Prosecution Explains Jury Tampering Charge
Benjamin Weiser at The New York Times - As most of you who read this blog know, Julian Heicklen, the retired professor who used to smoke cannabis in public as a protest to the war on some vegetables, has been handing out fully-informed jury leaflets in front of federal court houses. He's been carried off many times, but now he's being tried for jury tampering in Manhattan. The noose tightens again. What was that about the four boxes? This case negates both the soap box and the jury box, nullification being the ONLY liberty-serving reason for juries. We all know the uselessness of the ballot box. That leaves only the cartridge box. Wish it weren't so.
But now prosecutors are offering their first detailed explanation for why they charged Mr. Heicklen, arguing in a brief that his “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,” prosecutors wrote.
“No legal system could long survive,” they added, “if it gave every individual the option of disregarding with impunity any law which by his personal standard was judged morally untenable.”
I wrote a letter to the editor of the Times. I'll paste it as a comment if they choose not to print it.
I sent the following
I sent the following letter to the editor of the New York Times. Since it's been over a week, and they haven't yet contacted me, I assume they're not going to print it.
The November 27th edition contained an article about the prosecution of Julian Heicklen for handing out leaflets in front of the US courthouse in Manhattan, leaflets informing potential jurors of their age-old right and duty to judge the alleged law as well as the alleged law-breaker. To my mind, jury nullification, voting to acquit because the defendent did nothing wrong, even if his actions violated some statute, is the ONLY reason for juries. It means that a single juror, chosen from the population at random, can veto the whole government. Bravo!
Prosecutor Rebecca Mermelstein apparently thinks otherwise. She doesn't like trial by jury. Too messy and unpredictable. Hey, Rebecca, you're the one practicing jury tampering. You call it "voir dire" to try to hide reality.
Bill St. Clair
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