You, as the Juror, can overturn Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court of the United States.You are Sovereign, holding Power over the most powerful nation in the world. Your decision is final, you are immune to any and all reprisal. You are the Fourth and most important Branch of government, and are the most important and powerful Branch to the Liberty and Freedom of the People of these united States.
You are the Juror.
The courts don't want you to know this, and do their very best to keep this Power hidden from you, because they fear you, the Juror. They talk over you, they speak down to you, they act overly important, they give themselves titles of nobility, calling themselves "the Honorable" and "Esquires."
They tell you that you must obey all directives given to you by the court, you are not wise enough to act outside of the directives given to you.
But they LIE.
You, the Juror, are under no obligation to listen to the direction of the court. The court is your servant, your employees. You pay their salary; they are UNDER you; they can no more make you follow their will than you can decide which direction the wind blows. They must follow statutes and law. You, the Juror, are the final Judge of that statute and law, and can disregard them at your will.They have dared to bring charge against a Free man or woman, and wish to take away that freedom, and you are the final say of whether the state has the Right to do so.
You are the line in the sand, the protector of your countryman's Liberty. Your decision could be the doom or the Life of your Posterity's Liberty.
We have supposed "Constitutional Scholars" these days that have no regard for this Duty of the Juror, and leaders of both political parties scoff at the idea, and pretend it doesn't exist.
But they are dead wrong.
The very basis and Foundational protector of our Liberty is the right to trial by our Peers. This isn't a trial to decide the facts given to us by a paid government informant (a law officer) or prosecuted by a paid government lawyer (the prosecutor) with the law decided by a paid government judge deciding whether his employer's law is fit or not. This is a Trail in which the accused calls on his fellow countryman to decide whether or not he has committed any harm to another citizen's Life, Liberty or Property.
In the days of the Magna Charta, an official of the crown was not even allowed to bring accusation in the court against the citizen; he was, of course, BIASED.
There had to be 2 or more witnesses against the citizen. Today, the court weighs the testimony of the government's officer heavily over the accused citizen. If the officer claims it, then it happened.
Let's look at the history of the Right and Power of the Juror. It may seem long, but its importance was heavy on our Founders' hearts, and they held it with the highest of the citizen's Duty and Right.
The first instance we find of "Jury nullification" had to do with one of our most Sacred Rights, the Freedom of Worship.
In 1554, a jury acquitted Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, who was a Protestant and more than likely was involved with some of the things the Court accused him of. The jury was imprisoned for acquitting him.
In 1649, in the first known attempt to argue for jury nullification, a jury acquitted John Lisburne for his part in inciting a rebellion against Cromwell.
The most famous case, copied here from Wikipedia:
By the late 17th century, the court's ability to punish juries was removed in Bushell's Case[16] involving a juror on the case against William Penn. Penn and William Mead had been arrested in 1670 for illegally preaching a Quaker sermon and disturbing the peace, but four jurors, led by Edward Bushell refused to find them guilty. Instead of dismissing the jury, the judge sent them back for further deliberations. Despite the judge demanding a guilty verdict, the jury this time unanimously found Penn guilty of preaching but acquitted him on the charge of disturbing the peace and acquitted Mead of all charges. The jury was then subsequently kept for three days without "meat, drink, fire and tobacco" to force them to bring in a guilty verdict and when they failed to do so the judge ended the trial. As punishment the judge ordered the jurors imprisoned until they paid a fine to the court. Four jurors refused to pay the fine and after several months, Edward Bushell sought a writ of habeas corpus. Chief Justice Vaughan, sitting on the Court of Common Pleas, discharged the writ, released them, called the power to punish a jury "absurd" and forbade judges from punishing jurors for returning a verdict the judge disagreed with.
At the sedition trial of journalist John Peter Zenger in 1735, Andrew Hamilton recounted the story of the Penn trial to a New York jury and admonished them that whatever the law and facts, they had the right to acquit Zenger if they held that to be the just result. They followed his advice in an outcome that laid the foundation for American press freedom.
America’s Founding Fathers made their case to juries arguing for nullification. John Adams, when defending John Hancock in 1771, insisted that the juror has not merely the “right” but actually the “duty to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court” and its understanding of the law. Conscience should serve as a safety valve, he argued, against unjust laws, or against just laws, unjustly applied.
This was eventually dealt a blow in a case before the Supreme Court in Sparf v US .The judge no longer had the duty to inform the jury of its Right to judge the Law. More recent cases have the court telling us, ( and it's no surprise, the court wants the supreme power in cases of law and is trying to subvert the Citizens' power) that the defendant in a case cannot even bring up the fact that the Jury has the right to nullify the law.
This is nothing more than Tyranny.
Let's see what our Founders felt about it; I could care less what the tyrants today say, in their pseudo intellectualism. They are fools compared to the men who established this Nation.
In a rare jury trial in the United States Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Jay, speaking for a unanimous Court, instructed the jury:
The facts comprehended in the case are agreed; the only point that remains, is to settle what is the law of the land arising from those facts; and on that point, it is proper, that the opinion of the court should be given. It is fortunate, on the present, as it must be on every occasion, to find the opinion of the court unanimous: we entertain no diversity of sentiment; and we have experienced no difficulty in uniting in the charge, which it is my province to deliver.
It may not be amiss, here, Gentlemen, to remind you of the good old rule, that on questions of fact, it is the province of the jury, on questions of law, it is the province of the court to decide. But it must be observed that by the same law, which recognizes this reasonable distribution of jurisdiction, you have nevertheless a right to take upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy. On this, and on every other occasion, however, we have no doubt, you will pay that respect, which is due to the opinion of the court: For, as on the one hand, it is presumed, that juries are the best judges of fact; it is, on the other hand, presumable, that the court are the best judges of the law. But still both objects are lawfully within your power of decision.
— [Georgia v. Brailsford, 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 1 (1794)]
It is not only his 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. John Adams
I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.Thomas Jefferson
No freeman shall be arrested, or imprisoned, or deprived of his freehold, or his liberties, or free customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or in any manner destroyed (harmed), nor will we (the king) proceed against him, nor send any one against him, by force or arms, unless according to (that is, in execution of) the sentence of his peers, and (or or, as the case may require) the Common Law of England, (as it was at the time of Magna Charta, in 1215.)
— Lynsander Spooner's translation of the Magna Charta Chapter 39.
It would be an absurdity for jurors to be required to accept the judge’s view of the law, against their own opinion, judgment, and conscience. John Adams
There is irrefutable evidence. Look it up for yourselves; it will take you days to gather all the truth in this matter.
The bottom line: our Liberty is so Sacred, that for the government to take that Liberty away, they had better have a darn good reason, and it ultimately is up to the Citizen Juror to decide if the government has the right to do that or not.
Next time you are summoned for Jury duty, do not scorn it or refuse it, do your Duty and PUT THE GOVERNMENT ON TRIAL.
You, then, can count yourself among the Patriots.
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