NEW HAMPSHIRE AND JURY NULLIFICATION

Many years ago I used to be a college professor, and one of the subjects I professed was mediaeval history.  In that course, I took a great deal of time to go through the details of mediaeval jurisprudence, and in particular, English jurisprudence, and spent a great deal of time on the subjects of the petite, and grand, juries, and of the powers that really inhere in them. At that time, I pointed out to an unbelieving class that, under the English system - the basis of our own in America - a petite jury has the powers to (1) ask questions of witnesses directly (imagine a judge's reaction to that in the American courtroom...that's a measure of how far we've departed from the system designed to secure our liberties), (2) to try the facts of the case, and most importantly, (3) to try the applicable law in the case, and if in the jury's opinion the law is unjust or otherwise unapplicable under the circumstances, to nullify the law in question in that case.

At that time, the case of the auto manufacturer John Delorian - whose automobiles were popularized in the movie Back to the Future - was a recent memory, and Delorian's lawyers won the acquittal for their client by insisting that the jury in the federal trial be fully informed of their rights and powers as a juror.  The jury, notwithstanding the federal law, basically acquitted Delorian by nullifying the law, and the federal entrapment that led to the case being brought to trial to begin with. At the time I was teaching mediaeval history, I had one of Oklahoma's most capable civil trial lawyers sitting as a student in my class, and as we covered all of this, I could see him chuckling. Afterward, he revealed his identity to me, and said that he wished more people - including lawyers - would understand this basic right.

Indeed, one wonders why such a concept isn't made the heart of every trial lawyer's defense strategy.

Well, enter New Hampshire, where the state motto, "Live free or die," is taken seriously:

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Read that one more time, and understand in it the profundity of this law vis-a-vis the Dummycrook-Republithug dialectic currently operating not only in our political processes, nor only in our legislative processes, but in our more-than-politicized and corrupt courts:

New Hampshire’s jury nullification law reads, in relevant part: “In all criminal proceedings the court shall permit the defense to inform the jury of its right to judge the facts and the application of the law in relation to the facts in controversy."(Emphasis in the original)

Imagine the  shock waves if this were rigorously applied, say, to all the silly government laws concerning people smoking marijuana... my bet is, not only would many people now in prison be free, but that juries would have sent a loud and strong message to the government regarding those laws: inapplicable, and unjust.

See you on the flip side.

Posted in

Joseph P. Farrell

Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and "strange stuff". His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into "alternative history and science".

39 Comments

  1. jared on August 17, 2012 at 4:27 pm

    Hi Joseph,

    This brief story is about is about Jury Nullification.

    http://reason.com/blog/2012/08/14/kansas-prosecutor-defeated-by-glaring-st



  2. Vinnie on July 24, 2012 at 6:39 pm

    For anyone interested, he’s the time line showing how this country progressed from common law to commercial, and finally to emergency law.

    http://keystoliberty2.wordpress.com/2012/07/24/the-emergency-powers-of-martial-law-historical-outline/



    • Robert Barricklow on July 24, 2012 at 10:14 pm

      Thanks for posting this.
      (I’ve filed it for further review)



      • Vinnie on July 24, 2012 at 10:18 pm

        You’re most welcome. Please feel free to give it a wide distribution. These are the details that everyone needs to become aware of if we’re ever going to figure out why it doesn’t work the way we were taught it does.
        Let me know if there’s more along these lines that you’re interested in.
        The site itself is a treasure trove that you can start start with, especially the material researched and written by Austin English.



  3. Mike Blackford on July 18, 2012 at 11:08 pm

    My Lord…are Americans FINALLY going to wake up and exercise a “pair!”
    Good for the folks of NH.



  4. Kai on July 18, 2012 at 5:10 am

    Wanna be free? Tell TPTB’s agents you already are…if you dare 🙂

    http://notice-recipient.com/The-Cure.html

    or

    http://suijuris.me/suij/



  5. dunc on July 17, 2012 at 10:42 pm

    great stuff.thanks!what gives me dis stain is when the protocol/premise of the law becomes a war of definition.how does the sketchy man win? throws sand in the eyes of his adversary .over whelm with B.S.relativism.welcome to the new normal.IMO



    • HAL838 on July 17, 2012 at 11:45 pm

      Hey !
      All the wrong people are up and [running] around here..
      what’s up with that, hunh?
      Speak up or just bark, say “present” or “gift” or somethink



  6. HAL838 on July 17, 2012 at 10:37 pm

    The most commonly understood reason is NOT why THEY
    [the giant MUTANT ants from New Mexico]
    outlawed HEMP.

    HEMP has so many good uses in industry,
    it not only is evidence for their insanity,
    [that THEY outlawed it at all]
    it is proof of their insanity on a list so long,
    that it is still being written !



  7. Jay on July 17, 2012 at 3:51 pm

    That “Live Free of Die” is a pro continuation of the Vietnam war thing.

    Interesting idea that juries are allowed to rule on the law too, a state judge told me otherwise.



  8. Jedi on July 17, 2012 at 2:23 pm

    Dear Doctor, Did you ever teach that the source of medievil was based on Tibetan form of govt. Complete with torture, indentured slaves, serfdom, basically the notion that slaves were animals that could speak….right down too a system of forever in debt with a usury.

    And a quick one for Eddie the lawyer, why is it that Lawyers have a special dictionary, Blacks …a bit confusing for a just system in search of truth when a different language is being used.



  9. Don B on July 17, 2012 at 12:03 pm

    A man after my heart. One of my three majors in undergraduate study was in Medieval History. It also was a good background when I attended law school many years ago. Anyway, I enjoyed your article.

    db



  10. Robert Barricklow on July 17, 2012 at 9:18 am

    There is a two-tiered system.
    Where law is structurred to be apllied to the commoners and not the elites. The first manifestation of this is the highly expensive sharkskinned lawyer. The other is the current “get out of jail card” banksters.
    Another is buying out your legislatures to pass laws ex post facto, making legal, whay was illegal at the time of said crime. The latest being the spying by the telecommunication inmdustry.
    Now they are trying the same with the mortgage bankster’s scam of braking the laws.



  11. LSM on July 17, 2012 at 8:22 am

    great posting- thanks so much for sharing-

    “our more-than-politicized and corrupt courts”- that’s an understatement!-

    but all of this just may be the tip of a ‘gimongous’ iceberg-

    if my gleaned/read/viewed sources have any validity whatsoever, if one goes into a court of law in the US where the American flag has a yellow/gold fringe one must theoretically take one’s passport with them: it means one is being tried under International Maritime Law which is based on old Roman law meaning one is guilty until one can prove one’s innocence-

    as I stated: IF my gleaned sources are valid- if anyone has any other valid info to contra this please inform- I would be very appreciative-

    many regards to all-

    Larry



    • Robert Barricklow on July 17, 2012 at 9:12 am

      I’am impressed.
      Very few people are aware of this, or for that matter, how deeply embedded “maritime Law” is.
      A good book on this subject I came across is:
      They Own It All by
      (believe it or not)
      Ronald McDonald.



      • Robert Barricklow on July 17, 2012 at 12:30 pm

        In reading several replies on “fringe”; the point, as I see it, is not the “fringe” issue, but that maritime law itself, is within certain quarters of the law(and deeply within).

        [In an aside]
        I wonder if Dr Farrell has come across this(Maritime Law), with respect to “currencies”?



        • Jedi on July 18, 2012 at 4:34 pm

          with all due respect, considering Lawyers are rated more untrustworthy than a use car salesman I am sure the answers you seek could be found on any ole Po.



          • Vinnie on July 18, 2012 at 5:49 pm

            And that’s probably why they’ll never give either a civil answer or one that can explain why we no longer have access to common law jurisdiction.
            Trying to find an honest judge or lawyer is almost like looking for a white blackbird.



          • Robert Barricklow on July 18, 2012 at 6:28 pm

            I liked that analogy Vinnie.



          • Vinnie on July 18, 2012 at 6:40 pm

            Thank you. Maybe too broad a brush, but it’s like the medical profession that’s only taught alopathic medicine and doesn’t want to hear about natural healing or alternatives to what they’ve been taught in the AMA/big pharma supported med schools. They’re too busy learning the smallest details and never taught the big picture, be it constitutional law or how it is we’ve transferred all jurisdictions into maritime/admiralty/civil/public policy and how it is we suddenly become charged with crimes that aren’t crimes.
            Again, too much money flows from the way the legal system no operates and they aren’t going to give up until we smarten up enough to call them and smoke them out using the recourse and remedy they’ve left hidden within their statutes, codes and regulations. When a few judges and prosecutors start having their bonds arrested and become fully liable for violating peoples rights, maybe we’ll start to see real justice.



          • Robert Barricklow on July 18, 2012 at 7:58 pm

            Actually it touches on the still waters that run not only deep, in both the law & medicine, but across so many disciplines it’s near impossinle to keep count. Recently Dr. John McMurtry had an interview rebroadcast by “Guns and Butter” that dares to run deep inside these “still waters” to adress the systemic roots that are expressly manifested in law, medicine, ect.,

            http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/82527

            Again thanks,
            for your expressing your views.



          • Vinnie on July 18, 2012 at 8:03 pm

            Thank you for the kind words. Your works and thoughts are appreciated too. We’re in this together.



    • Eddie88 on July 17, 2012 at 9:35 am

      The “fringe” theory is truly a fringe theory – too wacky for even entertainment purposes. No passport needed, and no mystical maritime law because of flag fringes.



      • Peter on July 17, 2012 at 10:04 am

        Eddie, it’s so fringe that in the UK a judge has been arrested b/c of this.

        This one is also interesting:

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Jtzr1u4fvg&t=0m40s

        See the judge ask for a “mr.” who is actually represented by the birth certificate.

        This is part 2, part 1 is also interesting.



        • Eddie88 on July 17, 2012 at 11:08 am

          I’m afraid that as a lawyer who has to deal with kooky theories from pro se litigants all too often, I have no patience for this sort of thing at all. I’m limited by actually having studied Anglo-American jurisprudence and practiced for over thirty years, which gravely impedes my ability to believe that the fringe on a flag turns a court into another jurisdiction. Please, people, use some common sense, I beg you.



          • Joseph P. Farrell on July 17, 2012 at 11:16 am

            I have to agree entirely with you Eddie88… I get people emailing me stuff about that thing all the time and, quite simply, I am mystified at it all.



          • Vinnie on July 17, 2012 at 12:50 pm

            If I may ask Eddie, are you familiar with UCC1-308 and the reservation of rights? What rights are we reserving if not the ones separating ourselves from the civil laws of commerce that have been erected based on statutes and regulations, having nothing at all to do with Article III crimes that create victims? And how can the state, a legal fiction in itself be the one offended against?
            You lawyers are like the doctors who’ve been taught to treat cancers with cut, burn and poison rather than letting people use natural remedies to heal themselves?
            Maybe you’d also like to explain why as a member of the BAR, you’re an equire, part of the british nobility, holding a title, which the constitution itself bars.
            Most of the problems we have in the legal system have been crafted by lawyer/legislators who use color of law to steal legally and protect themselves from the consequences. It’s only the ignorance of the american people of your profession as to what you do that that saves your hide and fills your wallets.



          • Eddie88 on July 17, 2012 at 1:33 pm

            That’s “esquire,” you commoner. Pray, do not offend me, a member of the English nobility, or I shall have you disenfranchised via writ. Seriously, thou art obviously on to our schemes, methinks, and I must confess to all the villainy thou hast alleged. Alack!



          • Vinnie on July 17, 2012 at 1:51 pm

            Glad to see you have a sense of humor. I half way cringed when I caught that one too, or should I say two? Damn public school education.
            But seriously, can you explain why the UCC has an exception spelled out that says we have natural rights that when in conflict with statutes and regulations shall prevail? Isn’t that a dead giveaway that we’re entering into an entirely new jurisdiction, one that they’re even warning us about? Isn’t this a part of the recourse and remedy that they have to leave us, even if we aren’t smart enough to figure it out?
            Another thing that’s puzzling is the incorporation of the united States into the UNITEDSTATES with the passage of the Act of 1871? Doesn’t this go hand in hand with the 14th amendment and the creation of the colored status of US citizen, in effect, creating a corporate person as opposed to recognizing a natural born man or woman? And along with that, doesn’t the Clearfield Doctrine clairify the fact that no corporation can make binding law, but that under color of law it is a commercial transaction that is an offer to contract between two parties which falls under the jurisdiction of admiralty, equity and public policy? Isn’t this why judges have ruled correctly that the constitution can’t be brought up in their courts as a defense?
            Maybe you can clarify for me how one can commit a crime without intent or a victim? Unless someone is harmed, how can there be a claim against anyone for violating the law?
            This commoner begs to know.
            Thanks again Eddie.



          • Vinnie on July 17, 2012 at 4:28 pm

            Let me add that we laymen miss the fact that in legal terms, everything has a definitive meaning. The use of capital letters for example, or the use of bracketing to note that everything within doesn’t apply to the the body of the material. Little things like standing when the judge enters gives him jurisdiction over everyone who rises, or term like person vs a living man or woman completely change our standing and relation to the court itself. All of these things carry meaning and can’t be waved off as being loony, frivolous and all it does to use those terms is show the inability to answer the questions being raised. As for the gold fringe around the flag; that does indeed serve as the ensign in times of war and on the high seas. If it doesn’t matter jurisdictionally , why not put a real stars and strips flag in the court and end the controversy once and for all, or would that in fact mean that we were in common law jurisdiction where statutory claims for crimes without victims are frivolous and non applicable?
            Knowing as we do just how dishonest the legal profession as a whole truly is and how they’ve created such a web of legalities that are all but unintelligible to the normal man and woman, how then in their vagueness and contradictions can they even be considered to be law?If one can’t understand or question the nature of the jurisdiction they’re being tried under, it certain convicts that system more than the one being “tried” by it.



          • Peter on July 18, 2012 at 1:18 am

            I’m not saying anything about the fringe. I’m more interested in the difference between a Sovereign and a Citizen.

            http://usavsus.info/

            Irene in Canada is also doing interesting things:
            http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL47DD2F043EEC2F13

            She must be on to something, otherwise the bankers would have had the approval to change the locks on her house already.

            Subjects like these are intriguing:

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_certificate

            “Birth registration opens the door to rights to children and adults which many other human beings take for granted: to prove their age; to prove their nationality; to receive healthcare; to go to school; to take exams; to be adopted; to protection from under-age military service or conscription; to marry; open a bank account; to hold a driving licence; to obtain a passport; to inherit money or property; and to vote or stand for elected office.[7]”

            So you cannot even inherit money or marry someone you love if you’re not “registered”?

            Wasn’t it common in earlier times to assume someone was married if they lived long enough together? Or if it was written in the family bible?

            And you cannot receive healthcare? They could be talking about subsidized health care by the government, but also just about being treated in the first place:

            “Health care (or healthcare) is the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in humans. Health care is delivered by practitioners in medicine, chiropractic, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, allied health, and other care providers.”

            The Hippocratic Oath applies to humans of flesh and blood and with a soul, not just Citizens as far as I know..



      • Peter on July 18, 2012 at 1:22 am

        Well, in the country in which I’m currently living, every law is signed with “by the grace of God” (Dei Gratia, D.G.).

        I’m still wondering when we will ever see the actual, physical proof of that grace being given to our monarch…

        I mean, there must be some record of that communication/exchange somewhere! ;-P



  12. Eddie88 on July 17, 2012 at 7:18 am

    Excellent post, thanks!
    Incredibly, most judges, usually appointed for life and accountable to no one, are vehemently opposed to jury nullification, calling it a threat to equal rights and the rule of law. Their problem is that they reserve to themselves the right to ignore law and precedent and do not want lay jurors exercising any sort of meaningful judgment at all. Keeping jurors ignorant of their long-standing right to nullify unjust laws and unfair prosecutions enhances the judges’ own claims of omnipotence.
    Here’s a typical piece of arrogance from the New Jersey Supreme Court on this issue:
    “We know that in the secrecy of the jury room, jurors have the power to nullify the law by acquitting a defendant despite overwhelming evidence of guilt. We acknowledge that reality, not because we approve of such a practice, but because it is beyond our control.”
    State v. Jenkins, 182 N.J. 112, 128 (N.J. 2004)
    This from a court which has a long history of ignoring or “amending” statutes it does not chose to follow. Cf. N.J. Democratic Party, Inc. v. Samson, 175 N.J. 178 (N.J. 2002) (Ignoring explicit statutory language to allow the last-minute substitution of a different Senate candidate believed to have a better chance of winning.)
    It’s not “The Law” the establishment wants protected, it’s their monopoly on breaking “The Law.”



    • Johnycomelately on July 17, 2012 at 5:29 pm

      I find it interesting that common law originally only permitted equitable liens as charges over property and security interests (like mortgages) were unlawful.

      My inept and casual reading seems to suggest the Monarch changed this by taxing the Usury class (who were exempt from common law) to increase his funds and in turn permitted them the right of security interests thus creating the court of chancery.

      This seemed to be the event that precipitated the centralization of money and property to the monied elite and the subversion of common law to special interests.



      • HAL838 on July 17, 2012 at 11:03 pm

        Do we have a law-yer in our midst ?

        Do YOU remember what ‘implied’ law
        and ‘intent’ [of] law was/is/meant?
        Those were just as much LAW as the ‘letters,’
        or do U know JUST “common” law?

        It was those ‘terms’ that made nullification
        very legal and possible



    • HAL838 on July 17, 2012 at 11:38 pm

      You know Joseph, some think you are excellent
      and some think you are even [your] excellency.
      That can be kind of difficult to live up to …..

      I think you’re swell.
      I hope that’s enough 😉



  13. iluvsushi on July 17, 2012 at 5:45 am

    Great information! This is just one of the 101 reasons for liberty-minded people to move to New Hampshire. See http://freestateproject.org/101Reasons.



    • HAL838 on July 17, 2012 at 11:11 pm

      Do you think is that few?



      • HAL838 on July 17, 2012 at 11:29 pm

        my ‘there’ got lost.
        Sump thing is deleting words and I have actually
        caught THEM in the act
        [not THAT act, although it is hard to miss, since it is now
        …ubiquitous and UNcovered everywhere]

        I don’t ‘watch’ television.
        I sit there surfing channels
        because there is nothing worthy
        of my attention on all 10 million of them!

        Believe me, I have had the time
        AND
        that is why [btw] I am trying to kill it right now
        [time I mean-I think that some-times
        there is just too much of it ! ]

        Then again, it has all been useful



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