7/29/2019 BR YYYY True or False

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/br-yyyy-true-or-false 1/2

 

 prerogative to disregard instructions o the judge;or example, acquittals under the ugitive slavelaw.” (473 F. 2d 1113)

And let us never orget that in the Nuremburg trialso Nazi war criminals, the deendants argued thatthey were “only ollowing the law.” The Tribunal’sresponse was, quite correctly, that they each hada personal responsibility to judge the moralityo the law, and should have acted according toconscience!

How can one person make a dierence?   BE ALERT! Almost everyday, new attemptsare made to limit jury power, mostly viasubtle changes in the rules o the courtroomprocedure, sometimes by court decisions,legislation, or by the creation o special courtsthat do not allow jury trials or the accused.

BE AWARE!  Thousands o harmless peopleare in prison simply because their juries weren’tully inormed. U.S. now leads the world inpercent o population behind bars! New

prisons are springing up everywhere, and toomany o them are flling up with people whoseonly “crime” was to displease the government“master”, not to victimize anyone (in otherwords, political prisoners).

BE ACTIVE!  Tell others what you knowabout jury veto power!* Beore a jury reaches a

verdict, each member should consider:

1. Is this a good law?  2. I so, is the law being justly applied? 3. Was the Bill o Rights honored in the arrest? 4. Will the punishment ft the crime? 

Is there a local FIJA group? Probably—most people who receive this leaetget it rom someone on a team o local activists.Local activists may also be working withlawmakers or passage o FIJA legislation; othersmy be participating in radio talk shows or placingads and public service announcements, speakingto other local groups, or otherwise getting theword out.

Since 1991, local FIJA groups in 18 states havepersuaded their state governors to proclaimSeptember 5 (the day o Penn’s acquittal) as “JuryRights Day”, oten celebrating it by issuing news

releases and leaeting courthouses—thus usingour First Amendment right to explain how juries canprotect the rest o our rights, simply by acquittingdeendants been charged with breaking a bad law.

*Discretion may be the better part o valor: FIJAactivists have been so eective at telling jurorsthe truth about jury veto power that judgesand prosecutors nowadays not only try to keepully inormed citizens o o juries, but also havesometimes charged those who do inorm them with

contempt o court, even with jury tampering. So, i you decide to “be active”, we advise you to observeany court order directed at your leaeting or othereducational activity, and i you are empaneledto serve on a jury, not to distribute jury-powereducational literature to your ellow jurors.

 - TO RECEIVE MORE INFORMATION -

Call 1-800-TEL-JURY, and tell FIJA where tosend your ree Jury Power Inormation Package. Itcontains a history o jury veto power and tells whatto do i you’re going to be on a jury (or acing one).

It also includes inormation on how you can supportFIJA and a orm or ordering materials.

 The Fully Inormed Jury Association maintains a useulweb site. It contains additional inormation about jury veto power, about FIJA, lists state coordinatorsand has archived fles o our newsletters.

Our site is www.fja.org.

Restore liberty and justice by jury!This leafet is distributed locally by:

This brochure is not copyrighted and may be reproduced at will.

 

 Distributed by

Fully Informed Jury AssociationP. O. Box 5570 Helena, MT 59604

www.fja.org

1-800-TEL-JURY

 Your Jury Rights:

True or False ?

Factual informationabout Jury Service

 

7/29/2019 BR YYYY True or False

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/br-yyyy-true-or-false 2/2

 True or False?When you sit on a jury, you may vote on the

verdict according to your conscience.

“True”, you say—and you’re right. But then . . . 

Why do most judges tell you that you may consider “only the acts”—that you must not let your conscience, opinion o the law, or the motives o 

the deendant afect your decision? In a trial by jury, the judge’s job is to referee the eventand provide neutral legal advice to the jury, properlybeginning with a full explanation of a juror’s rightsand responsibilities.

But judges only rarely “ully inorm” jurors o theirrights, especially their right to judge the law itsel and vote on the verdict according to conscience.In act, judges regularly assist the prosecutionby dismissing prospective jurors who will admitknowing about this right—beginning with anyonewho also admits having qualms with the law.

We can only speculate on why: Disrespect or theidea o government “o, by, and or the people”?Unwillingness to share power? Distrust o thecitizenry? Fear that prosecutors may damage theircareers, saying they’re “sot on crime”? Ignorance o the rights that jurors necessarily acquire when theytake on the responsibility o judging an accusedperson?

How can people get air trials i the jurors are told they can’t use conscience? Many people don’t get air trials. Jurors oten endup apologizing to the person they’ve convicted—orto the community or acquitting a deendant whenevidence o guilt seems perectly clear.

Something is defnitely wrong when the jurors eelapologetic about their verdict. They should neverhave to explain “I wanted to use my conscience, butthe judge made us take an oath to apply the law asgiven to us, like it or not.”

 Too often, jurors who try to vote their consciences aretalked out of it by other jurors who don’t know their rights,or who believe they “have to” reach a unanimous verdictbecause the judge said that a hung jury would “unduly

burden the taxpayers.”

But i jurors were supposed to judge “only the acts”,their job could be done by a judge. It is precisely

because people have individual, independent eelings,opinions, wisdom, experience and conscience that wedepend upon jurors to reuse to mindlessly ollow thedictates o a judge or o a bad law.

 So, when it’s your turn to serve, be aware:

1. You may, and should, vote your conscience;2.  You cannot be force d to obey a “juror ’s oath”;3. You have the right to “hang” the jury with your vote if you cannot agree with other jurors!

What is FIJA, the Fully Informed Jury Association? FIJA is a national educational non-proftorganization which tells citizens more abouttheir rights, powers, and duties as jurors thanthey are likely to be told in court.

FIJA believes that “liberty and justice or all” won’treturn to America until citizens are again ullyinormed o — and using — their power as jurors.

Return? Did judges fully inform jurors of their rights inthe past? 

Yes, it was normal procedure in the early days o our nation, and in colonial times. And i the judgedidn’t tell them, the deense attorney oten would.America’s ounders realized that trials by juries o ordinary citizens, ully inormed o their powers as

 jurors, would confne the government to its properrole as the servant, not the master, o the people.

Our third president, Thomas Jeferson, put it likethis: “I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yetimagined by man by which a government can beheld to the principles o its constitution.”

 John Adams, our second president had this to sayabout the juror: “ It is not only his right, but hisduty. . . to fnd the verdict according to his own bestunderstanding, judgment, and conscience, though

in direct opposition to thedirection o the court.”

These sound like voices of experience. Were they? Yes. Only decades had passed since freedom of thepress was established in the colonies when a jurydecided John Peter Zenger was “not guilty” of seditiouslibel. He was charged with this “crime” or printingtrue, but damaging, news stories about the RoyalGovernor o New York Colony.

“Truth is no defense,” the court told the jury! But the

 jury decided to reject bad law and acquitted Zenger. Why? Because defense attorney  Andrew Hamilton informed the jury of its rights: he told the story of William Penn’s trial—o the courageous London jury

which reused to fnd him guilty o preaching whatwas then an illegal religion (Quakerism). His jurorsstood by their verdict even though they were heldwithout ood, water, or toilet acilities or severaldays.

 They were then fned and imprisoned or acquittingPenn—until England’s highest court acknowledgedtheir right to reject both law and act, and to fnd averdict according to conscience. It was exercise o that right in the Penn trial which eventually led to

recognition o ree speech, religious reedom, andpeaceul assembly as individual rights.

American colonists regularly depended on juries tothwart bad law sent over rom England. The Britishthen restricted trial by jury and other rights which

 juries had helped secure. Result? The Declarationo Independence and the American Revolution.Aterwards, to protect the rights they’d oughtor rom uture attack, the ounders o the newnation placed trial by jury—meaning tough, ullyinormed juries—in both the Constitution and theBill o Rights.

Bad law—special-interest legislation whichtramples our rights—is no longer sent herefrom Britain. But our own legislatures keep uswell supplied. Now more than ever, we need juries

to protect us!

Why haven’t I heard about “jury veto power” or “jury rights” beore? During the 1800s, powerful special interest groupsinspired a series of judicial decisions which tried tolimit jury veto power. While no court has yet dared todeny that juries can “nullify” or “veto” a law, or “bringin a general verdict (i.e., judging both law and fact)”,the Supreme Court in 1895 held, hypocritically, that jurors need not be told their rights!

 That’s why, these days, it’s a rare and courageousattorney who will risk being cited or contempt orinorming the jury about its rights without obtainingthe judge’s prior approval. It’s also why the idea o 

 jury rights is not taught in (public) schools.

Still, the jury’s power to reject bad law continuesto be recognized, as in 1972 when the D.C. Circuit

Court o Appeals held that the jury has an ...

“. . . 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 o its