Jury Nullification

[grey]

Hello all,

I would just like to start a thread on the subject of Jury Nullification in Crown Court trials.

I assume that legaleale agrees that Nullification is still a tool that defence council can use for their clients, and as such have you ever known it to used in a case in a Crown Court?

I recently spoke with two barristers defending (actually loosing) a case of assault for a young man who was in reality defending himself but under the detail of legislation was guilty of assault. Neither of the barristers used the Jury Nullification mechanism even though it may have saved the young man from getting a criminal record for the first time in his life, had it been put before the Jury, and the consequences that will come as a result of having one.
The result was a fine and community service.

Whilst this example above has nothing to do with "freeman issues" it does lead me to think about all the people that are arrested by heavy handed policing and used, one supposes, as an example for others to "obey" without question the legal power of the police.

Often I have heard officers use the now standard expression of "causing" alarm, duress etc as an excuse to arrest people that are causing them problems in enforcing their will. The point being, take such arrests to the crown court and allow the Jury to decide if the law is being enforced unfairly etc. Providing their are barristers that will take "instruction" on the matter of Jury Nullification to do so.

regards

grey

[Geronimo]

Hello all,

I would just like to start a thread on the subject of Jury Nullification in Crown Court trials.

I assume that legaleale agrees that Nullification is still a tool that defence council can use for their clients, and as such have you ever known it to used in a case in a Crown Court?

I recently spoke with two barristers defending (actually loosing) a case of assault for a young man who was in reality defending himself but under the detail of legislation was guilty of assault. Neither of the barristers used the Jury Nullification mechanism even though it may have saved the young man from getting a criminal record for the first time in his life, had it been put before the Jury, and the consequences that will come as a result of having one.
The result was a fine and community service.

Whilst this example above has nothing to do with "freeman issues" it does lead me to think about all the people that are arrested by heavy handed policing and used, one supposes, as an example for others to "obey" without question the legal power of the police.

Often I have heard officers use the now standard expression of "causing" alarm, duress etc as an excuse to arrest people that are causing them problems in enforcing their will. The point being, take such arrests to the crown court and allow the Jury to decide if the law is being enforced unfairly etc. Providing their are barristers that will take "instruction" on the matter of Jury Nullification to do so.

regards

grey

Can you expand on just what this is?

[grey]

Hi Geronimo,

It is the ability of the Jury to find a defendant not guilty even if the legislation clearly says they are in it's wording. The link below should give a fuller detail of what I am referring to:

http://www.swarb.co.uk/lawb/crmJuryNull.shtml

regards

grey

[legaleagle]

Hi to answer your questions yes I have seen cases where the case was clearly proven with little evidence to support the defendants innocence, yet the jury finds them not guilty(jury nullification in action.) I have however never seen a barrister directly suggest this to a jury and I have to say to say that I do not expect such a thing to happen. It could for starters be considered jury tampering as I am suggesting that the jury acts against the oath they swear to judge the case purely on the evidence in front of it. Although in practice a jury cannot be asked to explain it's decision, a judge can dismiss a jury if there is evidence that they have been swayed by anything other then the evidence or are going to acquit the defendant regardless of any evidence put to them.

Having said that it is a defence barristers job to put doubt in the mind of a jury about the guilt of a defendant even when the evidence point towards his guilt. This is the closest to a barrister attempting to use jury nullification in a trial.

Personally while I think it is one of the good things about juries that they can decide innocence without having to justify why, I also think it is right that barristers are not allowed to ask directly for such a result.
The reason is that bI think this is a slippery slope and I can see a situation where "my client is although he did the alleged offence should not be found guilty as the law is wrong" could turn into "my client did do the offence but he is very rich and will do so much for the community if he is let off." Also every offence has a range of excuses why the defendant did what he did which makes him not guilty, so I don't think there is any need to allow barristers to ask for jury nullification.

Heavy handed policing or incorrect arrests are two very good examples of how a defendants defence team could show the case against him is unsound.

I think the offences you are referring to are the various public order offences where the lesser offences the requirement is the defendant to have caused "fear, alarm or distress" to someone (although some of the offences can be a hypothetical person.) There has been an upsurge in public order offences in recent years mainly around drunken behaviour.

[Geronimo]

Hi to answer your questions yes I have seen cases where the case was clearly proven with little evidence to support the defendants innocence, yet the jury finds them not guilty(jury nullification in action.) I have however never seen a barrister directly suggest this to a jury and I have to say to say that I do not expect such a thing to happen. It could for starters be considered jury tampering as I am suggesting that the jury acts against the oath they swear to judge the case purely on the evidence in front of it. Although in practice a jury cannot be asked to explain it's decision, a judge can dismiss a jury if there is evidence that they have been swayed by anything other then the evidence or are going to acquit the defendant regardless of any evidence put to them.

Having said that it is a defence barristers job to put doubt in the mind of a jury about the guilt of a defendant even when the evidence point towards his guilt. This is the closest to a barrister attempting to use jury nullification in a trial.

Personally while I think it is one of the good things about juries that they can decide innocence without having to justify why, I also think it is right that barristers are not allowed to ask directly for such a result.
The reason is that bI think this is a slippery slope and I can see a situation where "my client is although he did the alleged offence should not be found guilty as the law is wrong" could turn into "my client did do the offence but he is very rich and will do so much for the community if he is let off." Also every offence has a range of excuses why the defendant did what he did which makes him not guilty, so I don't think there is any need to allow barristers to ask for jury nullification.

Heavy handed policing or incorrect arrests are two very good examples of how a defendants defence team could show the case against him is unsound.

I think the offences you are referring to are the various public order offences where the lesser offences the requirement is the defendant to have caused "fear, alarm or distress" to someone (although some of the offences can be a hypothetical person.) There has been an upsurge in public order offences in recent years mainly around drunken behaviour.

Of course judges compel juries to do what they, the judges, want in their summing up's or by winks, groans, tuts, snores etc during trials. How many big case juries have been "got at" by such antics

[legaleagle]

I really don't know. Quite a few I would think.
To clarify though a jury can decide someone is innocent no matter what the evidence says and unless there is evidence they where forced to come up with that decision (such as through threats) the result cannot be contested.

On the other hand if the evidence leans towards innocence and the jury fond the defendant guilty then this is very good reason for appeal.

The only thing which is not allowed is for someone to suggest to a jury that they can ignore the evidence/ law and find the defendant not guilty anyway. This as far as I remember from my training is because jurors swear an oath that they will judge the case according to the law based purely on the evidence put before them in the court. This is the same reason why jurors are not meant to research either defendants or the case themselves.

[madandbad]

May 8, 2012

(NaturalNews) Jury nullification, a legal concept that dates back to 17th century England, remains perfectly lawful in the United States, according to a ruling by a federal judge last month.

U.S. District Court Judge Kimba Wood said 80-year-old Julian Heicklin, who was arrested by FBI agents for passing out pamphlets marked "Jury Info" from an organization known as the Fully Informed Jury Association to an undercover agent, was within his legal rights under law to do so. Prosecutors had argued that Heicklin was in violation of U.S. law, which prohibits influencing jurors through written communication.

"Heicklen advocates passionately for the right of jurors to determine the law as well as the facts," Wood wrote. "The pamphlets state that a juror has not just the responsibility to determine the facts of a case before her on the basis of the evidence presented, but also the power to determine the law according to her conscience."

Jurors can be told about nullification, not about how to decide a specific case

Wood said Heicklen well understood his legal rights, and noted that Title 18 United States Code, which government lawyers cited in their prosecution, prevents trying to influence a juror in relation to specific cases or points of law. Heicklen was not doing that, Wood said.

"The statute thus prohibits a defendant from trying to influence a juror upon any case or point in dispute before that juror by means of a written communication in relation to that case or that point in dispute," the 27-page order says.

"It also prohibits a defendant from trying to influence a juror's actions or decisions pertaining to that juror's duties, but only if the defendant made that communication in relation to a case or point in dispute before that juror," the order continues. "The statute therefore squarely criminalizes efforts to influence the outcome of a case, but exempts the broad categories of journalistic, academic, political, and other writings that discuss the roles and responsibilities of jurors in general, as well as innocent notes from friends and spouses encouraging jurors to arrive on time or to rush home, to listen closely or to deliberate carefully, but with no relation to the outcome of a particular case."

Judge the law instead of the lawbreaker

The concept of jury nullification is that jurors should be able to not only decide whether a defendant violated the law, but whether the law itself is just and proper. Another way to describe the process is that it's a constitutional doctrine allowing juries to acquit defendants who are technically guilty of a crime on the books but who juries don't feel deserve to be punished. In essence, the jury is saying the law is unfair or unjust.

In Heicklen's case, Wood wrote, "the court reads the plain text of the [federal] statute to require that a defendant must have sought to influence a juror through a written communication in relation either to a specific case before that juror or to a substantive point in dispute between two or more parties before that juror." And Heinklen, a retired chemistry professor, didn't do that, Wood ruled; he was simply informing juries outside a federal courthouse in Manhattan, from October 2009 to May 2010, that they were under no obligation to find defendants guilty of laws they didn't feel were just or proper.

In his dialogue with the undercover FBI agent who posed as a juror, Heicklen said the pamphlet he was handing out was just general information regarding the nullification process.

"The jury has the right to judge the law as well as the facts. The judge will tell you otherwise, but there are several Supreme Court decisions which said that was true. In other words, if you think the law is unjust you can find a person innocent," he said, according to a transcript of the conversation released by the court.

Prosecutors argued that "advocacy of jury nullification, directed as it is to jurors, would be both criminal and without Constitutional protections no matter where it occurred."

"His speech is not protected by the First Amendment," they added. "No legal system could long survive if it gave every individual the option of disregarding with impunity any law which by his personal standard was judged morally untenable," they said.

Prosecutors were seeking six months in jail. They didn't get it.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/04/23/45865.htm

http://www.nytimes.com

http://www.letsgetfreethebook.com

http://www.naturalnews.com/z035800_j...rts_judge.html

[legaleagle]

An interesting case from the states, although I suspect in theory the same would be true over here. As he was passing out a general leaflet explaining the fact the jury can find a defendant not guilty even though the facts might say otherwise to jurors who where not involved in a certain trial. It would be hard to link this to trying to influence a jury to return that verdict. I should clarify that jury nullification is not a system that is enshrined in uk law (i'm not sure about the USA) and as I have said the jurors swear an oath to judge the case according to law based on what they hear in the court room. The system or jury nullification is only possible because a jury cannot be asked to explain their decision, it is however theoretically possible for a jury to be convicted of contempt of court if they where to confess to returning a verdict based on anything other then the evidence in court, and this includes returning a verdict based on their belief a law is wrong. I say theoretically as it would require a jury to confess that they had down so and the chances of a jury doing this is non-existent. In this situation though a retrial is possible due to the fact the jury was biased.

It is for this reason that I can never imagine a barrister attempting to suggest this result to a jury, as well as the fact that he could be charged with contempt of court.

Like I have said I think the system is already tilted towards the defence in that the prosecution has to share evidence that weakens their case but the defence doesn't. Also there are enough lawful excuses to allow for innocent people to be found innocent (although I am not saying that innocent people are not found guilty) that I don't think we need to open up a pandoras box by allowing juries to be allowed to openly find against the facts and for barristers to urge them to do it.

[madandbad]

WHY THE LEGAL PROFESSION
CANNOT DEFEND YOU.

Consider some of the following breaches of common law and Constitution to which modern government resorts, in order to enforce its money-motivated inequitable statutes:

Today, to ensure the enforcement of whatever unjust legislation government passes, a government-contrived legal obligation bans attorneys, solicitors, lawyers and barristers from presenting evidence which exonerates defendants, if it "disputes the law." Judges forbid the accused likewise. In an unforgivable meretricious act of obsequious criminality, for pay, the lawyer adopts the perjury and subreption* of not presenting evidence which exonerates defendants.
*Definition. subreption: concealment of evidence; the perjurious procuring of an advantage by concealing the truth.

Over years, literally billions accrue to law firms’ personnel. In order to ply their lucrative trade (one can no longer dignify this morbid masquerade by calling it a ‘profession’), nowadays lawyers blithely abdicate responsibility and forsake honesty. For gain, lawyers perjuriously consent to this odious denial of the duty to find The Whole Truth. They compound their malfeasance by also tacitly concealing the Constitutional Jurors’ Rights and Duty to judge the law and to find the Verdict according to the Juror’s conscience.

We point out this crime, this disgrace, this contemptible species of inhumanity. There is no defence to the charge of lawyers acquiescing to the denial of their duty to find The Whole Truth and their profiting from, and being party to, the abuse and imprisonment of innumerable masses of innocent citizens. Consider the charges:

Fact 1: "lawyers cannot present defence or evidence which exonerates defendants if it disputes the legality of the law."

Fact 2: "lawyers must abide by the court’s authority whenever judges rule out exonerative evidence."

In shameful meek obedience, lawyers do not dispute the ‘law’ even when its enforcement is manifest injustice. Where the law is unjust and defendants are innocent of any crime (no mens rea), lawyers nevertheless ‘advise’ people to plead "guilty" and make plea bargains, rather than their pleading Not Guilty and electing to go to a Trial by Jury. This comprises one major reason why Trials by Jury have become so infrequent. It also results in the West’s largest prison population of all time, consisting principally of harmless citizens innocent of any crime; while the real crimes go unsolved and largely unchallenged; and the accountable progenitors of crime and their servitors, the hardened dangerous criminals, go scot free...

See Democracy Defined Campaign Philosophy Page 2; the section on mens rea, malice aforethought, criminal intent, "Guilty?" or "Not Guilty?" Wrongful Prosecution; Amnesty & Restitution. See: PROHIBITION: THE PROGENITOR OF CRIME; Part Six of THE REPORT ISBN 9781902848204, which has a Foreword by an official Adviser to U.S. government and is endorsed by academics, doctors (of a variety of disciplines) and judges (U.S. & U.K.).

The educated people who comprise the ‘legal profession’ are, by their acquiescence and continued participation in the unlawful, tyrannical, perverted processes of today, more to blame than any other group in society for the destruction of the Constitutional Justice System; and for all the inevitably ensuing totalitarian injustice that results therefrom: the enactment and prosecution of ex parte, money-motivated statutes; the abuse of innocent citizens; wrongful penalisation; and the mass incarcerations at the highest per capita rate in history.

It is not possible for anyone who is remotely au courant with the Illegality of the Status Quo, to deem as ‘true’, and as ‘counsel’ the word of these people who collude in and profit from the widespread enforcement of injustices against innocent citizens.

In myriad cases, defendants would fare better by dismissing their lawyer and presenting a straightforward courtroom defence and the exonerative evidence for themselves, which is their right.

If a significant number of defendants were to take up this option of pleading Not Guilty, electing to go for a Trial by Jury and presenting their own defence, then the legal profession would either have to put up with losing the greater proportion of their phenomenally lucrative and easy paydays—or press hard for restoration of Constitutional Trial by Jury in which juries judge the law, and defendants and lawyers are obliged, in seeking The Whole Truth, to present such evidence as reveals an unfounded nature, inequity, venal* motive, of any modern statutes, and hence the crimes per se of the acts of their enforcement.
*Definition. venal: corruptly mercenary; (able to be) bought over; open to bribery.

With defendants presenting defence for themselves, thus withholding from lawyers a major source of income, the legal professionals would have their prime, perhaps only, motivating impulse, i.e. money, compelling them to strive—for once on the side of Truth and Justice—for RESTORATION of the Constitutional Common Law Trial by Jury Justice System.

In the face of extant modern tyranny, state crime and corruption, honest members must forthwith free themselves from dependence on income from, and all association with, the scribes and pharisees of the ‘legal profession’. The correct course for every man or woman of probity, the only honourable way of proceeding for members of the profession, is to resist in wrath and indignation, and to refuse to accept the gains so ill-gotten; and campaign (with us) to right the wrongs.

Insincere, gravely wrong ‘advice’ and mendacity swiftly become the inscrutable, smooth practised habit of those who, for money, accept that they cannot tell the truth. Controlled by courts (judges) under threat of penalty, and as willing, paid participants in this massive Crime Against Humanity, today’s lawyers cannot give candid counsel nor veracious defence; let alone be trusted to educate people truthfully about the principal Safeguard of Democracy: Annulment-by-Jury (or Jury Nullification) in the Trial by Jury.

The lawyer’s is the training which prepares the person for "the bench"—the judge who takes his pay from the government only as long as he or she reliably enforces the money-motivated politicians’ inequitable deceptions dissimulated under the guise of ‘law’.

Today, to ensure the enforcement of the said inequitable (and therefore illegal) ‘laws’, judges knowingly exclude exonerative evidence, including expert documentary, legal, academic, scientific, medical, philosophical, and that which is based on grounds of equity, and tell jurors to consider only that evidence which he or she (the judge) allows ! (See THE REPORT, ISBN 9781902848204.)

Thus, today, judges invalidate even their own pretence that "jurors try matters of fact." By dictating the laws of evidence, that is, what evidence the jury may and may not hear, and by ruling how jurors should weigh such evidence as the court chooses to permit them to hear, judges corruptly arrange and dictate the conclusion, the Verdict, to which juries must arrive.

This criminal tampering by judges produces innumerable false guilty ‘verdicts’, penalisation and abuse of innocent citizens, and millions of man-years’ wrongful incarceration.

CONSTITUTIONAL TRIAL BY JURY IS
THE ONLY (PEACEABLE) RESTRAINT OF
ANTIDEMOCRATIC ILLEGAL GOVERNMENTS.

The judges are beholden representatives of governments’—and governments’ beneficiaries’ and partisans’—financial interests. Though citizen-jurors are constitutionally entitled and morally and legally bound to judge every aspect of the trial of a fellow citizen (the law, facts, evidence and admissibility of evidence, mens rea, the gravity and nature of the offence, mitigating factors and suitability of sentence, etc.), governments illegally interfere to seize this power from jurors and misappropriate it to their judges.
The Juror’s Duties are explained on Campaign Philosophy Page One.

Politicians and judges have destroyed Trial by Jury: politicians, because they do not want citizen-jurors to curtail tyrannical and money-motivated legislation; judges, because these powers aggrandise them on a permanent basis (jurors serve only momentarily, by comparison); and also because, to remain judges they must reliably enforce the unjust dictates of politicians on whom they depend for careers and salaries, and to whom they are subject by impeachment.

The result of this felony by governments is witnessed in (covertly) venal special interest legislation with numerous detrimental effects: such as, for example, the monumental engenderment of criminal acts comprising not less than 75 per cent of all crime in the Western world (official figures; see THE REPORT ISBN 9781902848204); the interminable crescence of Organised Crime; corruption of officials in positions of trust; a pervading ethos of brutality which characterises Prohibitionist-led societies; and the haughty indurate attitudes of police and petty officialdom towards ordinary citizens.

From society’s putrescent ‘top’, the ophidian politicians’ and judges’ criminal macro-perversion and obstruction of the course of justice insidiously vitiate, invading and infecting the population, producing direst results at all levels. Led by the example of these ruthless self-serving ambitious degenerates, it is small wonder that Western society is visibly degrading, as seen in the deteriorating standards of behaviour and the latterday acerbic mélange of the fraught urban social flux.

The power of government consists merely of the physical force which it brings to its support—of moral force, it has none. Our Western governments have decomposed into despotisms of the most primitive type. The proof of this derives from the fact that within the annual avalanche of legislation, there is hardly a single new law, regulation or amendment to law which would be welcomed by the whole populace and uniformly enforced by juries.

Bold, upright independent people who can judge the motives and acts of others, are not readily susceptible to exploitative manipulation by the elected representatives. So, to undermine the people’s morale, government bestows on the population licence in the place of freedom, knowing that it is easy to achieve control of, and submission from, people distracted by and preoccupied with their vice and criminality.

State ‘education’ focuses on trivia and careers; rarely, if ever even once during an incredible ten or eleven years of primary and secondary school classes, on the adult citizen’s most important secular adult duty, and the People’s most cherished heritage, their principal Constitutional mechanism of Justice and Liberty for All: the Trial by Jury; its fascinating common "law of the land" origins and history; its definitional relationship to demokratia, democracy; the working mechanisms by which it achieves its unique rôle, effectiveness; its true purpose; and its modern indispensability to preservation of the lives, rights, well-being and happiness of all people.

Certainly, there is ignorance and bewilderment in some people. There is undeniable insouciance, complacency and misanthropy in others; but it is fear which estranges the rest and petrifies them into inaction. The government-led and engendered epidemic of chaos and lawlessness throughout Western nations breeds crime, anxiety and fear in the population. Fearful for themselves, insecure in their own fragile beliefs, and without alternative leadership or direction, the people cannot bring themselves to face the certain annihilation which is approaching them, their security and the future of civilisation.

This fear is generated by politicians as a manipulative tool by which their illegal interventions to our Trial by Jury’s Constitutional guarantee of justice and democracy go largely unchallenged. The government’s lawlessness, public insecurity and social disunity create that chaos which forms the familiar backdrop by which the people are relieved to turn to extreme authoritarian measures and "solutions" from those who would call themselves ‘politicians’, or better still... leaders.

Control of all governments’ measures (laws) by the overriding judgements and arbitration of citizen-juries is as much needed today as for any of the corrupt absolute dictators and monarchs whose inhumanity it was that produced the People’s response embodied in the very creation and installment of the Constitutional Common Law Trial by Jury Justice System.

Amongst those who seek to ‘govern’, the challenges of domination and ascendancy obsess the psyche and control the behaviour of many (whether or not they understand themselves). They wish to rule and govern, not to serve and protect. They make pretence of being ‘decent’ to obtain votes at the infrequent ballot; but between times are a law unto themselves in dereliction of duties, forsaking obligations, rejecting healthy virile codes of chivalry and honour, and reneging on their pledges.

Measured by the universally accepted values of equity, natural law and justice (from which the law of the land common law derives), these government people’s ulterior agenda reveals them for what they are: generally and privately unscrupulous, acquisitive of money, fame, power and material possessions; dishonest and mendacious; disloyal, avaricious, covetous, licentious, faithless, proud and cruel. This should not come as a surprise though, for only such people could cause, participate in and tolerate the denial or debasement of mankind’s model Justice System: Trial by Jury.

In assimilating the above assessment, the reader will notice that there is nothing to distinguish between these people and the common criminal or gangster; and yet, these are the individuals who we allow and select to run, or rather run down, our Western societies. To operate, they simply rely upon a camouflage, a façade of ‘respectability’.

These ‘politicians’ do not espouse traditional virtues and values; rather they despise them: faith, hope, charity (love), prudence, honesty, selflessness, temperance, loyalty, fortitude, justice, liberty, service, and real fairness to one’s fellow man. Fortunately, the people at large know these virtues, and they have a firm hold on their minds. Otherwise, there would be nothing left to save of true, compassionate, human civilisation: that which is host to the natural or universal law’s supreme secular moral values and justice system. The dismal spectre of totalitarianism that haunts across vast reaches of our planet will find NO home within the shores of Democracy and wherever Trial by Jury holds sway. Increasingly, individuals from all strata of society will not succumb to the omnipresent malevolent influence of our banking corporatocracy and their servitors, our treasonous, decadent politicians, judges and the owned and controlled mass media.

The People would vehemently reject these crooks in government and the big political parties, if they but knew them for what they are. They would look for and find the valid alternative. So, while they can, the political gangs subvert the civilised precepts of salvation (of all mankind) and, in order to strengthen their grip on power, replace them with pernicious nonsense misnamed ‘political correctness’. They erode and try to obliterate the wondrous concepts, commandments and accumulated wisdom of our great cultural heritage. They scoff at and ridicule simple, traditional proven values for which generations of our finest forebears fought and died, but won and preserved for us. These abject contemporaries of ours presume to sow the wind—may they reap the whirlwind...

RESTORATION AND UNIVERSAL ADOPTION
OF COMMON LAW TRIAL BY JURY
IS THE SOLUTION AND WAY FORWARD
TO A BETTER WORLD FOR ALL.

Today, as a juror, expect the judge to forbid you from judging on equity, fairness and justice.

Instead, judges instruct jurors to "uphold the law" regardless; and not to allow conscience, their opinion of the law, or a defendant’s motives, to affect their decision.

One can speculate WHY judges contravene the Constitution and civilised Standards and do not inform jurors of their constitutional, legal and moral obligations: i.e. the Jurors’ Right and Duty to judge the justice of law enforcement; WHY judges perjuriously misinstruct jurors that they are ‘not permitted’ to judge the law; and WHY judges decide what evidence may be heard in court, ruling out evidence which exonerates the accused, and preventing juries from reviewing all evidence and deciding on its admissibility...

— disrespect for Citizens’ ability to make fair judgements ?
— the judge is the willing servant of antidemocratic oppressive government ?
— unwillingness to part with his or her power to prejudice the verdict and produce the outcome desired by the judge himself or by his or her political masters ?

Whatever the judge’s motives, the judge is wrong not to inform jurors of their Right and Duty to do justice: e.g. State of Georgia v. Brailsford, a supreme court forfeiture trial, the facts having been ascertained, U.S. Chief Justice John Jay instructed jurors that it remained only for them to judge the law itself, saying:

"The Jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy."

According to common law, all adults (save the sick, aged, lunatics and convicted criminals) are eligible to serve as jurors (without property ‘qualifications’). These factors generate an intense beneficial influence affecting every person throughout the population. Crime is rare in the society where the citizen is brought up knowing that justice is equally available to, and the duty of, every adult.

Conversely, crime is endemic to societies in which the genuine Trial by Jury is denied; with the state itself being responsible for engendering and/or actively perpetrating the greater part of all crime; viz. PROHIBITION: THE PROGENITOR OF CRIME, Part Six of THE REPORT, ISBN 9781902848204.

It is no coincidence that crime has increased in proportion to the degree that citizens’ power as jurors to judge the law, has been lost to ‘judges’. Yet very few of the masters of crime and the hardened real criminals are publicly known; still less are they caught, tried and imprisoned.

Paradoxically and in grotesque irony, from the enforcement of the corrupt legislation which the honest and enlightened Citizen-Juror should and would annul, the highest per capita rate of incarceration of members of the population in U.S. and U.K. history fills prisons with harmless people completely innocent of any ‘crime’.
Ref. Campaign Philosophy Page Two; see the section on mens rea, malice aforethought, criminal intent, "GUILTY?" or "NOT GUILTY?" WRONGFUL PROSECUTION, AMNESTY & RESTITUTION
madandbad Posts: 200Joined: Sun Jun 13, 2010 2:53 pmHas thanked: 0 timeBeen thanked: 1 time

[vanilla]

Today, to ensure the enforcement of whatever unjust legislation government passes, a government-contrived legal obligation bans attorneys, solicitors, lawyers and barristers from presenting evidence which exonerates defendants, if it "disputes the law."

I'm interested to know how evidence can "dispute the law".