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Dangerous
December 12th, 2006God burdened man with multiple languages to slow our progress, for only God knows how really ^%&#* dangerous we are.
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Canned Critique
December 9th, 2006He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches. He who cannot teach become an annoying critic.
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Abnormality
December 8th, 2006To be “abnormal” is to be different from the majority and thus to evoke fear and loathing in said majority. To be intelligent among the ignorant, to be polite in New York, or to be Republican in San Francisco.
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A jury of one
December 5th, 2006Everyone seems to want to escape jury duty. I have never understood why. You are often afforded Jerry Springer like entertainment value in criminal trails, and at least gets a few days off work. Of course the one good reason to skip jury duty is that doing so retrains your natural temptation to kill lawyers.
More people would gleefully accept jury duty if they understood that they can be a jury of one, and enforce the constitution in at their pleasure. Indeed, you as a sole practitioner of constitutional prerogative can toss (or at least deadlock) a case simply because you think the law in question stinks as bad as the politicians who wrote it.
It has long been established that a jury can acquit a suspect if they believe the law in question in unconstitutional. The theory at play is that The People (you know, those folks that approved the constitution and are the sole authority for changing it) are the final source of control over rogue actions of anointed power holders. People must occasionally protect their fellow citizens from the ravages of outsourced employees like hyperactive district attorneys or activist judges.
But don’t accept my interpretation of this history or of the constitutional imperatives. Drop by the Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA) and browse their literature (better yet, buy a few copies and pass them out in the jury waiting room if you really want to be excused from duty).
This is more than a quaint exercise in judicial counterinsurgency. Jury nullification of unconstitutional laws is perhaps the greater duty to the country and your neighbors. If you feel a law insults the constitution or any natural right, you are legally free to acquit the defendant, if not actually obligated to do so.
This has particular application for Right to Keep and Bear Arms cases in state courts, where places like Kalifornia place undue burdens on free citizens to acquire firearms. Under the theory that the constitution is a legal document, and preempts all other law, then the Second Amendment becomes the controlling law. Ipso facto you can/must use jury nullification to acquit a defendant of any law that prevents an otherwise law abiding citizen their ability to keep or bear a firearm.