JURY NULLIFICATION: AN ESSENTIAL SUBJECT
Our legal system is out of control. The arguments over how we got here are the stuff of chickens versus eggs, but regardless – today, lawyers and judges run the United States as a command bureaucracy; paralyzing any and all parts of the institutions when things do not go their way.
Most of them have forgotten who they work for and shamelessly stymie the people out of running their country as they would prefer. That is not even a democracy, let alone the Republic we are actually supposed to be.
Whether civil or criminal, the process is a punishment demanding huge sums of money and work to prevail through, and in both cases, the lawyer class is empowered.
We have a “lawyer” branch of government that is almost the whole. The other two branches, which are also littered with lawyers, are playing minor supporting roles in the American act.
It is doubtful our Founders intended to trade the rule of King George for the rule of barristers. Daily, the organs of the legal system make decisions about the lives of Americans that make the usurpations of the British seem tame.
However, there is one check on their power that still remains, and thankfully is still very hard to get rid of. That is the power of the jury to nullify laws.
What follows here is not a solution to our problems with the legal profession or our increasingly partisan and weaponized courts. It is a partial solution to the threats of three letter agencies and other assorted government thugs dragging Joe and Jane Citizen into court on (no pun intended) trumped-up charges.
But it is worth remembering that a legal system that does not work still is useless—even if we make sure it doesn’t work for the bad guys in addition to it not working for us. We will see if we can get back to being that city on a hill after the Fourth Turning.
Jury nullification is simple. You go to jury duty and get on the jury with the intention of fairly judging the case—completely. You go beyond the question of guilt to the question of whether the case should have ever been brought to begin with, from a moral and Constitutional point of view.
Then, if you feel it should not have been, you vote “not guilty” or with the party being sued. The little guy or gal wins and the machine loses. This will require moral fiber and deliberation on your part.
Make no mistake about it; you are not going to win friends in that jury room nor in the court room. Your jury instructions will pointedly not mention jury nullification and may state it is illegal. But you are there on a mission. You need not make excuses to the other actors. Your verdict is all you are required to issue—no explanations for it are needed, nor can any be demanded.
Central to the idea here is the truth that it is not only incumbent upon the juror to judge the specifics of the case to find guilt or innocence, but it is their moral right and responsibility to ask the question of whether the law is being fairly applied—or even if the law should be a law.
The system doesn’t like this, as they imagine you are too unwashed to sit in judgment on a system that serves them so well. It is not unheard of for them to call jury nullification unlawful or a violation of your juror’s oath.
Don’t expect any of the lawyers in the court room and especially not the judge to mention your right to judge the law and its application to you. And if you don’t want to get kicked off the jury, you’d best keep quiet also—both inside and outside of the courtroom.
What you are doing here is engaging in some legal guerilla warfare. Guerillas don’t draw attention to themselves. Digging punji pits with sharpened stakes around the courthouse might bag a few lawyers headed in to do their damage, but even if you point out that the bamboo is sustainable, it will blow your cover and spoil your mission! Remain anonymous.
If our system and country were working right, we probably would not need to do this. But in an age where it’s okay for “social justice” rioters to do two billion dollars’ worth of damage to the country while they arrest people outside of the Capitol on January 6, 2020 for just being there, not to mention the reduction of our southern border to that of a mere unenforced suggestion, it’s clear that you as a juror may well be faced with a case needing nullification.
An examination of the lawfare that they have engaged in with President Trump on a nationwide basis while law and order descends into the toilet in cities nationwide is another clue.
No court has any moral right to tell you that you may not judge the application of a law, or the law itself. “Law” doesn’t equal “right and wrong” – Hitler and the Nazis had many lawyers working on their behalf to make the Holocaust “legal.” Some people are still trying this.
A great resource for you and all other citizens is the Fully Informed Jury Association. Visit this link for resources in understanding jury duty; to include details on jury nullification and how it has played a role in our country in past years. https://fija.org/welcome.html
Mark Deuce has had a life-long career in community law enforcement. He is the author of Deuces Wild for TTP.