cannabisnews.com: Power To The Jury!





Power To The Jury!
Posted by FoM on July 23, 1999 at 12:04:43 PT
By Ed Forchion
Source: Marijuana Legalize Party
Sometime soon, a man named Ed Forchion will go to trial in New Jersey, charged with possession of over 40 pounds of marijuana. Forchion, a former truck-driver turned medical marijuana supplier and a practicing Rastafarian, faces up to 18 years in prison as a conscientious objector in the War on (some) Drugs; even so, he'll act as his own defense counsel.
For most people, this would be quite a challenge, but Forchion's defense is simple: He admits possession of the dope, but he says that the government has no business telling people what they can put into their own bodies and wants the jury to refuse to enforce the law. Forchion's defense raises hackles in the legal establishment, but it's based on the time-honored doctrine of " jury nullification." In its modern form, the right of jurors to refuse to enforce laws they see as unjust was established in 1670, during the trial in England of William Penn for preaching Quakerism — then illegal. Penn had clearly broken the law, but the jury ignored the statute — and the judge — and acquitted Penn. The jurors were actually jailed for their votes, but refused to change the verdict; an appeals court then set them free. Jury nullification followed an honorable path thereafter, helping to establish the principle of free speech in America during the 1735 trial of John Peter Zenger for seditious libel — he'd criticized the colonial governor of New York in print. Like Penn, Zenger had clearly violated the law, but the jury set him free. Later, jurors used their power to geld the Alien and Sedition Act — which blatantly attacked free political speech — and to render the Fugitive Slave Act unenforceable. No less a light than John Adams said, "It is not only [the juror's] right, but his duty … to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court." The first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Jay, said that, "[t]he jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy." Modern judges and prosecutors aren't so fond as the founders of the idea of juries taking their own lead in the courtroom. Judges don't seem to like surrendering that much power to common citizens, while prosecutors get hives whenever jurors look in disdain at one of the armory of statutory clubs used to bludgeon the public into submission. After all, what's the point of going to law school, passing the bar, scrambling for a plum spot as an Assistant District Attorney, and then running for the bench or the legislature if twelve randomly assembled plumbers, secretaries, and aluminum siding salesmen can blow a Bronx cheer at all your hard work? Unlike juries of the past, modern juries are not usually advised that they're sitting in judgment of the law as much as in judgment of the defendant. Nevertheless, defendants like Ed Forchion have continued to turn to their fellow citizens for a little common sense and mercy. Just as Prohibition-era jurors flipped the bird to Elliott Ness and company, their counterparts today make marijuana busts in some parts of the country little more of a hassle than traffic tickets — and that's what Forchion is counting on. Even as the legal establishment has turned against jury nullification, it is now being touted in an organized manner by libertarians, drug legalization activists, gun owners, black activists and all sorts of leave-me-alone types, many of them working through the Fully Informed Jury Association. The coalition's tactic is simple: Get the word out so that potential jurors are familiar with nullification and willing and able to use it if ever summoned to the trial of some victim of today's ban-it-if-it-moves America. The tactic seems to be working. For the past several years, prosecutors have complained that anti-government sentiment has produced hung juries and even outright dismissals in cases where the powers-that-be seem to be pursuing defendants as much for ideology as for actions. According to a 1997 AP article: Federal charges against homegrown terrorists - including racketeering, conspiracy, possession of weapons or explosives, or organizational criminal activity - result in dismissals, acquittals or mistrials more than 57 percent of the time, according to a study of 1980s cases by Brent Smith, a professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. .... As a comparison, U.S. attorneys reported victories in 87 percent of all federal prosecutions concluded in 1996. Note that the majority of these "terrorism" cases involve nonviolent weapons or explosives possession, and allegations of plans that were never carried out. It's not just political cases either. Early this year, The Washington Post reported: For decades, a 5 percent hung jury rate was considered the norm, derived from a landmark study of the American jury by Harry Kalven Jr. and Hans Zeisel published 30 years ago. In recent years, however, that figure has doubled and quadrupled, depending on location. Something is going on there. Something that ticks off prosecutors, but may be a very effective wake-up call to legislation-happy politicians. It's no fun to pass laws that can't pass a jury's laugh test. Ed Forchion knows all of this, and he's been doing his best to reach as much of his likely jury pool as possible with press releases, op-ed pieces, and good, old-fashioned leafletting. He's also running for Camden County freeholder and U.S. Congress to keep his public profile as high as possible. The odds are pretty good. He only needs to convince one juror out of twelve in his dope possession case to treat "not guilty" as if the words were chiseled in stone. Good luck to ya, Ed.http://www.fija.org/ Dateline: 7/19/99 © 1999 About.com, Inc. http://www.jersey.net/~njdevil/
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