Freedom Lawyers of America

by Don Doig
Curriden goes on to cite a study by The Dallas Morning News and the
Sourthern Methodist University Law Review which "identified more than 700
cases since 1990 in which jurors stated publicly that they intended their
verdicts to have impact beyond their individual cases. Between 1970 and
1990 the study found fewer than 100 such cases. In the 70 years prior,
researchers identified only 17 cases in which jurors indicated they wanted
their verdicts to have some kind of broader influence." Many of these were
civil cases.
"But the practice is even more widespread today [than in the time of the
Penn and Zenger trials]. For example, jurors in Atlanta in the mid-1990's
started acquitting sports bookmaking defendants on a regular basis, even
though such cases were usually slam dunks. In post-trial interviews, jurors
saId they saw no moral difference between sports betting and playing the
Georgia lottery.
"In Dallas, jurors started digging in their heels in 1999 in cases
involving lewd dancing.... The jury in one case publicly criticized police
for wasting taxpayers' money investigating and prosecuting what amounted to
victimless crimes. The jurors' statements made news and soon other juries
in similar cases were refusing to convict."
"'Now, when a dancer decides to fight these cases to a jury, they almost
always win,' says Houston lawyer Mike Maness. 'It's absolutely a case of
jurors telling police this is not appropriate public policy.'"
"Tom Charron, director of the National District Attorneys Advocacy Center,
says jury nullification isn't always bad. He says there are thousands of
outdated laws still on the books that could and might still be prosecuted
were it not for the willingness of jurors to refuse to convict."
An article from the Modesto Bee, March 17, 2002 by Ty Phillips notes that
since the passage of the medical marijuana initiative in 1996, "it has
become increasingly difficult for prosecutors to convince juries to convict
[in] medical marijuana cases." Prosecutors are deciding not to file charges
in many cases. Describing a hung jury, Phillips says: "That is how most
every medical marijuana case in Stanislaus county has ended during the past
five years" [with just one exception].
"Last April, a Sonoma County jury found two men innocent of cultivation and
possession charges after police arrested them for growing 899 marijuana
plants. The men claimed that they were growing the plants for a San
Francisco medical marijuana club."
A recent poll (AP article, Bozeman Daily Chronicle, 10/24/98) said: "Most
Americans eligible to serve on a jury say they would act on their own
beliefs of right and wrong regardless of legal instructions from a judge, a
poll says. Three out of four potential jurors agreed with the statement:
'Whatever a judge says the law is, jurors should do what they believe is
the right thing.'" Of course, the effective percentage would drop once they
are subjected to intimidation from the judge.
As the impact of informed juries grows, the legal establishment reacts with
more and more draconian abridgments of trial by jury, exemplified by the
People v. Williams case in California and U.S. v. Thomas from the federal
Second Circuit Court of Appeals. In both cases the court ruled that sitting
jurors can be removed if the judge learns that a juror is refusing to
enforce the law. This declares that openly expressed jury nullification is
grounds for removal from the jury. Tyrannical as this is, conscientious
jurors are left with a clear alternative strategy, and that is to raise the
bar on reasonable doubt; to latch on to anything in the evidence, the
character and motives and reliability of the witnesses or the police, and
hold fast to your reasonable doubts. Judges have not yet usurped the power
to remove you from the jury for these kind of reasons. As long as you bring
up the question of evidence, you call still talk in terms of justice,
conscience, and equity.
Federal judges have, however found ways to deny you a jury trial
altogether. They declare that despite the Sixth Amendment guarantee of a
jury trial "in all criminal prosecutions", you don't get a jury trial if
the sentence is for less than six months, and then they multiply six month
charges, which are to be served consecutively, with still no jury trial.
Additionally, federal judges have decided it is acceptable to "enhance" a
sentence for "relevant conduct" for which a defendant has been acquitted.
To quote the Supreme Court, "In short, we are convinced that a sentencing
court may consider conduct of which a defendant has been acquitted." By
what right? The "long train of abuses and usurpations" continues to grow.