Political speech
A court order signed this week prohibits the distribution of pamphlets or leaflets meant to influence jurors outside the Orange and Osceola courthouses.
The administrative order, signed by Chief Judge Belvin Perry on Monday, has sparked a fresh free-speech debate that could lead to legal challenges, questioning whether the order amounts to a “prior restraint” or a form of censorship.
The issue stems from representatives of the national nonprofit organization Fully Informed Jury Association distributing what they call jury “education” information outside the Orange County Courthouse.
Can’t have the proles judging the law or being made aware that they can.
February 9th, 2011 at 10:24 am
Judge in the Tanya Craft case down here in GA did kinda the same thing, only much more petty. He set down an order that you couldn’t display a Tanya Craft support sticker within 500 ft of the courthouse.
Roundly ignored, if I recall.
February 9th, 2011 at 10:39 am
The fun thing is that the FIJA plans to send a civil disobedient to go get arrested under this. Then, when he is put on trial, they will be forced to put the pamphlet into evidence and show it to the jury. Which will make the jury fully informed.
The last time this happened, they ended up dropping the charges on the eve of trial because they couldn’t figure out a way to “redact” the pamphlet that still gave them enough to convict.
February 9th, 2011 at 10:40 am
That is awesome!
February 9th, 2011 at 10:50 am
Do you go on trial for contempt of court?
February 9th, 2011 at 11:56 am
If they do it as contempt, you don’t get a jury. It seems to me that would quickly be thrown out as an abuse of power by the judge. He has full authority over the parties before his court and his courtroom, but I don’t think he has the power to assert blanket authority over unnamed people who happen to be near the courthouse.
The FIJA guy is right. It will be an interesting case for the Court of Appeals.
February 9th, 2011 at 12:13 pm
Can we expect a dedicated jury nullification is not a crime blog page anytime soon?
February 9th, 2011 at 12:47 pm
I’ve got a lawyer friend who is very prickly about jury nullification. Whenever it came up, his response felt like a like a judicial equivalent of the executive’s thin blue line. A plague on both their houses.
February 9th, 2011 at 1:27 pm
The ancient power of jury nullification takes power away from lawyers, Judges (but I repeat myself), and politicians (but I repeat myself yet again). Furthermore it rubs those “we’re the only ones legal beagle enough to have created our own terms of art in order to keep the price of justice artificially high” people the wrong way.
I’ve had the damnedest fun trying to get the e-lawyers of the tubes of web to admit where they get the idea that they have the right to keep their meatbots ignorant of jury nullification and why they think it’s OK for a judge to to lie to the jury about their duty to convict regardless of how the law was applied.
February 9th, 2011 at 1:32 pm
“The ancient power of jury nullification takes power away from lawyers”
No it doesn’t it. We criminal defense types love it. Nullification for all!
Half of my closing would be why this particular statute is a moronic!
February 9th, 2011 at 1:37 pm
I’ve got a whole lot of rather specific thoughts on this (Unc will understand that), but for now, I’d look at it as one Hell Of An Opportunity to get out of jury duty in Orange County by having an FIJA brochure sticking out of one’s pocket.
February 9th, 2011 at 1:52 pm
Where exactly in this country are lawyers for the defense allowed to explain nullification to a sworn jury before they go to deliberation?
If anyone could do that, we wouldn’t really need the pamphleteers on the courthouse steps.
February 9th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
This lawyer believes that the Jury Nullification Doctrine is the pinnacle and mighty fortress of the right to trial by jury. I advocate it repeatedly, mostly to no effect, it seems.
February 9th, 2011 at 5:35 pm
I’ve heard that the mere mention of it in court by a lawyer will result in a jail stay for contempt, plus dismissal of the jury, and a restart of the case. Plus the lawyer may end up disbarred. The judges SERIOUSLY hate the idea. IIRC, they were required to inform each jury of the power to nullify, up to the early 20th Century. They couldn’t get convictions of union agitators(?), so decided to make it go away.
February 9th, 2011 at 7:34 pm
The real cure is to pass a law that has authority over the court in question, that says that the judge of any case involving a jury must inform the jury of the nullification power. Then the judge must do so. Or require the court to send the pamphlet with the jury summons notice.
February 9th, 2011 at 11:25 pm
Good luck with that. Would be a mighty fine tea party plank.
I’d say amendment to the state constitution, because otherwise they can declare it unconstitutional.
February 10th, 2011 at 1:12 pm
Where exactly in this country are lawyers for the defense allowed to explain nullification to a sworn jury before they go to deliberation?
The phrase he used was: “Half of my closing would be why this particular statute is a moronic!”
I think the words “would be” imply an answer to your question, i.e., no where.
February 12th, 2011 at 2:00 am
The jury summons form is for citizens who owe their citizenship to the 14th Amendment (freed black slaves, their posterity, and other similarly situated). 14th Amendment citizens have no unalienable rights in our system of government and only have privileges granted by Congress (or lately the courts). A right that has not been granted is the unalienable right to judge the law and the facts.
In all of these cases the jury is rigged so that they are forbidden from judging the law at all and must swear to take the law from the judge as he gives it.
For more info like this see originalintent.org under education.
February 12th, 2011 at 9:39 am
@ Lien: That website is filled with a bunch of half baked legal gobbledegook. I can’t believe that people actually believe that tripe.