Read the Beforeitsnews.com story here. Advertise at Before It's News here.
Profile image
By Pro Libertate
Contributor profile | More stories
Story Views
Now:
Last hour:
Last 24 hours:
Total:

Nullifying the Jury

% of readers think this story is Fact. Add your two cents.





“Could we discuss potential punishments?” asked the tall, middle-aged man identified as “Juror 25” during the voir dire for the trial of Matthew Townsend on a ludicrous felony charge of “witness intimidation.” His supposed offense was to publish a well-reasoned and inoffensive Facebook post complaining about being arrested without cause
Pointing out that he had worked as a prison mentor for many years, and had actually counseled inmates facing the death penalty, the juror thought it would be worthwhile to know what would happen to Townsend if he were found guilty. Trial Judge Lynn Norton pointed out that once the trial proper began, the jury would be instructed not to consider punishment in their deliberations.
If prosecutor James Vogt succeeds in manipulating the jury into delivering a guilty verdict, Judge Norton will decide how much of Townsend’s life would be stolen by the state – one possibility is a prison term of five years. 
Like most people in her justifiably disreputable profession, Norton treats the jury as a trivial impediment to the efficient operation the courts, which exist to transform citizens into “offenders” for delivery to the prison system. Like most of her peers she will not countenance the idea that citizens conscripted to sit in judgment of their neighbors should also be able to determine whether the potential punishment is proportionate to the alleged offense. The jury’s role is to go in the direction the judge points them, which in almost every case leads to conviction.
 
So determined are Norton and Ada County Assistant DA Vogt to avoid the question of proportionality that they arranged a mistrial when Townsend’s defense attorney, Aaron Tribble, referred to the obvious fact that the defendant had been charged with a felony.
Vogt’s artfully dishonest opening argument (discussed in more detail anon) depicted Townsend as a violent, predatory stalker who terrorized the valiant Meridian Police Officer Richard Brockbank by threatening his life and his family. 
 
That may be the only way to obtain justice.

Tribble began his opening argument by pointing out that the arrest out of which the felony charge grew involved a contrived accusation of jaywalking.
At the time Brockbank inflicted his unwanted presence on him, Townsend “was protesting taxes” at a street corner in Meridian, Tribble pointed out. After Brockbank saw Townsend legally crossing an intersection – stopping briefly in the crosswalk to display his protest sign – the officer decided to “educate” his better about pedestrian safety.
Brockbank tried to induce Townsend into admitting a violation of the law. When Townsend asked if he was being charged, the annoyed and frustrated tax-feeder didn’t answer, so Townsend shrugged and exercised his legal right to walk away.
“At this point, Brockbank said, `OK, I’m going to arrest you for resisting and obstructing,’” Tribble recounted. “And now what began as a jaywalking case has become a felony charge….”

It was here that Vogt objected and asked that the jury be removed from the courtroom. Once the jurors had been escorted out, Judge Norton helpfully suggested that Vogt move for a mistrial. 

Tribble pointed out that the charge had been described as a felony, and that the size of the jury – fourteen panelists, evenly divided between male and female – made it clear that the offense being considered was a felony, rather than a misdemeanor.  Vogt protested that the instructions to the jury do not permit them to be informed of, or take into account, potential sentencing options, and contended that they likewise “cannot take into account the degree of the offense.” 
I have discussed this development with several trial attorneys, all of whom said that referring to the “degree of offense” in an opening argument is a novel reason for a mistrial. Then again, the Ada County Prosecutor’s Office has displayed a gift for perverse ingenuity in pursuing its jihad against Matthew Townsend. 

During voir dire, Vogt had clearly prepped potential jurors to see the charges against Townsend as a violent felony. They had been informed that the charge was “intimidation of a state’s witness,” and to illustrate the supposed seriousness of the defendant’s actions Vogt had asked jurors to imagine being threatened or robbed at gunpoint. His own opening argument was an extended riff that re-purposed a Facebook post that pointedly and repeatedly repudiated violence into a direct threat to Brockbank and his family if the officer testified against him.
“Mr. Townsend gave Brockbank a choice, and he promised consequences,” Vogt intoned, mouthing the mendacious mantra he had fashioned out of the Facebook post: “I know where you all live … leave me alone or be the focus of my rage … kill me.”
Tribble undermined the caricature of Townsend as a violent felon by explaining – in a presentation punctuated by no fewer than four objections from Vogt – that Townsend had been involved in the peaceful exercise of his rights when he was arrested without cause, and was now being treated as a felon for complaining about that mistreatment in public.
As has been previously reported in this space, Townsend’s Facebook post, which was published on the eve of his preliminary hearing on the “resisting and obstructing” charge, was directed at Brockbank, the prosecutor’s office, and everybody else representing the malign yet formless entity called “the State.” It was “the State” that threatened his liberty and his life, Townsend observed, and it was to that disembodied abstraction he made the demand that the unwarranted charge against him be dropped.
He made no mention of Brockbank’s testimony, nor did he seek to dissuade the officer from testifying. Precisely the opposite was the case: Townsend clearly anticipated that Brockbank would testify truthfully, and that by making clear “the REAL reason I was harassed” he would leave the court no choice but to dismiss the spurious charge.

To the extent that Townsend’s statement implicated the question of Brockbank’s testimony, it was an admonition to the officer to testify “freely, fully, and truthfully,” rather than trying to prevent him from doing so, as the “witness intimidation” statute would require.
Vogt complained that Tribble had “poisoned” the jury through a presentation that contrasted the innocent behavior of the defendant with the seriousness of the charge against him. Norton found such contamination impermissible, which is why she prompted Vogt to move for the mistrial.
When the trial resumes on February 29, we can expect Judge Norton and her comrades in the Ada County Prosecutor’s Office to do what is necessary to keep the proceedings untainted by considerations of proportionality, accuracy, and justice. They won’t be willing to proceed unless they can, in effect, nullify the jury.

Judge Alex Kozinski of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, one of the few active jurists who consistently display concern for the rights of defendants, insists that jurors should not only be allowed to consider punishments during their deliberations, but should have a role in sentencing.
“In most jurisdictions, jurors in non-capital cases are not told what the likely punishment will be if the defendant is convicted,” Kozinski pointed out in a magisterial essay published by the Georgetown Law Journal. “In fact, we tell jurors not to consider punishment in deciding guilt. I don’t understand why this is appropriate. In making most life decisions, we consider the consequences in determining how much effort to put into deciding and the degree of confidence we must feel before we go forward.”

Conscientious individuals seek to learn everything they can about potential consequences before making life-altering decisions for themselves, Kozinski observes. Why are jurors not allowed to do the same when they’re required to make decisions that will alter the life of others?
“Jurors should be told the gravity of the decision they are making so they can take it into account in deciding whether to convict or acquit,” he continues. “As representatives of the community where the defendant committed his crime, the jury should be allowed to make the judgment of whether the punishment is too severe to permit a conviction. Having to confront the jury with the severity of the punishment they are seeking to extract may well deter prosecutors from using overcharging as a bargaining tool.”
That last possibility implies the existence of a moral floor beneath which prosecutors will not descend. On the basis of their irrational and vindictive pursuit of Matthew Townsend, it appears that James Vogt and his professional colleagues are the kind of officials who would attack that moral floor with jackhammers.

Dum spiro, pugno!


Source: http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2016/01/nullifying-jury.html



Before It’s News® is a community of individuals who report on what’s going on around them, from all around the world.

Anyone can join.
Anyone can contribute.
Anyone can become informed about their world.

"United We Stand" Click Here To Create Your Personal Citizen Journalist Account Today, Be Sure To Invite Your Friends.

Please Help Support BeforeitsNews by trying our Natural Health Products below!


Order by Phone at 888-809-8385 or online at https://mitocopper.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST

Order by Phone at 866-388-7003 or online at https://www.herbanomic.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST

Order by Phone at 866-388-7003 or online at https://www.herbanomics.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST


Humic & Fulvic Trace Minerals Complex - Nature's most important supplement! Vivid Dreams again!

HNEX HydroNano EXtracellular Water - Improve immune system health and reduce inflammation.

Ultimate Clinical Potency Curcumin - Natural pain relief, reduce inflammation and so much more.

MitoCopper - Bioavailable Copper destroys pathogens and gives you more energy. (See Blood Video)

Oxy Powder - Natural Colon Cleanser!  Cleans out toxic buildup with oxygen!

Nascent Iodine - Promotes detoxification, mental focus and thyroid health.

Smart Meter Cover -  Reduces Smart Meter radiation by 96%! (See Video).

Report abuse

    Comments

    Your Comments
    Question   Razz  Sad   Evil  Exclaim  Smile  Redface  Biggrin  Surprised  Eek   Confused   Cool  LOL   Mad   Twisted  Rolleyes   Wink  Idea  Arrow  Neutral  Cry   Mr. Green

    Total 3 comments
    • GearHead

      The Scam of the Legal System

      The “legal system” is nothing other than a huge scam, fraud, artifice, which is set up solely for the impoverishment and control of its victims. And of course, it also has the intent of using any means at all at its disposal for keeping itself going on forever, and growing, at an ever increasing rate.
      But fear not, Dear Reader, as there is a most simple way out of that abyss, that labyrinth which we have been led into under the false idea that we can hire someone to help us in obtaining our justice when we are wronged. It is quite simply the serious and dedicated application of the Three Magic Questions. They are; What is the EXACT AMOUNT of fraud that ANYONE has the right to commit? What is the EXACT AMOUNT of fraud that ANYONE has an obligation to endure? What is the BASIC PREMISE that is being operated off of in the instant case? No lieyer who has ever been asked those first two questions has given a straight answer, the ONLY answer possible, which is none. For to do so would put an immediate end to the fraud which they depend upon for their daily bread!
      It is a given that no one who is dependent upon something will ever do much, if anything at all, to harm it. Hence, we see quite clearly now as to why the lieyers of the world do not like to look too closely at the origins of their “profession” and what has become of it. What had started out as a bona fide alternative to the thoroughly corrupted King’s Court, has now become that very thing which it was created in protest against; a totally corrupted system! Many may balk at what this Author says, but NONE of them can offer up even the slightest shred of anything to actually prove it wrong.
      If there was some amount of fraud that one had a right to commit or an obligation to endure, then how could it possibly be measured? Without that measuring stick or container or balance scale, how could anyone know for certain how much was not enough or how much was too much?
      What is the BASIC PREMISE that is being operated off of at any given time? Don’t we have the Right to know that? Aren’t we at a severe disadvantage if we do not? Who can say that we have no inherent right to know all of what goes on around us? Are we “persons” held as slaves to another in a democracy, or are we free men and women in a republic? Please heed these words here well, for they ARE the key to the chains around your ankles!
      If you print out the TMQs, either by hand or machine, and then post them all around your house and at work, after a short amount of time of thinking about them, they will become a part of your mind and way of thinking. Every time that you are interacting with others, you will think of it in terms of those TMQs!
      Look up the definitions of fraud and contract, and learn them as well as you know your own name. Make them such a part of your thinking that not a day goes by without contemplating them, and you will then begin to see a change in your life. In the way that others treat you, and you treat others as well. It can’t help but happen, unless you wish to keep on being cheated and cheating others too.
      The entire legal system is a den of thieves and vipers. Why should we continue to feed them anymore, when they bring us such unlimited amounts of misery? We need to use the TMQs and starve them all out of business as well as existence!! What would a so-called “judge” be able to say or do if asked those three simple questions? What could they say? What can ANYBODY say in response to them? It should be dawning upon you Dear Reader, just about now, that you are at the mercy of a corrupted system that has gone wild and is completely out of control. Who is going to rein it all back in? Can it ever be done? This Author says no, it cannot! It is like a hand or arm with gangrene in it. It cannot be saved, so it must be cut off as quickly as possible, before the body dies and there is nothing left to save.
      Make your OWN test of the TMQs as this Author has done. Ask as many lieyers as you can stomach, what the answers to those questions are. You won’t get one in a thousand to answer you honestly, for it would go straight against what they are all about! Just look up “Attorney and Client” in the Corpus Juris Secundum, Section 14 and see it for yourself!
      A thorough and careful study of any law dictionary will give you more knowledge of and insight into the criminal nature of the legal system than you could ever imagine. It is just FILLED with expose’ after expose’ of how corrupt the system is, if you are only daring enough to see it for what it is.
      Very few people will go into a fight that they completely KNOW they have no chance of winning. They would rather just let the fight come to them, and be killed, than to expend their last energy in that way. The lieyers of the world are the same way. They know that they cannot prevail against the TMQs, so they do all that they can to avoid them like the plague. To answer them correctly, is to commit suicide, both financially as well as “professionally”. Being as professional as an unwashed whore that is. What could a lieyer do for honest work then? Surely not much until retrained, as their whole career was all about lying, cheating and stealing. If anyone at all can prove this Author to be wrong to any degree, in any way, then let them do so at once! This is all born out of some facts as solid as a piece of granite stone, coupled with a bit of logic. True, some may like to ridicule these facts, thoughts and logic, but can they prove them to be wrong? Or have all of the differences between what is right and what is wrong been eliminated? If such is the case, then surely it must have been done by the lieyers themselves, for no one else would profit so handsomely from such a dastardly deed as they would. But to be fair, whores at least serve a useful, if maybe distasteful purpose in society. Lieyers on the other hand, do not. Maggots, jackals and vultures may feed off of dead bodies, but lieyers are the main cause of all those dead bodies.
      These elevated to the bench so-called “judges” (actually they’re just Executive Administrators sitting in Admiralty jurisdiction) are just more lieyers, and are far from being unbiased. Since they do not swear a proper oath of office, and also are members of the British Accredidation Registry who take bribes (cash payments in “income tax” cases and monies from civil judgments paid into their retirement funds), how can they be anything BUT biased??
      Justice must satisfy the appearance of justice. The USSC has ruled and reaffirmed so in Levine v. United States, 362 U.S. 610, 80 S. Ct 1038 (1960), citing Offutt v. United States, 348 U.S. 11,14, 75 S. Ct. 11,13 (1954). “A Judge receiving a bribe from an interested party over which he is presiding, does not give the appearance of justice”. How much plainer than that does it need to be?? For further proof of all this, just do a search for “Fraud upon the Court” or “Fraud on the Court” and see what you find. “It is axiomatic that fraud vitiates everything”. Those words are not those of this Author only, they come from many, many court cases. ANY officers committing fraud upon the court render the orders and judgments of that court void, of no legal force or effect. This is the reason why everyone needs to get the “judge” on record at the outset, BEFORE any kind of plea is entered into the record, a promise to not commit any kind of fraud to any degree in the proceedings nor to allow anyone else to commit any fraud either. What kind of “judge” would not gladly make such a promise? Would any honest judge have a valid reason for not doing so? Is there some kind of hidden premise that is being operated off of in the courtroom? As stated earlier, NO ONE who is benefiting from a fraud or scam can be counted upon to injure it. The legal system has become a plague upon the land, and like a plague, it will kill itself off after it destroys more hosts than are needed to keep itself going.
      No casino anywhere in the world forces people in off the street at gun point and makes them gamble with their life or property, so why should a court be able to do it? What is the basic premise of the courts? It’s certainly not to ensure that justice is done! The outcome of any so-called “trial” is no more guaranteed than whether black or red will come up on the spin of a wheel. In the subject of casinos, most everybody is aware to some degree that the games are all rigged up in favor of the house, but how many of us know that the courts are rigged up every bit as much, if not even WORSE?
      In the case of U.S. v. Robert C. Braun, Mr. Braun merely asked if the property he and his fellows had been protesting upon had ever been ceded to or bought by the federal government. It had not, so the silent judicial notice of federal legislation being in full force and effect there was negated. Braun, and his already convicted fellow protesters (all of whom had hired attorneys BTW) against abortion had not in fact violated the F.A.C.E. Act and were thus set free. Foley Bros. v. Filardo had been upheld, much to the chagrin of the prostituting attorney, who told the “judge” that if the legislative jurisdictional challenge from Braun was permitted to stand, “half the prison doors in America would fly open”. EXCUSE ME?!?! That filthy scum bag lieyer KNEW that fraud was being committed all along, and yet did nothing to stop it? Why wasn’t he put into jail for aiding and abetting a crime? Or is it his JOB to commit fraud upon everyone that he can get away with? It most certainly does seem so!
      So woe unto YOU, lieyers of the world! The people are beginning to wake up to your foul works and evil deeds, and soon we will be rid of you, one way or another!

    • GearHead

      The Holes in the Legal System

      Not very many people realize just how full of holes the legal system actually is. It’s the opinion of this Author that it is due to the heavy level of indoctrination that goes on in the public fool system. Virtually NO ONE is taught what critical thinking is, let alone how to apply any of it. We’ve been reduced to a nation of people who are cowed into toeing the political party line, regardless of expense, which is nothing but political correctness gone wild. And so with all of this indoctrination rather than education going on, is it really any wonder now as to why we are virtually in a state of free-fall in so many areas of our life? No church, no police force, no government nor its agents, no banking system, no political affiliation, no school, not ANYTHING can claim to have fully clean hands. All of the above have been caught with the net of the Three Magic Questions. None of them can escape that net no matter how much wriggling or squirming they may do. And they do wriggle and squirm when caught. What is the EXACT AMOUNT of fraud that ANYBODY has the right to commit? What is the EXACT AMOUNT of fraud that ANYBODY has an actual obligation to endure? What is the BASIC PREMISE that is being operated off of in the instant case? Those three simple little questions totally destroy the pretenses of the legal system. They lay bare the fact that it is a criminal enterprise formed up by and run by criminals for their own profits and nothing more than that.
      Imagine if you will, that the legal system is like a large piece of Swiss cheese, laid out on the floor. Now we’ve all been totally convinced over the years that we all must step only on the solid parts of the cheese, and to never go near the holes. But what happens when we step into one of those holes? We drop right straight through them and escape from it! But most people think that it’s not fair to the rest of the suckers who do only what they are told to do and never step into a hole. But there’s an undercut in operation here. It is that since the entire legal system is a scam from the very beginning, we have no obligation at all to NOT step into a hole and disappear down it. Some may say something like “Well if everybody did that, well we’d have no courts anymore, we’d have anarchy in the streets, we’d have rioting and looting, etc, etc, etc”. Well don’t we already have those things in wholesale amounts now anyway? Just look around you now and see what you can see for a minute or two.
      You will see that there’s no justice in the courts save what happens there purely by accident, no protection by the police except for them saving and protecting themselves from the wrath of the people that have been wronged by them, the schools are barely able to teach their charges how to read and write well enough to fill in a welfare program form, the churches abuse our children and assist the governmental and non-governmental agencies in stealing from their parishioners, the politicians do not listen to the people save for the ones who put them into office, need the list go on any longer now? So where is the “down side” to moving over a bit and stepping into a hole in the legal system? ONLY the ones who make a profit off of the legal system object to someone stepping into one of its holes.
      Those holes are all over the place, and some of them are quite large indeed. All it takes to find them is to open up your eyes and LOOK for them! Look with the knowledge that they are there and that you do not have any kind of an obligation to not use them. Those holes are made visible by reading The Maxims of Law, reading a law dictionary, THINKING for a moment about the TMQs. The Maxims of Law are the spirit of what the laws are supposed to be for and say. The law dictionaries show us where the holes are and how big they are. Thinking about the legal system will show us where the nearest hole is for us to step into and fall out of it. The TMQs give us the reasons as to WHY we should be stepping into those holes and doing so without the slightest amount of regret, except for the regret that we didn’t do it sooner!
      In short, just how much worse off will we really be by stepping into some of those holes? The ones who own and operate the legal system scam for profit will suffer for sure, but no one else!! Everyone else will profit from stepping into those holes. It won’t be the case that there will be more lawlessness, as we already have more than we can stand anyway. So what’s the harm??

      Your ever humble logician servant,
      Randy

    • GearHead

      Void for Vagueness Doctrine

      The void for vagueness doctrine is certainly one of the most unsung heroes for relief of unjust actions in ANY legal situation that has ever existed. Quoting liberally from Black’s Law Dictionary 6th Edition Abridged, on page 1087, we find: Void for vagueness doctrine. A law which is so obscure in its promulgation that a reasonable person could not determine from a reading what the law purports to command or prohibit is void as violative of due process. The doctrine means that criminal responsibility should not attach where one could not reasonably understand that his contemplated conduct is proscribed. Also, the First Amendment requires special clarity so that protected expression will not be chilled or suppressed.
      Now, taking that line of logic, reasoning, out towards the Ne Plus Ultra a little bit, we see that the legal system has provided us with a remedy for itself. Please read that again; has provided us with a REMEDY for itself. Who has not read some rule, law, code, statute, regulation or ordinance and not had to scratch their head while trying to figure out exactly what was meant, when it applied and to whom? And then toss in the specialized definitions of the “words of art” such as “person”, “resident”, “trade or business”, “may”, “shall”, “must”, “includes”, “including” (all of which by the way are INTENTIONALLY used to commit a fraud upon us all via confusion) etc and we have the makings of a real dog’s breakfast before us. But one of such a foul taste and odor that nothing but a vulture or some other kind of scavenger could ever stomach it. It takes the palate of something far less than a real man to savor such a stinking, fetid pile of decay. Is there any wonder at all now as to why lawyers are so often referred to as buzzards or vultures? Jackal, shark, and hyena are also used on occasion, and we all know what those animals feed on, don’t we?
      So be it of no surprise to you, Dear Reader, when an attempt is made upon you for your life, liberty and property in a court of law sometime, that you have been thoroughly lied to from the very beginning. Make no mistake that you have been duped, conned, deceived, defrauded, swindled, lied to and tricked into believing things that are just not true. And if you’re being called an idiot, or worse, for not believing in those lies, do not give in to believing them for even one single second. Look to see who would benefit from telling you these monstrous lies, and you will know for sure that they ARE lies!
      Our “elected” leaders and the public fool system which they have spawned are just a few of the real culprits here. It is to THEIR advantage that you were given a false education, in reality just an indoctrination, and one that is filled with every kind of lie that anyone could ever imagine. The reasoning used here is that if you were to ever really know what was actually going on behind the scenes, you’d be impossible to control to any degree. The fraud is done for control of your free will and your desire to thrive instead of only merely survive for a short time.
      So just who was it that concocted this Rube Goldberg like meat grinder we call the legal system? Was it the lieyers working for the banksters? Or the banksters working for the lieyers? Or were they both working together, in a hand-in-glove type fashion against the rest of the world? The answer should be pretty obvious by now. And what we know for 100% certainty is that NO ONE has any kind of right to commit ANY kind or amount of fraud or any other crime against another. And when that fact is brought to light, the cockroaches all scurry back into the cracks and crevices they came from. They are the ones who are responsible for making non-crimes to look like crimes so that they may profit from them.
      Nobody in their right mind would ever hire a lieyer for handling a non-crime issue if they only knew the facts of how corrupted the legal system really is. It only allows itself to investigate itself, so what does THAT tell you right there? We have the RIGHT to defend ourselves when we are accused of wrongdoing, we do not need permission to do so or need to be represented in a criminal enterprise by a member of it. We have a RIGHT to seek justice and compensation for wrongs done against us at ANY level, and we do not need to depend upon a proven criminal organization to make us whole again. And of course asking a lieyer for an opinion on all of this is akin to asking a barber if you need a haircut or a tailor if you need a new suit of clothes. Or a car salesman if you should upgrade to a fancier model.
      All that one needs to do is demand answers to The Three Magic Questions to get to the bottom of ANYTHING, anything at all. There is no life situation of any kind that cannot be resolved by a dedicated and studious application of them. That is why they are so highly revered by those who seek truth and justice and so strongly despised by the ones who make a profit off of crimes of any type.
      For those who have not heard of them before, they are listed here now. What is the EXACT AMOUNT of fraud that ANYBODY has the right to commit? What is the EXACT AMOUNT of fraud that ANYBODY has an actual obligation to endure? What is the BASIC PREMISE that is being operated off of in the instant case?
      These three simple questions just totally demolish the legal system with ALL of its trappings. It is all reduced to nothing more than a pile of dust and smoking ashes to be blown away on the first gentle breeze that comes along. Please Dear Reader, contemplate for just five minutes of your precious time where and how these three questions may or may not apply somewhere. That will tell you if they are valid or not.

    MOST RECENT
    Load more ...

    SignUp

    Login

    Newsletter

    Email this story
    Email this story

    If you really want to ban this commenter, please write down the reason:

    If you really want to disable all recommended stories, click on OK button. After that, you will be redirect to your options page.