Time: Sat May 24 08:38:26 1997
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Date: Sat, 24 May 1997 08:36:28 -0700
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: Comments on Second Circuit Appellate Decision (fwd)
>Date: Sat, 24 May 1997 08:36:23 -0600 (MDT)
>From: Jury Rights Project <jrights@darkstar.cygnus.com>
>Subject: Comments on Second Circuit Appellate Decision
>To: Jury Rights Project <jrights@darkstar.cygnus.com>
>
>Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 14:55:06 -0800
>From: Vin Suprynowicz <Vin_Suprynowicz@lvrj.com>
>
>Re: New York Times:
> Court Attacks Practice of Acquittals as Social Protest (5/21/97)
>
>Interesting dateline. I presume the justices, being New Yorkers, will next
>move to posthumously overturn the token fine in the John Peter Zenger case,
>digging up the body of the 18th Century New York printer and hanging the
>mouldering remains from the nearest lamppost so all our history books can
>be rewritten to report that the jury was NOT allowed any choice but to
>punish Zenger for printing inconvenient truths about the king.
>
>Then, given that all those northern juries were obviously wrong to refuse
>to bring in convictions in "runaway slave" cases in the 1850s, and given
>the likelihood that those slaves would have been whipped to death if
>returned to their Southern masters, I presume Judge Jose Cabranes and the
>other New York justices will now order all the descendants of those runaway
>slaves currently within their jurisdiction to be rounded up ... and put to
>death? After all, their ancestors should never have been allowed to live
>to bear children, since those juries "had no right to ignore the evidence
>or law in a case and instead impose their own values to acquit or convict a
>defendant," actions which constitute "a violation of a juror's sworn duty
>to follow the law as instructed by the court."
>
>Review the case in question. The trial judge found a sole black juror
>refusing to convict because he believed the drug defendants had "a right to
>deal drugs." That is plainly true, on its face. The constitution grants the
>government NO power to prevent consensual commerce in products which the
>buyer wishes to use for self-medication ... medical liberty is clearly
>protected by the Ninth Amendment, and no law passed in violation of that or
>any other part of the Bill of Rights can be held to EVER have been valid
>(under the wise precedent of Marbury vs. Madison.)
>
>Yet the trial judge -- who is MORE responsible to know and defend the
>Constitution than the average juror -- fired the recalcitrant juror, and
>allowed the remaining jurors to convict under the unconstitutional statute,
>11-0.
>
>This is substantively no different than allowing an 11-1 conviction. Do I
>hear 9-3? 7-5? The appeals court now orders a new trial ... a similar
>result to the proper original finding of a hung jury.
>
>So far so good. But why is the trial judge not stripped of his robes and
>banned from the bench for life? He meddled in the jury room, and dismissed
>a jury for voting "the wrong way." What will he try the next time,
>stationing 12 armed bailiffs, one behind each chair in the jury room,
>noisily loading and cocking their revolvers whenever anyone appears ready
>to vote "Not guilty?"
>
>The segment of the American populace who should be most concerned about
>this arrogant, elitist trend should be police officers. So far, when
>advising an armed suspect to "Give it up, and I'll see you get a jury
>trial," the average cop has had a fair chance of success. But once the
>average suspect realizes that government-salaried judges now can and will
>remove any juror who votes to acquit -- or who admits under questoning that
>he might favor a defendant's view of the law over the government's -- that
>suspect is far more likely to figure, "I'm dead anyway, and I might as well
>take one lying government bureaucrat with me. I wish it were a senator or a
>judge or the commissioner of the IRS, but you have to take what God deals
>you in this life, so I guess this poor cop's number just came up."
>
>When those cops start dying, I hope the memorial wreaths will be laid on
>the doorsteps of jury-hating Judges Jose Cabranes, Edward Lumbard, and
>Joseph McLaughlin.
>
>-- V.S.
>
>Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com
>
>Voir Dire: A French term which means "jury stacking."
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Re-distributed by the:
> Jury Rights Project (jrights@welcomehome.org)
> Background info.: http://www.execpc.com/~doreen
> To be added to or removed from the JRP mailing list,
> send email with the word SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE in the title.
>Donations are requested for the court appeals to overturn the conviction
>of former juror Laura Kriho, convicted of contempt of court for failing to
>volunteer information about her political beliefs during jury selection:
> -- Laura Kriho Legal Defense Fund --
> c/o Paul Grant (defense attorney)
> Box 1272, Parker, Colo. 80134
> Email: pkgrant@ix.netcom.com
>
>
>
>
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