"Juror nullification" Have any of your heros done this?

One thing I forgot to mention in the regards to jury nullification.

The gestapo tactics of the police have gone so far as to arrest people that hand out information on jury nullification at courthouses.

The best PLACE to hand these things out, is at polling stations and election centers.

Juries are filled by the election roles. This is where they get all of the information for jury selections. If you are not registered to vote, you do not get selected for jury.

This would be a GREAT year to pass out the jury nullification pamphlets.

Here is one you can print out, this is a two page word document.

www.democracydefined.org...

Located at this site-Democracy Defined

Here is a couple of snippets from the two pages-

Viz. U.S. Chief Justice Samuel Chase: “The Jury has the Right to determine both the law and facts.”

Viz. U.S. President Thomas Jefferson, Democratic Party Founder: “I consider Trial by Jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.”

Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: “The Jury has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth of both law and fact.”

viz. U.S.Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone, “The law itself is on trial quite as much as the case which is to be decided.”

In 1972, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled: “the jury has unreviewable and irreversible power to acquit in disregard of the instruction on the law given by the trial judge. The pages of history shine upon instances of the jury's exercise of its prerogative to disregard instructions of the judge.”

President John Adams, lawyer, pronounced about the Juror:
“It is not only his Right but his Duty to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgement and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court.”

Yale Law Journal.The Principle is explained as follows: If a juror accepts as the law that which the judge states then that juror has accepted the exercise of absolute authority of a government employee and has surrendered a power and right that was once the Citizen’s safeguard of liberty.

[edit on 30-8-2010 by saltheart foamfollower]

Holy cow!
Quite possibly one of the best threads I've ever read!

Jean Paul Zodeaux are you a ex lawyer? Or maybe a professor? lol. good postings!

good job everyone.

reply to post by chorizo4


They are not my "hero's" by any means...

and I seriously doubt any of them would do it..

props to you for doing so...

reply to post by The Vagabond

But a word of caution must be spoken against too broad an application of this principle. It is, as a matter of fact, left to any juror who is willing to disregard the courts instructions (or who may disregard them without consciously deciding to do so) to determine what the natural rights of man are and are not.

Your caveat is duly noted, and well worth taking to heart for any person embracing the knowledge that as a juror they have the absolute power to judge both the facts of a case, and the law regarding that case. To borrow from the pages of Spiderman; "With great power comes great responsibility".

It is a huge responsibility of all free people to fully understand what constitutes a right, and what does not. The confusion regarding rights has become so pervasive that many an intelligent soul will deign to argue that one mans rights can trump another. However this idea is not at all true. Rights, if they are rights, can not intrude upon the rights of other people.

The standard by which to determine what is a right, is not that which has been enumerated by Constitution or legislation, but by the lack of harm that is caused. Indeed, the tragedy of the "Civil Rights Movement" is that civil rights are legal rights afforded people by legislation. However, if a right exists it does so because of its unalienable nature, which means it exists inherently with each person, and universally so.

Where the "Civil Rights Movement" and organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, endeavor to fight for "minority rights", it should be noted that unalienable rights are universal and belong to all people regardless of their gender, race, or creed. In terms of minorities, there is no greater minority than that of the individual. All people, everywhere, have unalienable rights, and the tragic reality that those rights can and often times are abrogated and/or derogated by other people, and/or governments does not serve as any evidence that rights are not unalienable, but instead serves as evidence that rights have been trampled upon.

What are rights? Rights are called such because what we do that causes no other person harm, we do by right. You have brought up an example where a jury might determine that a person has the "right" to kill their secret lover. However, when people understand the underlying principle behind rights such a determination could never be made. Killing other people, outside of necessary self defense, is not a right. Of course, by bringing up necessary self defense, I bring into the equation a seeming contradiction of the standard by which I assert rights should be determined. That standard being, if it causes no harm, it is a right.

Of course, killing another person in the name of self defense, clearly causes harm. However, if the matter is one of kill or be killed, the standard is still applicable. No person has to surrender their right to life in order to enjoy that right. All people have the right to lawfully defend their lives, and if another person is clearly intending to kill, and in the course of defending oneself the unfortunate outcome is killing that attempted murderer, then the principle of cause no harm remains intact because it is the attempt of murder, and the course of self defense that has resulted in harming the attempted murder. We afford law enforcement officers the right to defend to the point of harming the perpetrator if necessary, and if that right belongs to law enforcement, it belongs to all people under the same circumstances.

Indeed, whatever rights a government has, the people have. This brings into question another distinction that should be made, and that is the distinction between right and privilege. Government has been granted certain privileges, such as the power of taxation, that do not extend to the people themselves. Privileges are not rights, but are grants of license granted by an authority. When it comes to granting privilege, the highest authority is the people themselves. Rights, on the other hand, come from an even higher authority. It matters not the religious beliefs of any person, and one need not believe in a God, or Creator, in order to understand that rights are not actions granted allowance by humans, but are natural rights that exist without any need of approval from any human. Privileges are not rights.

This distinction should be understood in light of the uniform declaration all state DMV's have made that "driving is a privilege, not a right". Is this so? By what authority has any government determined that driving is a privilege and not a right? By what authority does any government deign to disregard such an action as not a right? The act of driving in and of itself does not cause any harm. It is often argued that it is a privilege and not a right because of the potential harm that can come from driving, but where do we draw the line in such a matter? Parenting can potentially harm, should we license parents? Indeed, child birth can cause potential harm, should we license the privilege of giving birth, and if a woman dies during child birth should we charge the child with a crime?

Legislating criminality, or privileges based upon the idea that an action can potentially cause harm is not the collective organization of the lawful defense of rights. It is quite the opposite, and is instead a collective organization of disregarding rights. It is because legislatures will endeavor to collectively organize a disregard of rights, that the jury process is so necessary to a free nation.

Originally posted by cindyremains

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
Thus, referring to a person acquitted of a crime as a criminal is slanderous, or disingenuous at best.

Not if they comitted the crime. That makes no sense to me. A criminal is someone who comits crime, whether they get convicted or not makes no difference as many criminals do not even get caught.

What if it was a "law" that you really believed was an affront to freedom? An example would be a 17 year old girl being charged with statutory rape for having sexual intercourse with her 16 year old boyfriend. Something like that actually happened around here.

Another example would be a homeowner using a firearm to shoot a burglar, but being charged with an illegal gun possession or manslaughter.

Jury nullification is a huge issue that citizens have had kept intentionally hidden from them.

reply to post by MMPI2


You are not the only person to have discovered this. It is the result of an impoverished civic education program that focuses on metrics which have little relationship to anything other than getting access to dump money into higher education institutions.

People who explore these kinds of legal realities are usually caricatured into members of the lunatic fringe (whatever that is).

A jury in both examples you cited could (and had the standing authority to) nullify the charge. It then becomes not a case of innocent or guilty, it becomes a case of the justice system recalibrating its zeal to prosecute against that which society accepts as right and wrong.

Again, it returns to sovereignty. We are not RULED by laws. LAWS exist so we can RULE ourselves - and it is WE the people who DECIDE what laws do and do not apply in litigation. The entire point of a jury is to make precisely that decision, the judges and lawyers are mere servants to that end. The respect we are to offer is to the court and the justice system, NOT it's employees.

Unfortunately technocrats in the Justice system seem hell-bent on proclaiming that we are too feeble-minded or ill-informed to think clearly and decide for ourselves, hence their insistence that we NOT delve into jury nullification lest we upset THEIR applecart.

The legal system, like any other monolithic institution seeks to become more powerful than the people it serves. Jury nullification balances the equation definitively. The same way as direct representation balances governance; another institution suffering from the same "libido dominus."

I had jury duty february this year, well to show up, which i did. I dressed in my work used dickies, a worn out black leather biker coat, and beyond used cheap sneakers i bought 6 years ago; ) no one really cared lol. i was hoping my sight was offensive to look at, so theyd ask me to leave..
I did lots of reading about jury nullification. Your going to have to still show up at court, regardless, thats all they really care about is that yuo went* when cross examination comes, too see if yuor going ot be selected or not, form what ive read.. is to be straight forward, not over demanding(dont piss em off) and strong. tell them you know all about jury nullification (even if you dont) and in most cases, them hearing you say that will disqualify you. if they ask, tell them your job is try and trick me to making a conviction, beliving your story and/or statements. based on that from what ive read, they will ask you to leave at some point through the selection process.
ive never done it, but was going to try it if cross examined. i faked a panic attack, went to the woman ury person thier, and told her i was having a panic attack ( hardly made eye contats, made some small body n head shakes, sweated a little. she showeed me on her list i wasnt going to be selected anyways, but it was ok immediatly for me to go home

what i wanted to tell the lawyers and judge, if examined for selection, was why should i..were in a recession and im busy trying to make money lawyers are some of the most 2 faced crooked professionals around, i mean cmon your honor, why not face the truth about it* I dont see Bush jr or AIG CEO in prison, i dont feel the justice system is fair and in fact lies, and i want no part whatsoever in it. case in point* they judge arrested 2 or 3 years ago, holding teens in youth detention for money* that was in the news...police brutality is VERY common yuor honor, and im not comfortable at all, being in a place full of potential citizen harmers*
jsut somethings i conjured up i would have loved to have said lol..but i probably would have been held in contempt of court had i done so*

Originally posted by cindyremains
I am not in a court of law. You are going way out of your way to ignore a definition you yourself just posted in order to make your point. You can pretend certain definitions do not exist but there it is, right there. Since this is a discussion forum and not a court of law, no one is subject to legal definitions without regard to any and all other socially accepted definitions. Play words games all you like but you just proved my point for me so have fun with that.

Criminal- someone who commits a crime.

Like I said.

Then if someone takes you to court for libel/slander by calling them a criminal...
Suddenly you're in court and if found guilty, are a criminal...

I like using your logic!

reply to post by ziggy1706


That is one that I find DESPICABLE.

You may not even realize what you said.

Contempt of court. Think about it, even the wording sounds draconian, or should I say Monarchist?

A "judge" can throw someone in jail, indefinitely if they want for what? Oh, for going against the KING?

Think about it.