the other main nullificationist group, seems to
>include an even higher percentage of hard-core right-wing
>supremacists.
That's Nancy Lord's choice, of course. That "extremists" are behind
the jury nullification movement doesn't alter the fact that jurors
have historically exercised that option, and have every right to do
so.
Mark Jones
<spa...@militia-watchdog.org> spake thusly:
>On 8 Jan 2000 21:21:35 GMT, ar...@urbanophile.com (Aaron M. Renn)
>wrote:
>
>
>>I am from Indiana originally, and our state constitution explicitly
>>states that a jury has the right to decide the law and the facts.
>>I haven't seen judges going out of their way to point that out though.
>
>There is a big difference between "determining the law" and deciding
>to ignore it because you don't like it, which is what jury
>nullification argues.
According to SCOTUS an unconstitutional law is "null and void" from
the moment it is enacted. If a juror believes that a particular law
is unconstitutional, he _should_ ignore it. And refuse to convict
anyone for violating the law, since it has no legal authority.
In whose opinion? Why--his, of course. That's why he's in the jury
room.
Mark Jones
Rosenzweig <v...@redbird.org> spake thusly:
>Quoth ar...@urbanophile.com (Aaron M. Renn) on 8 Jan 2000 21:17:07 GMT:
>>Is there something wrong with handing out leaflets in front of a public
>>building? Personally, I think telling people about their rights
>>as jurors (something the judge will never do) is a great thing.
>>Do you hate Miranda warnings and the ACLU "bust card" too? I consider
>>these essentially similar.
>>
>It depends, I think, on what the leaflets say. It's certainly
>*legal* to hand out leaflets in front of a public building,
>but that doesn't make it either (a) moral or (b) advisable.
>For an extreme case: how would you feel about someone handing
>out leaflets urging jurors to acquit all rape defendants on
>the grounds that women's testimony shouldn't be used against
>a man? Or urging them to acquit all, and only, white defendants
>because white people didn't deserve to go to jail, no matter
>what they'd done?
Well, the First Amendment would certainly seem to state that the
distribution of such leaflets would be legal. I also suspect that
they'd be ignored, derided, laughed out of town. And while they
are, in fact, trying to influence jurors, so is a judge who tells
them that they _must_ obey his instructions, despite his lack of
authority in the jury room. (Ask a judge to enter the jury room
sometime to explain a point of law. He won't. He can't, and he
knows it. He has no authority there.)
>A fair trial is one whose outcome is not preordained. An honest
>juror should not, when s/he walks into the courthouse before
>being seated on a jury, have decided how s/he will vote.
>A defendant has the right to a jury that will consider the
>case, rather than convicting because the prosecution wants
>it or because the defendant has the wrong color skin; the rest
>of us have the right to a jury that will consider the case
>rather than acquitting because the defendant has the right
>color skin.
They're also entitled to a jury of their peers, and if a substantial
minority of the population considers a particular law
unconstitutional or otherwise unjust, they ought to be represented
too--not winnowed out because the prosecutor likes to maintain a 98%
conviction rate. That's one of the primary reasons to _have_ a
jury. If its just a matter of law, the judge is better informed on
that score than most jurors.
>All else aside, as a practical matter, if any substantial
>group of people becomes convinced that the murder of one of
>their number will go unpunished, you have a recipe for riots
>and vigilante justice. And if any substantial group becomes
>convinced that a murder *by* one of their number will go
>unpunished, you have a recipe for the breakdown of civil order.
And if a substantial group of citizens become convinced that the
courts are kangaroo courts where no possibility of justice exists
because the courts pack juries with dupes ignorant of their rights,
you have _another_ recipe for the breakdown of civil order.
mike weber
Jan 2000 17:37:28 -0500,
>>Is there something wrong with handing out leaflets in front of a public
>>building? Personally, I think telling people about their rights
>>as jurors (something the judge will never do) is a great thing.
>>Do you hate Miranda warnings and the ACLU "bust card" too? I consider
>>these essentially similar.
>>
>It depends, I think, on what the leaflets say. It's certainly
>*legal* to hand out leaflets in front of a public building,
>but that doesn't make it either (a) moral or (b) advisable.
>For an extreme case: how would you feel about someone handing
>out leaflets urging jurors to acquit all rape defendants on
>the grounds that women's testimony shouldn't be used against
>a man? Or urging them to acquit all, and only, white defendants
>because white people didn't deserve to go to jail, no matter
>what they'd done?
We recently had -- here in Atlanta -- a case in which the family of
Martin Luther King Jr and some other civil rights types attempted to
proselytize the jury in the corruption trial of Ralph David Abernathy
III; they made repeated attempts to get ono elevbators with the jury
and tried to crash past security officers. That case ended in a
mistrial; there was a retrial recently, and, having been out of touch
with my usual news sources ((and sick and then out of town for a total
of three or four weeks)) i don't know what the result of that one
was...
--
=============================================================
"They put manure in his well and they made him talk to lawyers!"
-- Cat Ballou
mike weber -- kras...@mindspring.com
mike weber
Jan 2000 18:15:53 -0500,
:
>> juror should not, when s/he walks into the courthouse before
>> being seated on a jury, have decided how s/he will vote.
>> A defendant has the right to a jury that will consider the
>> case, rather than convicting because the prosecution wants
>> it or because the defendant has the wrong color skin; the rest
>> of us have the right to a jury that will consider the case
>> rather than acquitting because the defendant has the right
>> color skin.
>
>is on trial for, say, creating an offensive comic book, I'd be delighted
>if the court were unable to find jurists who were willing to convict.
>
often than not it seems to go the other way.
And then the judge sentences the defendant and, among other things,
forbids him to draw *anything*at*all* for several years.
mike weber
Jan 2000 03:07:16 GMT,
:
>And yea, verily, on Sat, 08 Jan 2000 17:37:28 -0500, Vicki
>Rosenzweig <v...@redbird.org> spake thusly:
>>It depends, I think, on what the leaflets say. It's certainly
>>*legal* to hand out leaflets in front of a public building,
>>but that doesn't make it either (a) moral or (b) advisable.
>>For an extreme case: how would you feel about someone handing
>>out leaflets urging jurors to acquit all rape defendants on
>>the grounds that women's testimony shouldn't be used against
>>a man? Or urging them to acquit all, and only, white defendants
>>because white people didn't deserve to go to jail, no matter
>>what they'd done?
>
>Well, the First Amendment would certainly seem to state that the
>distribution of such leaflets would be legal.
But there are other laws that -- while recognising First Ameddment
rights -- still make it illegal to distribute *any* literature
advocating any action or position that is or might be relevant to the
matter being decided to the jury in an attempt to affect their
verdict. It's not whether the material so distributed is likely or
not to affect the jury's opinion, it's the intent to do so that's the
crime...
mike weber
on Sun, 09 Jan 2000 01:16:27 GMT,
>On 8 Jan 2000 21:21:35 GMT, ar...@urbanophile.com (Aaron M. Renn)
>wrote:
>
>
>>I am from Indiana originally, and our state constitution explicitly
>>states that a jury has the right to decide the law and the facts.
>>I haven't seen judges going out of their way to point that out though.
>
>There is a big difference between "determining the law" and deciding
>to ignore it because you don't like it, which is what jury
>nullification argues.
>
duty-bound to ignore it.
And i promise you, nobody who knows me has *ever* called me a
right-wing extremist.
Kip Williams
>
> av...@bigfoot.com (Avram Grumer) is alleged to have said, on Sat, 08
> Jan 2000 18:15:53 -0500,
> :
> >In article <blef7sg00e7hq54ii...@4ax.com>, Vicki Rosenzweig
> ><v...@redbird.org> wrote:
> >
> >> A fair trial is one whose outcome is not preordained. An honest
> >> juror should not, when s/he walks into the courthouse before
> >> being seated on a jury, have decided how s/he will vote.
> >> A defendant has the right to a jury that will consider the
> >> case, rather than convicting because the prosecution wants
> >> it or because the defendant has the wrong color skin; the rest
> >> of us have the right to a jury that will consider the case
> >> rather than acquitting because the defendant has the right
> >> color skin.
> >
> >There are some trials whose outcomes _should_ be preordained. If someone
> >is on trial for, say, creating an offensive comic book, I'd be delighted
> >if the court were unable to find jurists who were willing to convict.
> >
> A consummation devoutly to be desired, indeed, but unfortunately, more
> often than not it seems to go the other way.
>
> And then the judge sentences the defendant and, among other things,
> forbids him to draw *anything*at*all* for several years.
Ironic, isn't it? You look at the work of that guy Diana and you
think "that's sick." Then you hear that a judge actually is
forbidding the man to pick up a pen and make figures on paper...
that truly is sick. That's trying to shackle thought crime.
--
--Kip (Williams)
amusing the world at http://members.home.net/kipw/
Mark Pitcavage
wrote:
>
>
>Hey Mr Pitman, this is he who used to be t.weber7, though I travel under a
>different label these days. Good to see you, and hope you stick around.
>
>--Scraps
Hi! It is good to "see" you!
Mark Pitcavage
wrote:
>>You should not be surprised at this; after all, in the extreme right
>>jury nullification is routinely suggested as a way to avoid being
>>convicted for anti-government crimes ranging from tax evasion to bomb
>>plots. The extreme right encourages its members to always get on
>>juries so that they can vote not to convict, and often engages in
>>attempts at jury tampering, such as passing out copies of the
>>so-called "citizen's handbook" to potential jurors at
>>extremist-related trials, so much so that court security personnel are
>>routinely warned to watch out for it. Some extremists manage to get
>>hold of whole jury lists so they can send nullification propaganda to
>>everybody who might be in the jury of a case involving a comrade in
>>arms.
>
>They may encourage their members to get on juries, but since they
>don't decide who gets called, and since they're a tiny minority, I
>don't see a horrendous threat there. Nor do I see anything wrong
>with telling potential jurors about their right to refuse to convict
>someone under laws they consider unconstitutional or otherwise
>unjust.
There is no such right.
>Cops have discretion on whom to arrest and on what charges.
>Prosecutors have discretion on whom to indict and whether or not to
>press charges. Judges have all sorts of authority. The notion that
>jurors should be free to refuse to act as a rubber stamp for
>whatever charges the state chooses to make--to exercise discretion
>in _their_ official capacity--doesn't fill me with dread.
Gosh, guess what. In this country we elect representatives, who make
the laws. If you don't like the law, you have all sorts of options as
to getting it changed. However, one option you do not have is the
option of unilaterally deciding you will ignore the law. You do not
have that option in society at large and you do not have that option
as juror.
>>The founding fathers of the jury nullification movement include some
>>of the most prominent right-wing extremists in the country, including
>>white supremacist Red Beckman. Indeed, the prominence of white
>>supremacists in the movement led Jewish member Nancy Lord, the 1988
>>vice presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party, to resign from
>>FIJA. The FIJGA, the other main nullificationist group, seems to
>>include an even higher percentage of hard-core right-wing
>>supremacists.
>
>That's Nancy Lord's choice, of course. That "extremists" are behind
>the jury nullification movement doesn't alter the fact that jurors
>have historically exercised that option, and have every right to do
>so.
Nope.
Mark Pitcavage
wrote:
>And yea, verily, on Sun, 09 Jan 2000 01:16:27 GMT, Mark Pitcavage
><spa...@militia-watchdog.org> spake thusly:
>
>>On 8 Jan 2000 21:21:35 GMT, ar...@urbanophile.com (Aaron M. Renn)
>>wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I am from Indiana originally, and our state constitution explicitly
>>>states that a jury has the right to decide the law and the facts.
>>>I haven't seen judges going out of their way to point that out though.
>>
>>There is a big difference between "determining the law" and deciding
>>to ignore it because you don't like it, which is what jury
>>nullification argues.
>
>According to SCOTUS an unconstitutional law is "null and void" from
>the moment it is enacted. If a juror believes that a particular law
>is unconstitutional, he _should_ ignore it. And refuse to convict
>anyone for violating the law, since it has no legal authority.
That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, and on Usent, that
is saying something. The notion that Johnny Citizen can decide on his
own that he can ignore the laws because he has decided they don't
agree with his personal notions of constitutionality is utterly
imbecilic.
I might also add that it is the same imbecilic notion that got
hundreds of Klansmen off scott free from crimes that included murder,
rape, mutilation, assault, arson, and much else, from the 1860s all
the way up to the 1960s. Pretty fun stuff, huh?
Mark Pitcavage
weber) wrote:
>Mark Pitcavage <spa...@militia-watchdog.org> is alleged to have said,
>on Sun, 09 Jan 2000 01:16:27 GMT,
>:
>>On 8 Jan 2000 21:21:35 GMT, ar...@urbanophile.com (Aaron M. Renn)
>>wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I am from Indiana originally, and our state constitution explicitly
>>>states that a jury has the right to decide the law and the facts.
>>>I haven't seen judges going out of their way to point that out though.
>>
>>There is a big difference between "determining the law" and deciding
>>to ignore it because you don't like it, which is what jury
>>nullification argues.
>>
>If you determine that the law is wrong, then you are, it seems to me,
>duty-bound to ignore it.
>
>And i promise you, nobody who knows me has *ever* called me a
>right-wing extremist.
Whether one has a moral obligation to ignore a law one despises is a
different question from whether one has a legal right to do so, and
the answer to the latter question is that one does not.
It's called the rule of law.
mike weber
:
mike weber
2000 06:14:37 GMT,
:
>mike weber wrote:
>>
>> And then the judge sentences the defendant and, among other things,
>> forbids him to draw *anything*at*all* for several years.
>
>Ironic, isn't it? You look at the work of that guy Diana and you
>think "that's sick." Then you hear that a judge actually is
>forbidding the man to pick up a pen and make figures on paper...
>that truly is sick. That's trying to shackle thought crime.
>
*I'd* tell the guy never to drawanything again, too -- but i don't
have the power (and wouldn't exercise it if i did, speaking
realistically) to actually *forbid* it.
"Sick" doesn't cover it. S.Clay Wilson is "sick". Mike Diana is in a
class way beyond "sick"
But forbidding him to even draw for himself is even sicker.
Elisabeth Carey
>
> Mark Pitcavage <spa...@militia-watchdog.org> is alleged to have said,
> on Sun, 09 Jan 2000 10:07:19 GMT,
> :
> >On Sun, 09 Jan 2000 04:49:39 GMT, kras...@mindspring.com (mike
> >weber) wrote:
> >
> >>Mark Pitcavage <spa...@militia-watchdog.org> is alleged to have said,
> >>on Sun, 09 Jan 2000 01:16:27 GMT,
> >>:
> >>>On 8 Jan 2000 21:21:35 GMT, ar...@urbanophile.com (Aaron M. Renn)
> >>>wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>I am from Indiana originally, and our state constitution explicitly
> >>>>states that a jury has the right to decide the law and the facts.
> >>>>I haven't seen judges going out of their way to point that out though.
> >>>
> >>>There is a big difference between "determining the law" and deciding
> >>>to ignore it because you don't like it, which is what jury
> >>>nullification argues.
> >>>
> >>If you determine that the law is wrong, then you are, it seems to me,
> >>duty-bound to ignore it.
> >>
> >>And i promise you, nobody who knows me has *ever* called me a
> >>right-wing extremist.
> >
> >Whether one has a moral obligation to ignore a law one despises is a
> >different question from whether one has a legal right to do so, and
> >the answer to the latter question is that one does not.
> >
> >It's called the rule of law.
> >
> So where does that leave the Founding Fathers?
It leaves them where they knew they were: people who were committing
treason, and who understood _exactly_ what the consequences would be
if they lost the war. That's why they included that line, the one
about pledging "our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor". It's
what was behind Franklin's quip, "We must all hang together, or
assuredly we will all hang separately."
They were breaking the law. They knew they were breaking the law. They
felt they were justified in doing it, but they knew that believing
they were morally justified didn't mean that they were legally
justified, or that the British crown would refrain from visiting the
legal consequences upon them if they were defeated and captured.
Being morally justified, even morally obligated, in doing something,
doesn't mean that you're legally justified. Being prepared to accept
the legal consequences is in fact a vital part of what makes civil
disobedience a useful and effective political tool in democratic
societies.
Lis Carey
Marcus L. Rowland
<kras...@mindspring.com> writes
>So where does that leave the Founding Fathers?
Executed as rebels if they'd lost.
--
Marcus L. Rowland
http://www.ffutures.demon.co.uk/ http://www.forgottenfutures.com/
"We are all victims of this slime. They... ...fill our mailboxes with gibberish
that would get them indicted if people had time to press charges"
[Hunter S. Thompson predicts junk e-mail, 1985 (from Generation of Swine)]
mike weber
said, on Sun, 9 Jan 2000 12:24:42 +0000,
:
>In article <38786efd...@news.mindspring.com>, mike weber
><kras...@mindspring.com> writes
>
>>So where does that leave the Founding Fathers?
>
>Executed as rebels if they'd lost.
Exactly.
But they won.
Rejecting bad law is only a Bad Thing if you don't get away with it.
But my point, i guess, was that the Founding Fathers were breaking a
lot bigger law than a jury exercising the nullification theory would
be, but that they felt a Moral Imperative to break that law and face
the consequences.
It strikes me that, following this example, one ought to follow where
one's own Moral Imperatives lead and risk the consequences; it's what
our country was founded on, after all.
OTOH, "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime" applies to Moral
Imperatives just as much as to Armed Robbery...
Elisabeth Carey
>
> "Marcus L. Rowland" <mrow...@ffutures.demon.co.uk> is alleged to have
> said, on Sun, 9 Jan 2000 12:24:42 +0000,
> :
> >In article <38786efd...@news.mindspring.com>, mike weber
> ><kras...@mindspring.com> writes
> >
> >>So where does that leave the Founding Fathers?
> >
> >Executed as rebels if they'd lost.
>
> Exactly.
>
> But they won.
>
> Rejecting bad law is only a Bad Thing if you don't get away with it.
>
> But my point, i guess, was that the Founding Fathers were breaking a
> lot bigger law than a jury exercising the nullification theory would
> be, but that they felt a Moral Imperative to break that law and face
> the consequences.
>
> It strikes me that, following this example, one ought to follow where
> one's own Moral Imperatives lead and risk the consequences; it's what
> our country was founded on, after all.
>
> OTOH, "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime" applies to Moral
> Imperatives just as much as to Armed Robbery...
And it's that "...and face the consequences" part that many of the
FIJA folks seem to be unclear about.
Lis Carey
Vicki Rosenzweig
>On Sat, 08 Jan 2000 17:37:28 -0500, Vicki Rosenzweig <v...@redbird.org> wrote:
<snip much>
>
>>All else aside, as a practical matter, if any substantial
>>group of people becomes convinced that the murder of one of
>>their number will go unpunished, you have a recipe for riots
>>and vigilante justice. And if any substantial group becomes
>>convinced that a murder *by* one of their number will go
>>unpunished, you have a recipe for the breakdown of civil order.
>
>Only if you feel that the unanimous verdict of 12 people from the
>community is likely to be viewed as unfair by that community. I
>personally don't think so.
Two words: Simi Valley.
To elaborate somewhat: it depends in part on which part of
the community serves on juries (for example, a lot of my
neighbors aren't American citizens, and thus aren't
eligible to serve on juries, but they live here, pay taxes
here, and are subject to US law).
There's also the vexed question of change of venue: a lot of
people here in New York City are upset that the case against
the police officers who killed Amadou Diallo has been moved
to Albany, because they think an Albany jury is more likely
to acquit, simply because the defendants are white police
officers accused of murdering a black man, and Albany County
is 85 percent white. The community feels excluded, and in
fact change of venue (a rare thing) is generally used in
cases when the defendants convince a judge that the community
is biased against them. (This is why the Oklahoma City
bombing case wasn't tried in Oklahoma City, for example.)
Kip Williams
>
> Kip Williams <ki...@home.com> is alleged to have said, on Sun, 09 Jan
> 2000 06:14:37 GMT,
> :
> >mike weber wrote:
> >>
>
> >> And then the judge sentences the defendant and, among other things,
> >> forbids him to draw *anything*at*all* for several years.
> >
> >Ironic, isn't it? You look at the work of that guy Diana and you
> >think "that's sick." Then you hear that a judge actually is
> >forbidding the man to pick up a pen and make figures on paper...
> >that truly is sick. That's trying to shackle thought crime.
> >
> *I'd* tell the guy never to drawanything again, too -- but i don't
> have the power (and wouldn't exercise it if i did, speaking
> realistically) to actually *forbid* it.
>
> "Sick" doesn't cover it. S.Clay Wilson is "sick". Mike Diana is in a
> class way beyond "sick"
And of course, Wilson can actually draw, as opposed to Diana.
> But forbidding him to even draw for himself is even sicker.
My feelings exactly. It's the kind of case that makes you stick up
for something disgusting, because it's an attempt to erode the First
Amendment.
Randolph Fritz
<spa...@militia-watchdog.org> wrote:
>
>I might also add that it is the same imbecilic notion that got
>hundreds of Klansmen off scott free from crimes that included murder,
>rape, mutilation, assault, arson, and much else, from the 1860s all
>the way up to the 1960s. Pretty fun stuff, huh?
>
You forgot to mention that the same notion freed a lot of men who
murdered their wives because of infidelities, real or imagined. :(
There are days when I'd like to move to another planet...
Randolph
--
"So sit us down, buy us a drink,
Tell us a good story,
Sing us a song we know to be true.
I don't give a damn
That I never will be worthy,
Fear is the only enemy that I still know"--NMA
Mark Jones
<spa...@militia-watchdog.org> spake thusly:
>On Sun, 09 Jan 2000 03:11:04 GMT, sin...@pacifier.com (Mark Jones)
>wrote:
>
>>And yea, verily, on Sun, 09 Jan 2000 01:16:27 GMT, Mark Pitcavage
>><spa...@militia-watchdog.org> spake thusly:
>>>There is a big difference between "determining the law" and deciding
>>>to ignore it because you don't like it, which is what jury
>>>nullification argues.
>>
>>According to SCOTUS an unconstitutional law is "null and void" from
>>the moment it is enacted. If a juror believes that a particular law
>>is unconstitutional, he _should_ ignore it. And refuse to convict
>>anyone for violating the law, since it has no legal authority.
>
>That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, and on Usent, that
>is saying something. The notion that Johnny Citizen can decide on his
>own that he can ignore the laws because he has decided they don't
>agree with his personal notions of constitutionality is utterly
>imbecilic.
Ever heard of civil disobedience? Ever heard of Rosa Parks? Martin
Luther King, Jr.? Ghandi? (Another nation, true, but the same
idea.) They all practiced the "imbecilic" notion of refusing to
comply with laws that violated their "personal notions" of justice
or constitutionality.
But, I can hear you splutter, they accepted the consequences!
And so do jurors who refuse to convict. The unhappy fact, from your
point of view, is that the consequences to jurors are much lighter.
They're charged with deciding whether a crime has been committed,
and if so, whether the defendent committed it, and whether he
deserves punishment. If the prosecution fails to convince them of
_any_ of these things, they can--and should--refuse to convict.
That's their job.
>I might also add that it is the same imbecilic notion that got
>hundreds of Klansmen off scott free from crimes that included murder,
>rape, mutilation, assault, arson, and much else, from the 1860s all
>the way up to the 1960s. Pretty fun stuff, huh?
That's your whole argument? Guilt by association? With that Ph.D
you're so proud of, and display so prominently in your sig, and
that's the best you can do? Pathetic.
I could as easily accuse you of being a Nazi sympathizer because
your "It's the law!" position demonstrates the same slavish devotion
to rules as the "I was only following orders" defense did.
The "imbecilic" notion of refusing to enforce unconstitutional and
unjust laws also prevented lots of slaves from being forcibly
returned to their masters under the Fugitive Slave Act. It
demonstrated the futility of Prohibition and helped get that absurd
law repealed.
Aaron M. Renn
>Cops have discretion on whom to arrest and on what charges.
>Prosecutors have discretion on whom to indict and whether or not to
>press charges. Judges have all sorts of authority. The notion that
>jurors should be free to refuse to act as a rubber stamp for
>whatever charges the state chooses to make--to exercise discretion
>in _their_ official capacity--doesn't fill me with dread.
Bingo. Agents of government already have massive power and massive
discretion on how to wield it. The citizenry in its role as jury
has similiar power, and similar discretion on how to use it.
The rule of law is important, but trying to develop a set of inflexible
rules that apply in every situation just is never going to produce good
results in the real world. Attempts to create such rulesets often
backfire. Witness the unintended consequences of federal sentencing
guidelines that stripped judges of their flexibility in tailoring sentences
to fit the nature of the crime, for example. Juries need the same sort
of discretion as judges, prosecutors, etc.
--
Aaron M. Renn (ar...@urbanophile.com) http://www.urbanophile.com/arenn/
Aaron M. Renn
>>They may encourage their members to get on juries, but since they
>>don't decide who gets called, and since they're a tiny minority, I
>>don't see a horrendous threat there. Nor do I see anything wrong
>>with telling potential jurors about their right to refuse to convict
>>someone under laws they consider unconstitutional or otherwise
>>unjust.
>
>There is no such right.
Yes there is. Juries may refuse to convict for any reason, and that
decision cannot be appealed by the gov't. This creates a pretty powerful
right, I'd say. Judges have the right to set aside jury verdicts in
some venues, but are rightly loathe to exercise that power, knowing that
the right of trial by jury is rightly cherished by the American public.
BTW: Putting aside the idea of jury nullification, the entire concept of
trial by jury is foreign to much of the rest of the world. Even in Britain,
trial by jury in civil cases is all but gone, and there are efforts to
eliminate jury trials in many criminal cases as well. IIRC, over 90%
of all the world's jury trials take place in the United States.
Aaron M. Renn
>the laws. If you don't like the law, you have all sorts of options as
>to getting it changed. However, one option you do not have is the
>option of unilaterally deciding you will ignore the law. You do not
>have that option in society at large and you do not have that option
>as juror.
I suppose people made that argument back when the Supreme Court came out
with Marbury v. Madison, and unilaterally asserted the right of the courts
to decide on the constitutionality of laws passed by those elected
representatives. This power was not explicitly granted anywhere in the US
constitution, so I assume you don't think it exists either.
The courts asserted their right to review laws, and jurors can do the
same thing.
Mark Jones
kras...@mindspring.com (mike weber) spake thusly:
>Kip Williams <ki...@home.com> is alleged to have said, on Sun, 09 Jan
>2000 06:14:37 GMT,
>:
>>mike weber wrote:
>>>
>
>>> And then the judge sentences the defendant and, among other things,
>>> forbids him to draw *anything*at*all* for several years.
>>
>>Ironic, isn't it? You look at the work of that guy Diana and you
>>think "that's sick." Then you hear that a judge actually is
>>forbidding the man to pick up a pen and make figures on paper...
>>that truly is sick. That's trying to shackle thought crime.
>>
>*I'd* tell the guy never to drawanything again, too -- but i don't
>have the power (and wouldn't exercise it if i did, speaking
>realistically) to actually *forbid* it.
>
>"Sick" doesn't cover it. S.Clay Wilson is "sick". Mike Diana is in a
>class way beyond "sick"
>
>But forbidding him to even draw for himself is even sicker.
Y'all are obviously discussing a real case, but I haven't heard of
it. Anyone want to fill in the details for me?
Mark Jones
<spa...@militia-watchdog.org> spake thusly:
>On Sun, 09 Jan 2000 04:49:39 GMT, kras...@mindspring.com (mike
>weber) wrote:
>
>>Mark Pitcavage <spa...@militia-watchdog.org> is alleged to have said,
>>on Sun, 09 Jan 2000 01:16:27 GMT,
>>:
>>>On 8 Jan 2000 21:21:35 GMT, ar...@urbanophile.com (Aaron M. Renn)
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>I am from Indiana originally, and our state constitution explicitly
>>>>states that a jury has the right to decide the law and the facts.
>>>>I haven't seen judges going out of their way to point that out though.
>>>
>>>There is a big difference between "determining the law" and deciding
>>>to ignore it because you don't like it, which is what jury
>>>nullification argues.
>>>
>>If you determine that the law is wrong, then you are, it seems to me,
>>duty-bound to ignore it.
>>
>>And i promise you, nobody who knows me has *ever* called me a
>>right-wing extremist.
>
>Whether one has a moral obligation to ignore a law one despises is a
>different question from whether one has a legal right to do so, and
>the answer to the latter question is that one does not.
>
>It's called the rule of law.
And the law says that when those twelve jurors retire to the jury
room to decide the verdict, no official of the court has any
authority to sit in judgment over their deliberations. They can say
what they want, believe what they want, and decide what they think
is the most just course to take. Including, to your regret,
concluding that a law is unjust and refusing to convict anyone of
breaking it.
Doug Wickstrom
>On Sun, 09 Jan 2000 03:11:04 GMT, sin...@pacifier.com (Mark Jones)
>wrote:
>
>>And yea, verily, on Sun, 09 Jan 2000 01:16:27 GMT, Mark Pitcavage
>><spa...@militia-watchdog.org> spake thusly:
>>
>>>On 8 Jan 2000 21:21:35 GMT, ar...@urbanophile.com (Aaron M. Renn)
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>I am from Indiana originally, and our state constitution explicitly
>>>>states that a jury has the right to decide the law and the facts.
>>>>I haven't seen judges going out of their way to point that out though.
>>>
>>>There is a big difference between "determining the law" and deciding
>>>to ignore it because you don't like it, which is what jury
>>>nullification argues.
>>
>>According to SCOTUS an unconstitutional law is "null and void" from
>>the moment it is enacted. If a juror believes that a particular law
>>is unconstitutional, he _should_ ignore it. And refuse to convict
>>anyone for violating the law, since it has no legal authority.
>
>That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, and on Usent, that
>is saying something. The notion that Johnny Citizen can decide on his
>own that he can ignore the laws because he has decided they don't
>agree with his personal notions of constitutionality is utterly
>imbecilic.
>
>I might also add that it is the same imbecilic notion that got
>hundreds of Klansmen off scott free from crimes that included murder,
>rape, mutilation, assault, arson, and much else, from the 1860s all
>the way up to the 1960s. Pretty fun stuff, huh?
So where do you put laws against drawing pictures?
--
Doug Wickstrom
"I have so many goals. I want to open a hair salon. I want to own some
buildings. I want to be a model. I want to have my own label. I just don't
want to have to work when I'm twenty-three." --Brandy
Mark Jones
<spa...@militia-watchdog.org> spake thusly:
>On Sun, 09 Jan 2000 02:58:56 GMT, sin...@pacifier.com (Mark Jones)
>wrote:
>
>
>>>You should not be surprised at this; after all, in the extreme right
>>>jury nullification is routinely suggested as a way to avoid being
>>>convicted for anti-government crimes ranging from tax evasion to bomb
>>>plots. The extreme right encourages its members to always get on
>>>juries so that they can vote not to convict, and often engages in
>>>attempts at jury tampering, such as passing out copies of the
>>>so-called "citizen's handbook" to potential jurors at
>>>extremist-related trials, so much so that court security personnel are
>>>routinely warned to watch out for it. Some extremists manage to get
>>>hold of whole jury lists so they can send nullification propaganda to
>>>everybody who might be in the jury of a case involving a comrade in
>>>arms.
>>
>>They may encourage their members to get on juries, but since they
>>don't decide who gets called, and since they're a tiny minority, I
>>don't see a horrendous threat there. Nor do I see anything wrong
>>with telling potential jurors about their right to refuse to convict
>>someone under laws they consider unconstitutional or otherwise
>>unjust.
>
>There is no such right.
Sure there is. (See--I can make unsupported blanket assertions
too!)
>>Cops have discretion on whom to arrest and on what charges.
>>Prosecutors have discretion on whom to indict and whether or not to
>>press charges. Judges have all sorts of authority. The notion that
>>jurors should be free to refuse to act as a rubber stamp for
>>whatever charges the state chooses to make--to exercise discretion
>>in _their_ official capacity--doesn't fill me with dread.
>
>Gosh, guess what. In this country we elect representatives, who make
>the laws. If you don't like the law, you have all sorts of options as
>to getting it changed. However, one option you do not have is the
>option of unilaterally deciding you will ignore the law. You do not
>have that option in society at large and you do not have that option
>as juror.
Sure you do. Juries have long had the right to refuse to enforce
unjust or unconstitutional laws, even if the judge says otherwise.
If they don't, why isn't a judge allowed to sit in on their
deliberations and forbid any "illegal" arguments?
>>>The founding fathers of the jury nullification movement include some
>>>of the most prominent right-wing extremists in the country, including
>>>white supremacist Red Beckman. Indeed, the prominence of white
>>>supremacists in the movement led Jewish member Nancy Lord, the 1988
>>>vice presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party, to resign from
>>>FIJA. The FIJGA, the other main nullificationist group, seems to
>>>include an even higher percentage of hard-core right-wing
>>>supremacists.
>>
>>That's Nancy Lord's choice, of course. That "extremists" are behind
>>the jury nullification movement doesn't alter the fact that jurors
>>have historically exercised that option, and have every right to do
>>so.
>
>Nope.
Yep.
Aaron M. Renn
>> OTOH, "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime" applies to Moral
>> Imperatives just as much as to Armed Robbery...
>
>And it's that "...and face the consequences" part that many of the
>FIJA folks seem to be unclear about.
Oh, I think many understand it quite well.
Aaron M. Renn
>>Actually, the left is probably as much or more involved in the jury
>>nullification movement. Witness the calls for black jurors to acquit
>>black drug defendants and such based on the US legal system's supposed
>>racist nature.
>
>I subscribe to several jury nullification publications, and with the
>exception of various potheads, it is difficult to see many signs of
>the left in them.
If you don't subscribe to it, it must not exist, eh? You're a
self-professed watchdog of the right. It seems likely you'd know much
more about them than the left.
>>Is there something wrong with handing out leaflets in front of a public
>>building? Personally, I think telling people about their rights
>>as jurors (something the judge will never do) is a great thing.
>>Do you hate Miranda warnings and the ACLU "bust card" too? I consider
>>these essentially similar.
>
>In the first place, they are not "juror rights." In the second place,
>when you hand out material to the jury pool before a case asserting to
>them that they can refuse to convict, and hinting that they should, it
>is jury tampering.
Not too many successful prosecutions on this, and trying to supress
leafleting in front of a public building is a pr nightmare waiting
to happen. I don't suggest this as a winning strategy.
And I believe the right to speak and vote your conscience in a jury
deliberation is a right of every juror.
Aaron M. Renn
>>>All else aside, as a practical matter, if any substantial
>>>group of people becomes convinced that the murder of one of
>>>their number will go unpunished, you have a recipe for riots
>>>and vigilante justice. And if any substantial group becomes
>>>convinced that a murder *by* one of their number will go
>>>unpunished, you have a recipe for the breakdown of civil order.
>>
>>Only if you feel that the unanimous verdict of 12 people from the
>>community is likely to be viewed as unfair by that community. I
>>personally don't think so.
>
>Two words: Simi Valley.
Do you believe this was an instance of jury nullification caused by
FIJA activism?
Actually, when you look at cases like this and the OJ case, you see
the result of our current jury system, where expensive consultants
and such try to create a jury pool full of easily manipulated sheep.
Also the change of venue you noted.
Aaron M. Renn
>>If you determine that the law is wrong, then you are, it seems to me,
>>duty-bound to ignore it.
>>
>>And i promise you, nobody who knows me has *ever* called me a
>>right-wing extremist.
>
>Whether one has a moral obligation to ignore a law one despises is a
>different question from whether one has a legal right to do so, and
>the answer to the latter question is that one does not.
>
>It's called the rule of law.
Since you've been spouting off about the dangers of right wing nuts,
I don't feel too bad about stooping to your level. :-)
The law in this country once said blacks couldn't ride in the front of
the bus. Should that rule of law have been followed? Would you vote to
convict Rosa Parks? A quick look at US history shows many, many similar
such blatantly unjust laws.
Vicki Rosenzweig
>On Sun, 09 Jan 2000 01:13:42 GMT, Mark Pitcavage <spa...@militia-watchdog.org> wrote:
>>>Actually, the left is probably as much or more involved in the jury
>>>nullification movement. Witness the calls for black jurors to acquit
>>>black drug defendants and such based on the US legal system's supposed
>>>racist nature.
>>
>>I subscribe to several jury nullification publications, and with the
>>exception of various potheads, it is difficult to see many signs of
>>the left in them.
>
>If you don't subscribe to it, it must not exist, eh? You're a
>self-professed watchdog of the right. It seems likely you'd know much
>more about them than the left.
Sure. So if you want the rest of us to know about the
left-wing influences, tell us about them. Don't just mock
someone else for his ignorance. His lack of knowledge of
them certainly doesn't prove that it *does* exist.
Vicki Rosenzweig
>On Sun, 09 Jan 2000 10:03:14 GMT, Mark Pitcavage <spa...@militia-watchdog.org> wrote:
>>>They may encourage their members to get on juries, but since they
>>>don't decide who gets called, and since they're a tiny minority, I
>>>don't see a horrendous threat there. Nor do I see anything wrong
>>>with telling potential jurors about their right to refuse to convict
>>>someone under laws they consider unconstitutional or otherwise
>>>unjust.
>>
>>There is no such right.
>
>Yes there is. Juries may refuse to convict for any reason, and that
>decision cannot be appealed by the gov't. This creates a pretty powerful
>right, I'd say. Judges have the right to set aside jury verdicts in
>some venues, but are rightly loathe to exercise that power, knowing that
>the right of trial by jury is rightly cherished by the American public.
On the other hand, if the prosecutor can show that a jury
acquitted someone because they were paid to do so, the jurors
are criminally liable. In other words, while the defendant
is scot-free, that doesn't mean the jurors can do absolutely
anything they feel like, for any reason at all. (Similarly,
they can't convict someone of second-degree murder, however
richly they think it's appropriate, if the prosecution has
only charged involuntary manslaughter.)
Mitch Wagner
said:
> It depends, I think, on what the leaflets say. It's certainly
> *legal* to hand out leaflets in front of a public building,
> but that doesn't make it either (a) moral or (b) advisable.
> For an extreme case: how would you feel about someone handing
> out leaflets urging jurors to acquit all rape defendants on
> the grounds that women's testimony shouldn't be used against
> a man? Or urging them to acquit all, and only, white defendants
> because white people didn't deserve to go to jail, no matter
> what they'd done?
>
> A fair trial is one whose outcome is not preordained. An honest
> juror should not, when s/he walks into the courthouse before
> being seated on a jury, have decided how s/he will vote.
> A defendant has the right to a jury that will consider the
> case, rather than convicting because the prosecution wants
> it or because the defendant has the wrong color skin; the rest
> of us have the right to a jury that will consider the case
> rather than acquitting because the defendant has the right
> color skin.
Let's choose a different hypothetical, shall we?
You're a juror in a drug case in a state with a zero tolerance law. The
defendant is a young adult with no criminal found in possession of a
single marijuana cigarette. He is found guilty of possession. Credible
character witnesses come forward to attest to the defendant's otherwise
sterling character. He has no other criminal convictions.
If found guilty, the defendant will face significant prison time. And
there's no question in your mind, the defendant was, in fact, in
possession of a marijuana cigarette.
How do you vote?
What if the crime in question isn't marijuana possession? What if it is,
instead, sodomy, and the act in question was between consenting adults in
the privacy of their own home?
--
Mitch Wagner | dm.members.mitch-wagner | sff.people.mitch-wagner |
http://www.sff.net/people/mitchw
Mitch Wagner
watchdog.org said:
> On Sun, 09 Jan 2000 04:49:39 GMT, kras...@mindspring.com (mike
> weber) wrote:
>
> >Mark Pitcavage <spa...@militia-watchdog.org> is alleged to have said,
> >on Sun, 09 Jan 2000 01:16:27 GMT,
> >:
> >>On 8 Jan 2000 21:21:35 GMT, ar...@urbanophile.com (Aaron M. Renn)
> >>wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>I am from Indiana originally, and our state constitution explicitly
> >>>states that a jury has the right to decide the law and the facts.
> >>>I haven't seen judges going out of their way to point that out though.
> >>
> >>There is a big difference between "determining the law" and deciding
> >>to ignore it because you don't like it, which is what jury
> >>nullification argues.
> >>
> >If you determine that the law is wrong, then you are, it seems to me,
> >duty-bound to ignore it.
> >
> >And i promise you, nobody who knows me has *ever* called me a
> >right-wing extremist.
>
> Whether one has a moral obligation to ignore a law one despises is a
> different question from whether one has a legal right to do so, and
> the answer to the latter question is that one does not.
>
> It's called the rule of law.
So why is it, then, that the hypothetical juror is not allowed to decide
whether the law in question violates a higher law - the Constitution?
Isn't the Constitution part of the rule of law?
Mitch Wagner
watchdog.org said:
> Gosh, guess what. In this country we elect representatives, who make
> the laws. If you don't like the law, you have all sorts of options as
> to getting it changed. However, one option you do not have is the
> option of unilaterally deciding you will ignore the law. You do not
> have that option in society at large and you do not have that option
> as juror.
I'll ask you the same question I asked Vicki:
You're a juror in a drug case in a state with a zero tolerance law. The
defendant is a young adult with no criminal record found in possession of
a single marijuana cigarette. He is found guilty of possession. Credible
character witnesses come forward to attest to the defendant's otherwise
sterling character. He has no other criminal convictions.
If found guilty, the defendant will face significant prison time. And
there's no question in your mind, the defendant was, in fact, in
possession of a marijuana cigarette.
How do you vote?
What if the crime in question isn't marijuana possession? What if it is,
instead, sodomy, and the act in question was between consenting adults in
the privacy of their own home?
--
Jason Stokes
>>I am from Indiana originally, and our state constitution explicitly
>>states that a jury has the right to decide the law and the facts.
>>I haven't seen judges going out of their way to point that out though.
But what does that *mean* exactly? Does it mean they can "nullify"
laws they don't like, or does it mean they are the ones responsible for
deciding what the law is? There's a distinction. "Judge" is ambiguous
there. Also, is this view of jury nullification an actual operating
part of the US legal system, or an obsolete doctrine? What does case
law say about it? How does this work in practice?
--
Jason Stokes: js...@bluedog.apana.org.au
Jason Stokes
wrote:
>But there are other laws that -- while recognising First Ameddment
>rights -- still make it illegal to distribute *any* literature
>advocating any action or position that is or might be relevant to the
>matter being decided to the jury in an attempt to affect their
>verdict. It's not whether the material so distributed is likely or
>not to affect the jury's opinion, it's the intent to do so that's the
>crime...
Even in the US, the First Amendment does not protect some types of jury
tampering and jury compromising.
--
Jason Stokes: js...@bluedog.apana.org.au
Jason Stokes
wrote:
>And yea, verily, on Sun, 09 Jan 2000 01:16:27 GMT, Mark Pitcavage
><spa...@militia-watchdog.org> spake thusly:
>
>>On 8 Jan 2000 21:21:35 GMT, ar...@urbanophile.com (Aaron M. Renn)
>>wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I am from Indiana originally, and our state constitution explicitly
>>>states that a jury has the right to decide the law and the facts.
>>>I haven't seen judges going out of their way to point that out though.
>>
>>There is a big difference between "determining the law" and deciding
>>to ignore it because you don't like it, which is what jury
>>nullification argues.
>
>According to SCOTUS an unconstitutional law is "null and void" from
>the moment it is enacted. If a juror believes that a particular law
>is unconstitutional, he _should_ ignore it. And refuse to convict
>anyone for violating the law, since it has no legal authority.
Look, I'm obviously no expert in US law, but the constitution
explicitly states that the Supreme Court is responsible for the
interpretation of the constitution, not some random joe who ends up on
a jury somewhere. How does this doctrine of "jury nullification"
supposed to apply?
--
Jason Stokes: js...@bluedog.apana.org.au
Jason Stokes
wrote:
>Mark Pitcavage <spa...@militia-watchdog.org> is alleged to have said,
>on Sun, 09 Jan 2000 01:16:27 GMT,
>:
>>On 8 Jan 2000 21:21:35 GMT, ar...@urbanophile.com (Aaron M. Renn)
>>wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I am from Indiana originally, and our state constitution explicitly
>>>states that a jury has the right to decide the law and the facts.
>>>I haven't seen judges going out of their way to point that out though.
>>
>>There is a big difference between "determining the law" and deciding
>>to ignore it because you don't like it, which is what jury
>>nullification argues.
>>
>If you determine that the law is wrong, then you are, it seems to me,
>duty-bound to ignore it.
>
>And i promise you, nobody who knows me has *ever* called me a
>right-wing extremist.
I think I can help with this distinction.
The left has often advocated "civil disobedience." Civil disobedience
is the defying of the law in the service of a greater good. Nobody who
practices civil disobedience believes their conduct is in any way
legal, just morally justified. Civil disobedience is sometimes
justified, and sometimes not justified. I think the protestor has to
meet some important burdens of proof, which sometimes happens. A
common example is the underground railway for runaway slaves. One is
never "duty bound" to ignore a law one disagrees with; it depends on
the cicumstances.
"Jury nullification" seems to be the doctrine that it's *a part of the
legal system* that a juror can nullify a law he doesn't like, and that
decision is beyond appeal, beyond examination, and beyond challenge. I
see no evidence for that at all, and seems like a recipe for social
anarchy. Ignoring the history of right wing juries refusing to convict
racist criminals in the US, we should consider if one of the desirable
aspects of the legal system is to have consistent rules that apply to
everybody. In other words, equality before the law. This cannot
happen in a legal system where "jury nullification" happens, because
your fortunes depend on the political opinions of 12 relatively
randomly selected people.
--
Jason Stokes: js...@bluedog.apana.org.au
Jason Stokes
wrote:
>I'll ask you the same question I asked Vicki:
>
>You're a juror in a drug case in a state with a zero tolerance law. The
>defendant is a young adult with no criminal record found in possession of
>a single marijuana cigarette. He is found guilty of possession. Credible
>character witnesses come forward to attest to the defendant's otherwise
>sterling character. He has no other criminal convictions.
I wouldn't convict him. But I would con myself into believing I had
just exercised a legal right, because I wouldn't have been doing so.
I'd have been following a moral imperative.
We should remember that the "fully informed jury" is supposed to
believe they have the legal right to disregard a law they don't like.
Advocates of jury nullification disagree with the idea that juries
should be instructed that it's their obligation to judge the facts
according to the law.
"Jury nullification" cuts both ways. Would you accept murderers
getting acquitted because a juror is convinced that killing homosexuals
is "God's law"?
--
Jason Stokes: js...@bluedog.apana.org.au
Avram Grumer
(Mark Jones) wrote:
> Y'all are obviously discussing a real case, but I haven't heard of
> it. Anyone want to fill in the details for me?
Mike Diana is (according to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund's case file
at <http://www.cbldf.org/casefiles/diana.html>) the first American artist
ever to be convicted of obscenity.
In Florida in 1994 Diana was found guilty of publishing, distributing, and
advertising obscene material, namely his comics 'zine _Boiled Angel_. An
appellate court later overturned the advertising charge, but the other two
were allowed to stand. The Supreme Court refused to hear his case.
The case file says: "Diana was sentenced to a three-year probation, during
which time his residence is subject to inspection, without warning or
warrant, to determine if he is in possession of, or is creating obscene
material. He is to have no contact with children under 18, undergo
psychological testing, enroll in a journalistic ethics course, pay a
$3,000 fine, and perform 1,248 hours of community service."
There's an interview with Diana at
<http://streams.com/brian/96/1/static.diana.html>, in which he describes
some of the events that led to his pers -- excuse me, prosecution.
--
Avram Grumer | av...@bigfoot.com | http://www.bigfoot.com/~avram/
If music be the food of love, then some of it be the Twinkies of
dysfunctional relationships.
Avram Grumer
(Mark Jones) wrote:
> And yea, verily, on Sun, 09 Jan 2000 10:03:14 GMT, Mark Pitcavage
> <spa...@militia-watchdog.org> spake thusly:
>
> >There is no such right.
>
> Sure there is. (See--I can make unsupported blanket assertions
> too!)
Would either of you care to back up your arguments with some citations?
Martin Wisse
wrote:
>And yea, verily, on Sun, 09 Jan 2000 11:19:53 GMT,
>kras...@mindspring.com (mike weber) spake thusly:
>
>>Kip Williams <ki...@home.com> is alleged to have said, on Sun, 09 Jan
>>2000 06:14:37 GMT,
>>:
>>>mike weber wrote:
>>>>
>>
>>>> And then the judge sentences the defendant and, among other things,
>>>> forbids him to draw *anything*at*all* for several years.
>>>
>>>Ironic, isn't it? You look at the work of that guy Diana and you
>>>think "that's sick." Then you hear that a judge actually is
>>>forbidding the man to pick up a pen and make figures on paper...
>>>that truly is sick. That's trying to shackle thought crime.
>>>
>>*I'd* tell the guy never to drawanything again, too -- but i don't
>>have the power (and wouldn't exercise it if i did, speaking
>>realistically) to actually *forbid* it.
>>
>>"Sick" doesn't cover it. S.Clay Wilson is "sick". Mike Diana is in a
>>class way beyond "sick"
>>
>>But forbidding him to even draw for himself is even sicker.
>
>Y'all are obviously discussing a real case, but I haven't heard of
>it. Anyone want to fill in the details for me?
Mike Diana is a cartoonist living in Florida who was publishing a small
zine called Boiled Angel, which was... not nice... to say the least.
He came under the attention of the local police force for the Gainsville
murder case when police officers encountered his zine. They talked to
him about it and that seemed to be the end of the story.
However, some time later he got a subscription order for Boiled Angel,
with a Largo, Florida area return address. Unknown to him this
subscriber was an undercover police agent, until he got a court summons
in April 1993 to answer to charges of publishing, advertising and
distributing lewd and obscene material relating to Boiled Angel.
He was convicted on March 31, 1994, for publishing a "lewd and obscene"
publication.
From <http://php.indiana.edu/~mfragass/diana_obscure.html>
" A Pinellos County, Florida judge sentenced the 24-year-old zinester to
three years probation, fined him $3,000, ordered him to take a
journalism ethics course and do eight hours a week of community service
work. Further, the judge ruled, Diana couldn't draw anything "obscene,"
even in the privacy of his bedroom.The judge ruled that a probation
officer could search Diana's home -- without a warrant -- to make sure
he abides by that rule. "
Appeals against this have been made against this sentence, but made
little difference, especially after the Supreme Court denied Mike
Diana's petition for a writ of certiorari,On June 27, 1997.
More information can be found at
<http://www.cbldf.org/casefiles/diana.html1>
CBLDF is the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, founded to defend the First
amendment rights of cartoonists and other comic book professionals.
Martin Wisse
--
I made this!
...
...
You must be *very* proud
Bernard Peek
<spa...@militia-watchdog.org> writes
>That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, and on Usent, that
>is saying something. The notion that Johnny Citizen can decide on his
>own that he can ignore the laws because he has decided they don't
>agree with his personal notions of constitutionality is utterly
>imbecilic.
Johnny Citizen can decide to acquit if he considers the law in question
to be unconstitutional, or for any other reason. And because jury
deliberations are in secret there's no requirement for him to explain
his reasoning. In a criminal trial the jury's decision to acquit is
final. That's as true in the US as it is here in the UK.
There will be situations where the majority of the population that the
jury is selected from think that some action is reasonable, even if it
is illegal. Under those circumstances the accused is likely to be
acquitted by a jury of his or her peers. That's the purpose of jury
trials, and has been since at least 1215.
--
Bernard Peek
b...@shrdlu.com
b...@shrdlu.co.uk
Aaron M. Renn
>>>I am from Indiana originally, and our state constitution explicitly
>>>states that a jury has the right to decide the law and the facts.
>>>I haven't seen judges going out of their way to point that out though.
>
>laws they don't like, or does it mean they are the ones responsible for
>deciding what the law is? There's a distinction. "Judge" is ambiguous
>there. Also, is this view of jury nullification an actual operating
>part of the US legal system, or an obsolete doctrine? What does case
>law say about it? How does this work in practice?
The actual text is:
---
Article 1, Section 19: Right of jury to determine law and facts in
criminal cases:
In all criminal cases whatever, the jury shall have the right to determine
the law and the facts.
---
In practice, I suspect few juries are informed of this, and that in
keeping with the generally conservative nature of the Indiana populace,
most verdicts are reached in line with the law and judge's instructions.
Aaron M. Renn
>Look, I'm obviously no expert in US law, but the constitution
>explicitly states that the Supreme Court is responsible for the
>interpretation of the constitution, not some random joe who ends up on
>a jury somewhere.
The right of the Supreme Court to declare laws unconstitional is not
explicitly stated in the constitution. The Supreme Court unilaterally
asserted it in Marbury v. Madison. This capacity was implied by its
grant of judicial power in Article 3. Similarly the Constitution
grants the right to trial by jury, along with all that comes with it.
The idea that the jury can decide the law and the facts is implied by
the very nature of a jury trial.
David G. Bell
js...@bluedog.apana.org.au "Jason Stokes" wrote:
> On Sat, 08 Jan 2000 17:37:28 -0500, Vicki Rosenzweig <v...@redbird.org>
> wrote:
>
> >>I am from Indiana originally, and our state constitution explicitly
> >>states that a jury has the right to decide the law and the facts.
> >>I haven't seen judges going out of their way to point that out though.
>
> But what does that *mean* exactly? Does it mean they can "nullify"
> laws they don't like, or does it mean they are the ones responsible for
> deciding what the law is? There's a distinction. "Judge" is ambiguous
> there. Also, is this view of jury nullification an actual operating
> part of the US legal system, or an obsolete doctrine? What does case
> law say about it? How does this work in practice?
I'd almost suggest that "Judge" is a misleading word. Of course, it's a
word with specific technical meaning within the legal system, but it
seems to have diverged from other non-legal meanings. Might it not be
that the role of the Judge in a trial is more akin to what, in other
contexts, is called a referee? How much of the judging of the truth of
witnesses and evidence is done by the Judge, and how much by the Jury?
Can anyone quote what oaths and affirmations might be given by judges
and jurors, when they take office, and when they are sworn into the
Jury?
--
David G. Bell -- Farmer, SF Fan, Filker, and Punslinger.
Vicki Rosenzweig
20:20:46 GMT:
>On Sun, 09 Jan 2000 03:11:04 GMT, Mark Jones <sin...@pacifier.com>
>wrote:
>
>>And yea, verily, on Sun, 09 Jan 2000 01:16:27 GMT, Mark Pitcavage
>><spa...@militia-watchdog.org> spake thusly:
>>
>>>On 8 Jan 2000 21:21:35 GMT, ar...@urbanophile.com (Aaron M. Renn)
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>I am from Indiana originally, and our state constitution explicitly
>>>>states that a jury has the right to decide the law and the facts.
>>>>I haven't seen judges going out of their way to point that out though.
>>>
>>>There is a big difference between "determining the law" and deciding
>>>to ignore it because you don't like it, which is what jury
>>>nullification argues.
>>
>>According to SCOTUS an unconstitutional law is "null and void" from
>>the moment it is enacted. If a juror believes that a particular law
>>is unconstitutional, he _should_ ignore it. And refuse to convict
>>anyone for violating the law, since it has no legal authority.
>
>Look, I'm obviously no expert in US law, but the constitution
>explicitly states that the Supreme Court is responsible for the
>interpretation of the constitution, not some random joe who ends up on
>a jury somewhere.
Clearly, you're not. The US constitution says nothing about who
gets to determine what is constitutional: the Supreme Court
says the Supreme Court has that power. Really. Marbury v. Madison.
One of the main things to remember about US constitutional law
is that the US constitution is a fairly short document, but has
been extensively interpreted over the last couple of centuries,
and those interpretations have the force of law unless and until
overruled, which doesn't happen all that often. It's amazing how
much has been read into the "Commerce Clause," for example.
Besides, he's talking about the Indiana constitution, which
presumably contains clauses not part of the US constitution,
as do most state constitutions (New York's, for example, gives
us a huge state park, "forever wild," and contains stronger
privacy protections than does the US constitution).
Jason Stokes
wrote:
>The actual text is:
>
>---
>
>Article 1, Section 19: Right of jury to determine law and facts in
>criminal cases:
>
>In all criminal cases whatever, the jury shall have the right to
>determine the law and the facts.
>
>---
>
>In practice, I suspect few juries are informed of this, and that in
>keeping with the generally conservative nature of the Indiana populace,
>most verdicts are reached in line with the law and judge's instructions.
Yes, but I still don't know what it means. Remember, the law isn't
paper principles or casuistic arguments. It's real, operating
principles and precedents. So to decide what the law is, we need to
know the principles and precedents.
--
Jason Stokes: js...@bluedog.apana.org.au
Aaron M. Renn
extremism. I didn't read all the files (because viewing PDF for me
is very cumbersome), but what I did see didn't look all that damning.
The web site is http://www.fija.org/. They put out a "Juror's Handbook:
A Citizen's Guide to Jury Duty", available at
http://www.fija.org/juror-handbook.htm
which expounds the virtues of jury nullification, and encourages people
to be activist in nullifying laws they consider unjust, but make no specific
references to incomes taxes, guns, etc that would be hallmarks of the
militia type. Almost all of the current cases they mentioned specifically
are about marjuana laws. (The others in their case directories were about
a alternative healer charged with practicing medicine without a license
and a couple libertarians charged with illegal campaigning near a polling
place when they wore libertarian party t-shirts to vote).
They do have a lengthy article by Lysander Spooner, which counts against
them, though he seems to be a favorite of the upper class libertarian
set, not the hard core militia.
Interesting cases mentioned:
Trial of William Penn in England where a jury was actually thrown in jail
after refusing to convict him of preaching an illegal religion. (They
were eventually released).
Trial of John Peter Zenger accused of libel for publishing material
criticial of the colonial gov't without permission. The law stated that
truth was no defense, but the jury acquitted anyway. (Alexander Hamilton
was the defense attorney).
Quotes from Supreme Court justices and various legal decisions as recent
as 1972 acknowledging the power of the jury to nullify laws.
Interesting mention of "reverse nullification" in the Nuremburg trials
where the fact that the actions of the Nazis was legal under German laws
was not considered to be a defense of their behavior.
Read the materials and decide for yourself. I got the impression of a
general libertarian - and thus right wing - outlook, but nothing indicating
an extremism more than, say, the EFF (which is what I believe touched off
this thread). I didn't see much that indicated any hard core militia
type stuff.
Someone asked for references on blacks and jury nullification. Here are
a few I looked up with a quick altavista search:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/1320/nullification.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/jury080299.htm
http://www.intellectualcapital.com/issues/issue90/item2151.asp
Jason Stokes
wrote:
>The idea that the jury can decide the law and the facts is implied by
>the very nature of a jury trial.
This would explain why "jury nullification" is not a doctrine in any
other nation that has inherited English common law and still practices
jury trials. Jury trials historically didn't evolve out of concern to
oppose judicial tyranny, or to allow citizens to decide the merits of
the law, or any such motivation, although I concede American views on
the jury have evolved in such a fashion. According to Eben Moglan the
jury trial is a bit of a myth; http://old.law.columbia.edu/: plea
bargaining is now the de facto way of eliminating the jury trial in
most cases.
These look like interesting articles:
http://www.newswise.com/articles/1998/3/JURY.VAN.html
http://www.intellectualcapital.com/issues/issue90/item2151.asp
--
Jason Stokes: js...@bluedog.apana.org.au
Bernard Peek
Grumer <av...@bigfoot.com> writes>(Mark Jones) wrote:
>
>> And yea, verily, on Sun, 09 Jan 2000 10:03:14 GMT, Mark Pitcavage
>> <spa...@militia-watchdog.org> spake thusly:
>>
>>
>> Sure there is. (See--I can make unsupported blanket assertions
>> too!)
>
>Would either of you care to back up your arguments with some citations?
Mine is the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, which confirms that in criminal
cases a jury's decision to acquit is final, in the UK and the USA.
Mitch Wagner
js...@bluedog.apana.org.au said:
> On Sun, 09 Jan 2000 20:01:12 GMT, Mitch Wagner <mi...@wagner.net>
> wrote:
>
> >I'll ask you the same question I asked Vicki:
> >
> >You're a juror in a drug case in a state with a zero tolerance law. The
> >defendant is a young adult with no criminal record found in possession of
> >a single marijuana cigarette. He is found guilty of possession. Credible
> >character witnesses come forward to attest to the defendant's otherwise
> >sterling character. He has no other criminal convictions.
>
> I wouldn't convict him. But I would con myself into believing I had
> just exercised a legal right, because I wouldn't have been doing so.
> I'd have been following a moral imperative.
Okay, I'll buy that. I have no idea what the law is as regards jury
nullification.
>
> We should remember that the "fully informed jury" is supposed to
> believe they have the legal right to disregard a law they don't like.
> Advocates of jury nullification disagree with the idea that juries
> should be instructed that it's their obligation to judge the facts
> according to the law.
>
> "Jury nullification" cuts both ways. Would you accept murderers
> getting acquitted because a juror is convinced that killing homosexuals
> is "God's law"?
No, I wouldn't. Why should I? Out of some false notion of even-
handedness?
Mark Jones
av...@bigfoot.com (Avram Grumer) spake thusly:
>In article <3879d628...@news.pacifier.com>, sin...@pacifier.com
>(Mark Jones) wrote:
>
>> Y'all are obviously discussing a real case, but I haven't heard of
>> it. Anyone want to fill in the details for me?
>
>Mike Diana is (according to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund's case file
>at <http://www.cbldf.org/casefiles/diana.html>) the first American artist
>ever to be convicted of obscenity.
>
>In Florida in 1994 Diana was found guilty of publishing, distributing, and
>advertising obscene material, namely his comics 'zine _Boiled Angel_. An
>appellate court later overturned the advertising charge, but the other two
>were allowed to stand. The Supreme Court refused to hear his case.
>
>The case file says: "Diana was sentenced to a three-year probation, during
>which time his residence is subject to inspection, without warning or
>warrant, to determine if he is in possession of, or is creating obscene
>material. He is to have no contact with children under 18, undergo
>psychological testing, enroll in a journalistic ethics course, pay a
>$3,000 fine, and perform 1,248 hours of community service."
What of the requirement not to draw anything? Or was that a
hypothetical question?
>
>There's an interview with Diana at
><http://streams.com/brian/96/1/static.diana.html>, in which he describes
>some of the events that led to his pers -- excuse me, prosecution.
Thanks for the info.
mike weber
Jan 2000 16:04:25 -0500,
:
>In article <387bd757...@news.pacifier.com>, sin...@pacifier.com
>(Mark Jones) wrote:
>
>> And yea, verily, on Sun, 09 Jan 2000 10:03:14 GMT, Mark Pitcavage
>> <spa...@militia-watchdog.org> spake thusly:
>>
>> >There is no such right.
>>
>> Sure there is. (See--I can make unsupported blanket assertions
>> too!)
>
>Would either of you care to back up your arguments with some citations?
>
--
=============================================================
"They put manure in his well and they made him talk to lawyers!"
-- Cat Ballou
mike weber -- kras...@mindspring.com
Avram Grumer
(Martin Wisse) wrote:
> Mike Diana is a cartoonist living in Florida who was publishing a small
> zine called Boiled Angel, which was... not nice... to say the least.
I think he's currently living in New York.
Mark Jones
(Aaron M. Renn) spake thusly:
>On Sun, 09 Jan 2000 20:20:46 GMT, Jason Stokes <js...@bluedog.apana.org.au> wrote:
>>Look, I'm obviously no expert in US law, but the constitution
>>explicitly states that the Supreme Court is responsible for the
>>interpretation of the constitution, not some random joe who ends up on
>>a jury somewhere.
>
>The right of the Supreme Court to declare laws unconstitional is not
>explicitly stated in the constitution. The Supreme Court unilaterally
>asserted it in Marbury v. Madison. This capacity was implied by its
>grant of judicial power in Article 3. Similarly the Constitution
>grants the right to trial by jury, along with all that comes with it.
>The idea that the jury can decide the law and the facts is implied by
>the very nature of a jury trial.
Exactly. And while SCOTUS _is_ the court of final appeal, _any_
court can reject a law as unconstitutional (though the decision may
be appealed). And any jury--or any single juror--can act on _his_
belief that a law is unconstitutional or otherwise unjust, and
refuse to enforce it.
That's the point of a jury trial. Before the state can punish an
individual, it must convince twelve randomly chosen fellow citizens
that a) a crime was committed, b) that the defendent did it, and c)
that the action deserves the punishment prescribed by law. The less
consensus there is among the population that a particular law is
constitutional or just, the more likely it is that a juror or jurors
will find it unacceptable, and the more likely that it will be
nullfied.
Which is, in my opinion, exactly as it should be. It gives us one
more check on the tendency for governments to expand their power
into areas they have no business in.
mike weber
Sun, 09 Jan 2000 14:16:52 GMT,
:
>mike weber wrote:
>> Rejecting bad law is only a Bad Thing if you don't get away with it.
>>
>> But my point, i guess, was that the Founding Fathers were breaking a
>> lot bigger law than a jury exercising the nullification theory would
>> be, but that they felt a Moral Imperative to break that law and face
>> the consequences.
>>
>> It strikes me that, following this example, one ought to follow where
>> one's own Moral Imperatives lead and risk the consequences; it's what
>> our country was founded on, after all.
>>
>> OTOH, "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime" applies to Moral
>> Imperatives just as much as to Armed Robbery...
>
>And it's that "...and face the consequences" part that many of the
>FIJA folks seem to be unclear about.
>
Oh, for sure. I get so DAMNED sick and tired of (as a ferinstance)
IRA types complaining that it isn't *fair* to send them to prison for
posession of a firearm, when the law (whteher a just law or not)
clearly states that this is illegal and what will happen if you are
caught/convicted...
Loren MacGregor
>
> kras...@mindspring.com (mike weber) wrote in
> <38788f83...@news.mindspring.com>:
>
> >OTOH, "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime" applies to Moral
> >Imperatives just as much as to Armed Robbery...
>
> happen to have time and money to spare.
>
> Good practical advice. As moral advice -- well, it's certainly
> convenient to the powerful that the rest of us should follow it.
Yes, except that's not what "If you can't do the time" means. Less
roughly translated, it means, "If you're willing to take the
consequences of your actions, don't do the crime." Does that make
it fit more closely with your idea of moral advice?
I had thought that meaning was well-known. I guess maybe I hang out
with too many ex-cons and/or cops.
-- LJM
Mark Jones
<mi...@wagner.net> spake thusly:
>In article <uoh4OCYIIlIhi9...@4ax.com>, sparky@militia-
>watchdog.org said:
>
>> On Sun, 09 Jan 2000 04:49:39 GMT, kras...@mindspring.com (mike
>> weber) wrote:
>>
>> >Mark Pitcavage <spa...@militia-watchdog.org> is alleged to have said,
>> >on Sun, 09 Jan 2000 01:16:27 GMT,
>> >:
>> >>On 8 Jan 2000 21:21:35 GMT, ar...@urbanophile.com (Aaron M. Renn)
>> >>wrote:
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>>I am from Indiana originally, and our state constitution explicitly
>> >>>states that a jury has the right to decide the law and the facts.
>> >>>I haven't seen judges going out of their way to point that out though.
>> >>
>> >>There is a big difference between "determining the law" and deciding
>> >>to ignore it because you don't like it, which is what jury
>> >>nullification argues.
>> >>
>> >If you determine that the law is wrong, then you are, it seems to me,
>> >duty-bound to ignore it.
>> >
>> >And i promise you, nobody who knows me has *ever* called me a
>> >right-wing extremist.
>>
>> Whether one has a moral obligation to ignore a law one despises is a
>> different question from whether one has a legal right to do so, and
>> the answer to the latter question is that one does not.
>>
>> It's called the rule of law.
>
>So why is it, then, that the hypothetical juror is not allowed to decide
>whether the law in question violates a higher law - the Constitution?
>Isn't the Constitution part of the rule of law?
Of course not. We mere peons aren't entitled to hold such opinions.
(Well, maybe _hold_ them, but certainly not to _act_ on them.)
The Supreme Court, like Humpty-Dumpty, has asserted that the
Constitution means what _they_ say it means, and any disagreement
with them based on common sense or the historical meaning of the
words is, well, just _wrong_.
Mark Jones
mwi...@ad-astra.demon.nl (Martin Wisse) spake thusly:
>On Sun, 09 Jan 2000 18:41:06 GMT, sin...@pacifier.com (Mark Jones)
>wrote:
>
>>And yea, verily, on Sun, 09 Jan 2000 11:19:53 GMT,
>>kras...@mindspring.com (mike weber) spake thusly:
>>
>>>Kip Williams <ki...@home.com> is alleged to have said, on Sun, 09 Jan
>>>2000 06:14:37 GMT,
>>>:
>>>>mike weber wrote:
>>>>>
>>>
>>>>> And then the judge sentences the defendant and, among other things,
>>>>> forbids him to draw *anything*at*all* for several years.
>>>>
>>>>Ironic, isn't it? You look at the work of that guy Diana and you
>>>>think "that's sick." Then you hear that a judge actually is
>>>>forbidding the man to pick up a pen and make figures on paper...
>>>>that truly is sick. That's trying to shackle thought crime.
>>>>
>>>*I'd* tell the guy never to drawanything again, too -- but i don't
>>>have the power (and wouldn't exercise it if i did, speaking
>>>realistically) to actually *forbid* it.
>>>
>>>"Sick" doesn't cover it. S.Clay Wilson is "sick". Mike Diana is in a
>>>class way beyond "sick"
>>>
>>>But forbidding him to even draw for himself is even sicker.
>>
>>Y'all are obviously discussing a real case, but I haven't heard of
>>it. Anyone want to fill in the details for me?
>
>Mike Diana is a cartoonist living in Florida who was publishing a small
>zine called Boiled Angel, which was... not nice... to say the least.
>
Thanks for the information!
P Nielsen Hayden
>OTOH, "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime" applies to Moral
>Imperatives just as much as to Armed Robbery...
In other words, don't rebel against iniquitous authority unless you
happen to have time and money to spare.
Good practical advice. As moral advice -- well, it's certainly
convenient to the powerful that the rest of us should follow it.
--
Patrick Nielsen Hayden : p...@panix.com : http://www.panix.com/~pnh
P Nielsen Hayden
<hYd4OPY73QkMUz...@4ax.com>:
>On Sun, 09 Jan 2000 02:58:56 GMT, sin...@pacifier.com (Mark Jones)
>wrote:
>
>
>>>You should not be surprised at this; after all, in the extreme
>>>right jury nullification is routinely suggested as a way to avoid
>>>being convicted for anti-government crimes ranging from tax
>>>evasion to bomb plots. The extreme right encourages its members
>>>to always get on juries so that they can vote not to convict, and
>>>often engages in attempts at jury tampering, such as passing out
>>>copies of the so-called "citizen's handbook" to potential jurors
>>>at extremist-related trials, so much so that court security
>>>personnel are routinely warned to watch out for it. Some
>>>extremists manage to get hold of whole jury lists so they can send
>>>nullification propaganda to everybody who might be in the jury of
>>>a case involving a comrade in arms.
>>
>>They may encourage their members to get on juries, but since they
>>don't decide who gets called, and since they're a tiny minority, I
>>don't see a horrendous threat there. Nor do I see anything wrong
>>with telling potential jurors about their right to refuse to
>>convict someone under laws they consider unconstitutional or
>>otherwise unjust.
>
>There is no such right.
Thanks so much for the lengthy explanation. I feel much better-
informed now.
>>Cops have discretion on whom to arrest and on what charges.
>>Prosecutors have discretion on whom to indict and whether or not to
>>press charges. Judges have all sorts of authority. The notion
>>that jurors should be free to refuse to act as a rubber stamp for
>>whatever charges the state chooses to make--to exercise discretion
>>in _their_ official capacity--doesn't fill me with dread.
I find this point of Mark Jones's (count the carets) to be pretty good,
actually.
>Gosh, guess what. In this country we elect representatives, who
>make the laws. If you don't like the law, you have all sorts of
>options as to getting it changed. However, one option you do not
>have is the option of unilaterally deciding you will ignore the law.
> You do not have that option in society at large and you do not have
>that option as juror.
I find that my old pal Mark Pitcavage is not so much arguing as simply
issuing hectoring diktats. I am unhappy to say that while I share his
deep distrust of the radical right, I do not like people who approach
an argument with this kind of flat tone of Laying Down The Law. I find
in myself a deep desire to tell Mark to go fuck himself.
I'm sorry about this. But, you know, here in rec.arts.sf.fandom,
strangely enough, we mostly manage to have reasonably civilized
political arguments. Yes, it sounds funny to say that, but really,
compared to political thrash arenas like the Civil War newsgroups,
we're actually pretty respectful of one another's perspectives.
I find that I really don't appreciate Mark Pitcavage coming in here
with sixguns blazing, simply shooting people down like it's a big
videogame. I actually tend more to Mark Pitcavage's politics than to
Mark Jones's. But what I observe is that Mark Jones has behaved like
he needs to justify his views and explain them to those of us who might
not share them. Mark Pitcavage has simply issued us with instructions
about what to think. I don't like or enjoy the kinds of conversations
that ensue from that. I wish Mark Pitcavage would go play this kind of
game in some newsgroup that actually appreciates it.
mike weber
Jan 2000 23:50:42 GMT,
:
>And yea, verily, on Sun, 09 Jan 2000 15:57:37 -0500,
>av...@bigfoot.com (Avram Grumer) spake thusly:
>>The case file says: "Diana was sentenced to a three-year probation, during
>>which time his residence is subject to inspection, without warning or
>>warrant, to determine if he is in possession of, or is creating obscene
>>material. He is to have no contact with children under 18, undergo
>>psychological testing, enroll in a journalistic ethics course, pay a
>>$3,000 fine, and perform 1,248 hours of community service."
>
>What of the requirement not to draw anything? Or was that a
>hypothetical question?
>
He may not draw "obscene material", subject to surprise inspections by
his probation officer. Since "obscene" is a term that has meaning
legally only when defined by a court or jury, he could be *charged*
with creating obscene drawings based on anything that he draws that
the probation officer doesn't like, and probably could wind up back in
jail at least until the case was decided.
If i were he, i would consider that the safest course is to interpret
the order as "draw nothing".
That said, i had read that he had been forbidden to draw at all...
apparently an exaggeration.
mike weber
2000 03:58:25 GMT,
:
>kras...@mindspring.com (mike weber) wrote in
><38788f83...@news.mindspring.com>:
>
>>OTOH, "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime" applies to Moral
>>Imperatives just as much as to Armed Robbery...
>
>
>In other words, don't rebel against iniquitous authority unless you
>happen to have time and money to spare.
>
>Good practical advice. As moral advice -- well, it's certainly
>convenient to the powerful that the rest of us should follow it.
>
Bob Webber
: In article <Hr6e4.4198$oF2....@ozemail.com.au>,
: js...@bluedog.apana.org.au said:
...
: > "Jury nullification" cuts both ways. Would you accept murderers
: > getting acquitted because a juror is convinced that killing homosexuals
: > is "God's law"?
: No, I wouldn't. Why should I? Out of some false notion of even-
: handedness?
You might not want to accept it, but if you support the idea that
jurors can nullify laws, you are helping it to happen. You might
believe that it's a reasonable price to pay for making nullification
possible where you want it, but I don't see you you can get
out of ending up making it more likely.
If you would like to deny that you would be doing so, please explain
how you would keep it from happening.
I don't personally see a way to support the principle that allowed
Henry Morgenthaler to avoid conviction for performing abortions
in Canada in the 60s and 70s (back when Canadians went to the US
to get abortions instead of the other way around) without supporting
the principle that would allow a town to acquit a murderer because
they agreed with his hate for a member of a minority.
I suppose that what I want is for it not to be routine: I want
jury nullification to be used only as a last resort, and I want
it to be significant and newsworthy when it is. Partly this is to
engage still further societal control mechanisms. Partly it's
a dislike of running anything, even a nation, on kludges, patches,
and workarounds. I at least want a message logged someplace.
--
Nothing he's got he really needs
Twenty first century schizoid man.
-- Fripp-McDonald-Lake-Giles-Sinfield (King Crimson)
Bruce Baugh
>Mark Jones's. But what I observe is that Mark Jones has behaved like
>he needs to justify his views and explain them to those of us who might
>not share them. Mark Pitcavage has simply issued us with instructions
>about what to think. I don't like or enjoy the kinds of conversations
>that ensue from that. I wish Mark Pitcavage would go play this kind of
>game in some newsgroup that actually appreciates it.
It is not with any great pleasure that I say "I told you so". I would
not have minded feeling the need to say "either I misremembered, or
things have changed, and my old reaction no longer applied."
--
Bruce Baugh / bruce...@sff.net
"Never let it be be said, especially by large men with guns, that
I failed to help." - Dave Weinstein
Mitch Wagner
> Mitch Wagner (mi...@wagner.net) wrote:
> : In article <Hr6e4.4198$oF2....@ozemail.com.au>,
> : js...@bluedog.apana.org.au said:
> ...
> : > "Jury nullification" cuts both ways. Would you accept murderers
> : > getting acquitted because a juror is convinced that killing homosexuals
> : > is "God's law"?
>
> : No, I wouldn't. Why should I? Out of some false notion of even-
> : handedness?
>
> You might not want to accept it, but if you support the idea that
> jurors can nullify laws, you are helping it to happen. You might
> believe that it's a reasonable price to pay for making nullification
> possible where you want it, but I don't see you you can get
> out of ending up making it more likely.
>
I don't have an answer to that, except to say that if a person is guilty
of violating an unjust law, that person should not go to jail.
You know as well as I do that the two hypothetical examples I cited -
people sent to prison for trivial drug possession, and sodomy laws - are
not really hypothetical.
> Partly this is to
> engage still further societal control mechanisms. Partly it's
> a dislike of running anything, even a nation, on kludges, patches,
> and workarounds.
But societal control mechanisms ARE kludges, patches and workarounds. We
can hope for better, but we have to work with what we have.
David G. Bell
web...@world.std.com "Bob Webber" wrote:
> Mitch Wagner (mi...@wagner.net) wrote:
> : In article <Hr6e4.4198$oF2....@ozemail.com.au>,
> : js...@bluedog.apana.org.au said:
> ...
> : > "Jury nullification" cuts both ways. Would you accept murderers
> : > getting acquitted because a juror is convinced that killing homosexuals
> : > is "God's law"?
>
> : No, I wouldn't. Why should I? Out of some false notion of even-
> : handedness?
>
> You might not want to accept it, but if you support the idea that
> jurors can nullify laws, you are helping it to happen. You might
> believe that it's a reasonable price to pay for making nullification
> possible where you want it, but I don't see you you can get
> out of ending up making it more likely.
>
> If you would like to deny that you would be doing so, please explain
> how you would keep it from happening.
It would seem reasonable to consider a juror with that opinion as too
biased to hear a case concerning the murder of a homosexual, but you
could make the same argument over nullification in a case involving
personal use of marijuana. You could, I think, reasonably expect a
juror to set aside prejudices against particular persons or classes.
> I don't personally see a way to support the principle that allowed
> Henry Morgenthaler to avoid conviction for performing abortions
> in Canada in the 60s and 70s (back when Canadians went to the US
> to get abortions instead of the other way around) without supporting
> the principle that would allow a town to acquit a murderer because
> they agreed with his hate for a member of a minority.
>
> I suppose that what I want is for it not to be routine: I want
> jury nullification to be used only as a last resort, and I want
> it to be significant and newsworthy when it is. Partly this is to
> engage still further societal control mechanisms. Partly it's
> a dislike of running anything, even a nation, on kludges, patches,
> and workarounds. I at least want a message logged someplace.
Long run, jury nullification is essentially futile if it isn't noticed.
It doesn't stop people being arrested, and being detained until a trial.
Kip Williams
>
> sin...@pacifier.com (Mark Jones) is alleged to have said, on Sun, 09
> Jan 2000 23:50:42 GMT,
> :
> >And yea, verily, on Sun, 09 Jan 2000 15:57:37 -0500,
> >av...@bigfoot.com (Avram Grumer) spake thusly:
>
> >>The case file says: "Diana was sentenced to a three-year probation, during
> >>which time his residence is subject to inspection, without warning or
> >>warrant, to determine if he is in possession of, or is creating obscene
> >>material. He is to have no contact with children under 18, undergo
> >>psychological testing, enroll in a journalistic ethics course, pay a
> >>$3,000 fine, and perform 1,248 hours of community service."
> >
> >What of the requirement not to draw anything? Or was that a
> >hypothetical question?
> >
> He may not draw "obscene material", subject to surprise inspections by
> his probation officer. Since "obscene" is a term that has meaning
> legally only when defined by a court or jury, he could be *charged*
> with creating obscene drawings based on anything that he draws that
> the probation officer doesn't like, and probably could wind up back in
> jail at least until the case was decided.
>
> If i were he, i would consider that the safest course is to interpret
> the order as "draw nothing".
>
> That said, i had read that he had been forbidden to draw at all...
> apparently an exaggeration.
Maybe he could get an Etch-a-sketch.
--
--Kip (Williams)
amusing the world at http://members.home.net/kipw/
Kip Williams
>
> P Nielsen Hayden wrote:
> >
> > kras...@mindspring.com (mike weber) wrote in
> > <38788f83...@news.mindspring.com>:
> >
> > >OTOH, "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime" applies to Moral
> > >Imperatives just as much as to Armed Robbery...
> >
> > In other words, don't rebel against iniquitous authority unless you
> > happen to have time and money to spare.
> >
> > Good practical advice. As moral advice -- well, it's certainly
> > convenient to the powerful that the rest of us should follow it.
>
> roughly translated, it means, "If you're willing to take the
> consequences of your actions, don't do the crime." Does that make
> it fit more closely with your idea of moral advice?
Here's your missing word, mister:
"...not..."
I found it wandering around outside. It belongs in the translation.
Mark Pitcavage
weber) wrote:
>"Marcus L. Rowland" <mrow...@ffutures.demon.co.uk> is alleged to have
>said, on Sun, 9 Jan 2000 12:24:42 +0000,
>:
>>In article <38786efd...@news.mindspring.com>, mike weber
>><kras...@mindspring.com> writes
>>
>>>So where does that leave the Founding Fathers?
>>
>>Executed as rebels if they'd lost.
>
>Exactly.
>
>But they won.
>
>Rejecting bad law is only a Bad Thing if you don't get away with it.
>
>But my point, i guess, was that the Founding Fathers were breaking a
>lot bigger law than a jury exercising the nullification theory would
>be, but that they felt a Moral Imperative to break that law and face
>the consequences.
>
>It strikes me that, following this example, one ought to follow where
>one's own Moral Imperatives lead and risk the consequences; it's what
>our country was founded on, after all.
>
>OTOH, "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime" applies to Moral
>Imperatives just as much as to Armed Robbery...
This is an amazingly flawed analogy, even if you want to suggest that
the moral right to revolution is somehow equivalent to an asserted
moral right to ignore the law in a jury room. The Founding Fathers
were not an individual in a jury room, making a unillateral decision
not to convict based on his or individual interpretation of the laws.
Unilateral individual action was the last thing they did. The
Declaration of Independence, for instance, was the result of decisions
made by the Continental Congress, which itself was the result of
decisions made by a number of provincial legislatures and colonial
legislatures (depending on which colony you are talking about). They
engaged in revolution, but did not do so individually or unilaterally,
but rather as leaders of a movement with a strong basis of support,
not only in terms of public opinion, but also the local legal
institutions of the day.
The two are simply not comparable.
Mark Pitcavage, Ph.D.
The Militia Watchdog, http://www.militia-watchdog.org
Mark Pitcavage
wrote:
>On Sun, 09 Jan 2000 09:55:59 -0500, Vicki Rosenzweig <v...@redbird.org> wrote:
>>>>All else aside, as a practical matter, if any substantial
>>>>group of people becomes convinced that the murder of one of
>>>>their number will go unpunished, you have a recipe for riots
>>>>and vigilante justice. And if any substantial group becomes
>>>>convinced that a murder *by* one of their number will go
>>>>unpunished, you have a recipe for the breakdown of civil order.
>>>
>>>Only if you feel that the unanimous verdict of 12 people from the
>>>community is likely to be viewed as unfair by that community. I
>>>personally don't think so.
>>
>>Two words: Simi Valley.
>
>Do you believe this was an instance of jury nullification caused by
>FIJA activism?
It doesn't matter if it was spontaneous jury nullification (such as
the first Rodney King trial or the trial of DeLorean), or
nullification caused by FIJA activism. It's still bad.
Mark Pitcavage
wrote:
>In article <HYh4OEyuDWq=ek=aV12uv...@4ax.com>, Mark Pitcavage
><spa...@militia-watchdog.org> writes
>
>
>>That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, and on Usent, that
>>is saying something. The notion that Johnny Citizen can decide on his
>>own that he can ignore the laws because he has decided they don't
>>agree with his personal notions of constitutionality is utterly
>>imbecilic.
>
>Johnny Citizen can decide to acquit if he considers the law in question
>to be unconstitutional, or for any other reason. And because jury
>deliberations are in secret there's no requirement for him to explain
>his reasoning. In a criminal trial the jury's decision to acquit is
>final. That's as true in the US as it is here in the UK.
Johnny Citizen can do what you state in the first sentence not because
he is supposed to do that, but because the law can't stop him from
doing that. It is a byproduct of our jury system, not the purpose of
it. And it is a bad byproduct.
>There will be situations where the majority of the population that the
>jury is selected from think that some action is reasonable, even if it
>is illegal. Under those circumstances the accused is likely to be
>acquitted by a jury of his or her peers. That's the purpose of jury
>trials, and has been since at least 1215.
No, that's not the purpose of jury trials.
Mark Pitcavage
wrote:
>On Sun, 09 Jan 2000 01:13:42 GMT, Mark Pitcavage <spa...@militia-watchdog.org> wrote:
>>>Actually, the left is probably as much or more involved in the jury
>>>nullification movement. Witness the calls for black jurors to acquit
>>>black drug defendants and such based on the US legal system's supposed
>>>racist nature.
>>
>>I subscribe to several jury nullification publications, and with the
>>exception of various potheads, it is difficult to see many signs of
>>the left in them.
>
>If you don't subscribe to it, it must not exist, eh? You're a
>self-professed watchdog of the right. It seems likely you'd know much
>more about them than the left.
That is a non-rebuttal.
>>>Is there something wrong with handing out leaflets in front of a public
>>>building? Personally, I think telling people about their rights
>>>as jurors (something the judge will never do) is a great thing.
>>>Do you hate Miranda warnings and the ACLU "bust card" too? I consider
>>>these essentially similar.
>>
>>In the first place, they are not "juror rights." In the second place,
>>when you hand out material to the jury pool before a case asserting to
>>them that they can refuse to convict, and hinting that they should, it
>>is jury tampering.
>
>Not too many successful prosecutions on this, and trying to supress
>leafleting in front of a public building is a pr nightmare waiting
>to happen. I don't suggest this as a winning strategy.
>
>And I believe the right to speak and vote your conscience in a jury
>deliberation is a right of every juror.
Believe what you want. It's not our system.
Mark Pitcavage
wrote:
>On Sun, 09 Jan 2000 10:07:19 GMT, Mark Pitcavage <spa...@militia-watchdog.org> wrote:
>>>If you determine that the law is wrong, then you are, it seems to me,
>>>duty-bound to ignore it.
>>>
>>>And i promise you, nobody who knows me has *ever* called me a
>>>right-wing extremist.
>>
>>Whether one has a moral obligation to ignore a law one despises is a
>>different question from whether one has a legal right to do so, and
>>the answer to the latter question is that one does not.
>>
>>It's called the rule of law.
>
>Since you've been spouting off about the dangers of right wing nuts,
>I don't feel too bad about stooping to your level. :-)
>
>The law in this country once said blacks couldn't ride in the front of
>the bus. Should that rule of law have been followed? Would you vote to
>convict Rosa Parks? A quick look at US history shows many, many similar
>such blatantly unjust laws.
I don't think Rosa Parks broke any laws; I think that was simply bus
company policy. However, let us say she did. If she broke the law,
she broke the law. If you don't want to do the time, don't do the
crime. There are plenty of ways to protest bad laws, and the Civil
Rights movement, in fact, is full of them. So your example is a
particularly bad one.
The plain fact is that with jury nullification, one individual takes
it upon him or herself to decide what is and what is not a good law.
Perhaps the result will be "good." Perhaps it will be bad. It
doesn't matter; the point is that it is entirely arbitrary. That is
simply anarchy. That is not the rule of law.
Mark Pitcavage
wrote:
>On Sun, 09 Jan 2000 10:03:14 GMT, Mark Pitcavage <spa...@militia-watchdog.org> wrote:
>>>They may encourage their members to get on juries, but since they
>>>don't decide who gets called, and since they're a tiny minority, I
>>>don't see a horrendous threat there. Nor do I see anything wrong
>>>with telling potential jurors about their right to refuse to convict
>>>someone under laws they consider unconstitutional or otherwise
>>>unjust.
>>
>>There is no such right.
>
>Yes there is. Juries may refuse to convict for any reason, and that
>decision cannot be appealed by the gov't. This creates a pretty powerful
>right, I'd say. Judges have the right to set aside jury verdicts in
>some venues, but are rightly loathe to exercise that power, knowing that
>the right of trial by jury is rightly cherished by the American public.
The fact that juries may refuse to convict does not mean that they
have the right to do so. It means they have the power to do so, as a
byproduct of the way our jury system is set up. The jury
nullification movement has attempted to transform a pernicious
byproduct into a right.
Mark Pitcavage
wrote:
>>That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, and on Usent, that
>>is saying something. The notion that Johnny Citizen can decide on his
>>own that he can ignore the laws because he has decided they don't
>>agree with his personal notions of constitutionality is utterly
>>imbecilic.
>
>Ever heard of civil disobedience? Ever heard of Rosa Parks? Martin
>Luther King, Jr.? Ghandi? (Another nation, true, but the same
>idea.) They all practiced the "imbecilic" notion of refusing to
>comply with laws that violated their "personal notions" of justice
>or constitutionality.
>
>But, I can hear you splutter, they accepted the consequences!
I am not going to splutter at all. You have failed to grasp the fact
that people like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., SUFFERED from
the consequences of jury nullification. They did not profit from it.
It was a system that worked AGAINST people like Rosa Parks and Martin
Luther King, Jr. In fact, jury nullification will, by its very
nature, tend to support the Tyranny of the Majority more than it will
tend to help beleagured smaller groups.
Mark Pitcavage
wrote:
>>Whether one has a moral obligation to ignore a law one despises is a
>>different question from whether one has a legal right to do so, and
>>the answer to the latter question is that one does not.
>>
>>It's called the rule of law.
>
>And the law says that when those twelve jurors retire to the jury
>room to decide the verdict, no official of the court has any
>authority to sit in judgment over their deliberations. They can say
>what they want, believe what they want, and decide what they think
>is the most just course to take. Including, to your regret,
>concluding that a law is unjust and refusing to convict anyone of
>breaking it.
Don't confuse power with rights.
Mark Pitcavage
wrote:
>Sure you do. Juries have long had the right to refuse to enforce
>unjust or unconstitutional laws, even if the judge says otherwise.
>If they don't, why isn't a judge allowed to sit in on their
>deliberations and forbid any "illegal" arguments?
No, they have not had the "right." They have had the -power- to do
so, as a byproduct of the way our system was set up.
Mark Pitcavage
wrote:
>In article <387bd757...@news.pacifier.com>, sin...@pacifier.com
>(Mark Jones) wrote:
>
>> And yea, verily, on Sun, 09 Jan 2000 10:03:14 GMT, Mark Pitcavage
>> <spa...@militia-watchdog.org> spake thusly:
>>
>> >There is no such right.
>>
>> Sure there is. (See--I can make unsupported blanket assertions
>> too!)
>
>Would either of you care to back up your arguments with some citations?
I am not going to get into the tangled details of jury nullification.
The bottom line is that the majority of legal opinion concludes that
there is no "right" to jury nullification, while a very vocal minority
claims the opposite. That the status quo is against the nullifiers is
very obvious by the tactics the have chosen, which includes the FIJA
amendment.
Mark Pitcavage
>In article <uoh4OCYIIlIhi9...@4ax.com>, sparky@militia-
>watchdog.org said:
>
>> On Sun, 09 Jan 2000 04:49:39 GMT, kras...@mindspring.com (mike
>> weber) wrote:
>>
>> >Mark Pitcavage <spa...@militia-watchdog.org> is alleged to have said,
>> >on Sun, 09 Jan 2000 01:16:27 GMT,
>> >:
>> >>On 8 Jan 2000 21:21:35 GMT, ar...@urbanophile.com (Aaron M. Renn)
>> >>wrote:
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>>I am from Indiana originally, and our state constitution explicitly
>> >>>states that a jury has the right to decide the law and the facts.
>> >>>I haven't seen judges going out of their way to point that out though.
>> >>
>> >>There is a big difference between "determining the law" and deciding
>> >>to ignore it because you don't like it, which is what jury
>> >>nullification argues.
>> >>
>> >If you determine that the law is wrong, then you are, it seems to me,
>> >duty-bound to ignore it.
>> >
>> >And i promise you, nobody who knows me has *ever* called me a
>> >right-wing extremist.
>>
>> Whether one has a moral obligation to ignore a law one despises is a
>> different question from whether one has a legal right to do so, and
>> the answer to the latter question is that one does not.
>>
>> It's called the rule of law.
>
>So why is it, then, that the hypothetical juror is not allowed to decide
>whether the law in question violates a higher law - the Constitution?
>Isn't the Constitution part of the rule of law?
Well, for one, that is not the issue put to the jury. For another, no
jury would be competent to so decide. Our system of law does not
provide for randomly selected groups of twelve people to decide what
is and what is not Constitutional.
Mark Pitcavage
wrote:
>In article <hYd4OPY73QkMUz...@4ax.com>, sparky@militia-
>watchdog.org said:
>
>> Gosh, guess what. In this country we elect representatives, who make
>> the laws. If you don't like the law, you have all sorts of options as
>> to getting it changed. However, one option you do not have is the
>> option of unilaterally deciding you will ignore the law. You do not
>> have that option in society at large and you do not have that option
>> as juror.
>
>I'll ask you the same question I asked Vicki:
>
>You're a juror in a drug case in a state with a zero tolerance law. The
>defendant is a young adult with no criminal record found in possession of
>a single marijuana cigarette. He is found guilty of possession. Credible
>character witnesses come forward to attest to the defendant's otherwise
>sterling character. He has no other criminal convictions.
>
>If found guilty, the defendant will face significant prison time. And
>there's no question in your mind, the defendant was, in fact, in
>possession of a marijuana cigarette.
>
>How do you vote?
Guilty, of course.
mike weber
>I might also add that it is the same imbecilic notion that got
>hundreds of Klansmen off scott free from crimes that included murder,
>rape, mutilation, assault, arson, and much else, from the 1860s all
>the way up to the 1960s. Pretty fun stuff, huh?
However, that was hardly "jury nullification" in the sense we're
talking about; that was the old-boy system in action. They weren't
"judging" the law, they were *ignoring* it.
mike weber
Sun, 09 Jan 2000 22:48:27 GMT,
:
>On 9 Jan 2000 22:00:29 GMT, Aaron M. Renn <ar...@urbanophile.com>
>wrote:
>
>>The idea that the jury can decide the law and the facts is implied by
>>the very nature of a jury trial.
>
>This would explain why "jury nullification" is not a doctrine in any
>other nation that has inherited English common law and still practices
>jury trials. Jury trials historically didn't evolve out of concern to
>oppose judicial tyranny, or to allow citizens to decide the merits of
>the law, or any such motivation, although I concede American views on
>the jury have evolved in such a fashion.
The verdict of "Not Proven", which i have heard is still available to
a jury in Scotland {is it?}, is very close to nullification, i'd say.
mike weber
2000 04:12:48 GMT,
:>>On Sun, 09 Jan 2000 02:58:56 GMT, sin...@pacifier.com (Mark Jones)
>>wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>You should not be surprised at this; after all, in the extreme
>>>>right jury nullification is routinely suggested as a way to avoid
>>>>being convicted for anti-government crimes ranging from tax
>>>>evasion to bomb plots. The extreme right encourages its members
>>>>to always get on juries so that they can vote not to convict, and
>>>>often engages in attempts at jury tampering, such as passing out
>>>>copies of the so-called "citizen's handbook" to potential jurors
>>>>at extremist-related trials, so much so that court security
>>>>personnel are routinely warned to watch out for it. Some
>>>>extremists manage to get hold of whole jury lists so they can send
>>>>nullification propaganda to everybody who might be in the jury of
>>>>a case involving a comrade in arms.
>>>
>>>don't decide who gets called, and since they're a tiny minority, I
>>>don't see a horrendous threat there. Nor do I see anything wrong
>>>with telling potential jurors about their right to refuse to
>>>convict someone under laws they consider unconstitutional or
>>>otherwise unjust.
>>
>
>
>informed now.
>
>
What i like is the way that i just read about six posts in a row from
him, all beginning with just about these words and then carefully
repeating his original assertions (which are not arguments, as he does
not really defend them, merely retates them) slowly and clearly so
that us poor slow rasff'ers can understand them.
I'm done playing this game.