You might rightly be wondering why such a hard-nosed anarchist wench such as myself is celebrating Jury Rights Day. While it is true that I seek to avoid the state and its deadly systems as much as possible and encourage others to do likewise, this is one area where I’m happy to make an exception—for reasons that should be clear, but just in case they aren’t, I’ll elaborate a bit.
The story of perhaps the first act of jury nullification relating to this country presents a fine example, and I will take the liberty of excerpting from FIJA’s press release (linked to above) in presenting it:
Friday marks the 338th anniversary of when jurors refused to convict William Penn of violating England's Conventicle Acts, despite clear evidence that he acted illegally by preaching a Quaker sermon. In refusing to convict Penn, the jurors ignored what they knew to be an unjust law. This is known as jury nullification.
By refusing to enforce what they knew was an unjust law, the Penn jurors served justice, and provided a basis for our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, religion, and peaceable assembly. For refusing to find Penn guilty, the judge sent four of Penn's jurors to prison. Their exoneration fixed forever the English and American doctrine that jurors have the responsibility to decide both matters of law and fact in any case before them. Individual jurors are the last line of defense for people who are prosecuted under bad laws by overzealous prosecutors and court officials.
The Founders intended that jurors would use their rights and responsibilities to judge the law and the facts in every trial, and do justice. The Sixth and Seventh Amendments were included in the Bill of Rights to guarantee that every person brought to trial has Juror Protection.
Juror nullification is integral to our judicial system. It is one of the "checks and balances" of justice required by a free society. An individual juror has the authority to stop an unjust prosecution by refusing to convict. No reason for the verdict is required. Most Grand and Petit Jurors do not know about their authority. Knowledge of this authority must be restored to protect us.
This story, along with others including The Whiskey Rebellion and other acts of defiance against tax collectors, shows the true intent of the founders of this country. Their intent was to acknowledge and protect individual liberty, coupled with a structure for judging individuals accused of wrongdoing in as fair and impartial a manner as possible. That the Constitution has failed so completely at upholding that goal does no disservice to those men—hope of creating and maintaining a better system has always been part of our nature. A document born of compromise had no chance of succeeding; and of course it wasn’t helped when Americans forgot their roles in pushing against the encroaching state, and allowed it to gather steamroller strength.
But all that is an aside, really—the point is that jury nullification provides a very real means for everyday individuals to push back against the state. Refusing to convict an accused person because the law he’s charged with violating is unjust or excessively punitive sends a clear signal to the politicrats. That too many judges and other politicrats are actively engaging in suppressing this means of communication not only betrays their desire to control the people, it shows that they no longer have a genuine interest in representing the wishes of their constituents—which is the backbone of this supposed representative republic.
It appears that, amidst the ongoing unquestioning patriotism sparked nearly seven years ago, some individuals are starting to see what this country has become. It is no longer of the people and for the people: the moneyed and politically powerful are colluding to put the “lower classes” back into chains via a number of means, including skimming the wealth of the nation into their pockets, dumbing people down with deliberately hobbled educational systems that have never been free in either sense of the word, and increasingly restricting individual choice across a wide swath of activities. Part of that educational morass includes hiding the light of jury nullification; it’s possibly the weapon they fear most, as it impacts both their ability to control and coll– steal from the people.
Can you imagine what might happen if individuals across the country started nullifying each and every anti-marijuana law on the books? Some might be willing to do that on medicinal grounds; others on the basis that no one has the right to keep another from putting things into his body as long as he harms no one while under its influence; and others on the grounds that the penalties for breaking these laws are ridiculously harsh. I can; and while I do not partake of the herb, I recognize each person’s right to make that choice for himself, and would joyfully celebrate a return to laws that leave peaceable individuals alone, and that reflect the change in thinking on this issue.
Can you imagine what might happen if individuals brought to trial on bogus weapons charges were declared innocent, as they should be under the proper interpretation of the Second Amendment? The vilification of peaceful weapons owners and the unjust, politically-motivated harassment of firearms sellers would cease. The BATF would be reduced to a more suitable acronym for their batty, anti-freedom crusading. One wrongly-identified target down, two to go!
Can you imagine what might happen if individuals arrested for straying outside the despicable “free speech zones” or simply being in the wrong place when a cop decides to go Rambo aren’t convicted of any crime, as should be a routine matter in keeping with the First Amendment?
All the police-state tactics seen at both conventions show that individuals across the political spectrum are not happy with the current system. It isn’t just visible to The Family and close relatives; staunch Democrats and Republicans recognize that things are breaking down. And those in power see it too; hence their increased efforts to try to control information, silence dissent, and clamp down on anything that smacks of resistance to their authority. Uninformed, docile juries help them enormously.
It seems to me that the best way to a freer society is to work through the coercive systems now in place. By that I don’t mean cooperate with them; I mean we can highlight the flaws, focus on the principles for those inclined to such presentations, and get to a more voluntary society without seeing a collapse of society giving birth to it. (Some days I’m less optimistic that change will come about this way.) The USSA government system has fairly effectively painted itself into a corner; and the pressure we’re seeing is a recognition of that by many, as I already said. With other means of expressing discontent becoming prohibited, it becomes that much more important to pop the cork on jury nullification—the built-in means of directly challenging unjust authority in any area of law. Also, as an effect of that stifling of other avenues of activism, I think nullification will become more acceptable, and more used—but people have to be aware of it to use it.
Rebellion was the fire in which this country was forged; and rebellion against coercive authority is the path to creating a freed, voluntary society. Jury nullification is an essential means of expressing this rebellion in a way that brings immediate, tangible results—which is one reason why it’s so feared. Besides, deep in my anarchist heart, there’s a deep sense of poetic justice in using this built-in feature of the current nation-state to help bring about its downfall.
I have been listening to more music from the 1980s of late ... living in the past, perhaps; but to me, a lot of the great rock anthems that spoke to my spirit fired that rebellious element I had yet to fully identify. This vid (the full version, but not of the best quality, sorry) is one of the best at sparking the spirit of rebellion:
[Direct link to the vid on YouTube]
I hope you enjoy it (or at the very least, grok the message even if the medium isn’t to your taste); and more importantly, that you help spread the word about jury nullification every time a suitable opening arises. It may well be our last hope of a peaceful pro-freedom revolution.
fija.org
Our late friend H. Ben added a link to the Fully Informed Jury Association to most of his posts. He wanted to make sure anyone he encountered knew about these concepts. Thanks for remembering the day!
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"The purpose of government is to defend the shores, deliver the mail and stay the hell out of my life." - Lee Sherman Dreyfus
Juries: not necessarily a part of the state
Jurors are not necessarily a part of the state, which is why I, a fairly well-avowed anarchist, find the concept of the jury to have such appeal to my sense of individual rights.
In pre-agricultural times, for instance, a dispute might be solved by the tribal members putting their arm bands into a basket or bowl, and the disputants taking turns selecting arm bands, until 9 or twelve had been chosen. This group then became the jury.
Because disputants would know the designs of armbands of friends, those might be the first ones chosen, but as likely would be that disputants would choose from the basket the arm bands of those they believed to be most fair and wise. No judge was required.
In other instances, a dispute might be resolved by both sides presenting the facts to a group of elders.
The concept of juries predates the concept of the state: migratory bands of hunter-gatherers could use these systems of justice without any reliance on what we have come to recognize is a parasitical form of organized force, run by those who find it easier to live off the productivity of others than to participate in that productivity.
Even today, two individuals involved in a dispute can easily agree to take the matter to family members, church members (although I might argue that if a priesthood is involved, we are back to parasitism), neighbors or others, and agree on a group of jurors, without ever involving the organized thuggery we call the state.
Such a reliance on other individuals for reason and fairness is one of the cornerstones of civilisation which government schools teaches people to fear, against all common sense.
But, juries are no more tied to the state than any other function of society: it is only that the state has, over many centuries, slowly subsumed these functions as a means of control.
Thinking people must refuse to recognize any necessity of such ties, if they wish to become truly free.
IMJ
Thanks ...
Ilo, thank you for the interesting background on juries, but I wonder what prompted it. Did you take Uncle Warren’s sig line to be part of his comment?
Actually, it was your second
Actually, it was your second sentence that caught my attention: there seemed to be an assumption there that the jury was somehow a part of the state, and while that is so at present, unless thinking individuals wisely make other arrangements, I thought it worthwhile to set forth some alternatives that have worked in other times.
Lest we think there is a necessity to toss out the jurors with the government-employed judges. :-)
I hope this helps.
Thank you very much for this excellent commentary, by the way!
ilo
Various and sundry clarifications, then.
Ah, okay. I misunderstood because you posted under Warren’s comment, rather than starting a new comment thread by clicking on the “Add new comment” link right under the post. Being able to keep differing conversations separate under a single post is one of the things I really like about the Drupal CMS ... but it is sometimes complicated by people who don’t notice it or take advantage of the capability.
I can see where someone might make that assumption given my words; and I appreciate your efforts to make it clear that a jury system likely was and can again be a valuable part of a voluntary community. I was speaking specifically of the jury system we now have; and seeing as how it is part of the justice system designed to enforce the entirely-too-numerous laws of this land, I only have respect for it to the degree that the built-in check on judicial power and abuse is exercised. It isn’t exercised nearly enough these days. I hope your and others’ efforts to educate about jury nullification is successfully changing that.
I used to think it would be a really interesting job, to be a Heinleinian witness ... but then I realized that no individual can be that unbiased. Still, the notion of private justice (to use a common shorthand) has a lot of appeal for me.
Some additional comments I
Some additional comments I originally posted as a PM, which add to Sunni's last post.
I need to make something clear: we are at a point in time now in the evolution of human thought (change a mind; change a life) when we must be especially diligent in using words that hold their meaning.
The concept of the jury is one that needs to be approached positively not only for today, but also for tomorrow, so that as many individuals as possible are aware that juries are a good, and can operate for justice and fairness, reason and logic, long after the state is gone.
The more we can do to provide everyone with assurances that humans can survive and thrive without the state, the better we are assisting in the introduction of the new paradigm.
I think it is especially important now, as governments around the planet slide further down the slope of tyrannical socialism and its dependence on force, to offer thinking individuals a choice in how they live, and also show them the good in rationally choosing to live as self-responsible individuals.
One of the contemporary opportunities to practice self-responsibility is available to all who serve as jurors. Effecting a change in the thinking of another individual to the extent that the individual comprehends their function of the juror is often a liberating epiphany for that person.
IMJ