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Jury Nullification
Jury Nullification
Jury Nullification
Jury Nullification
Jury Nullification:History, questions and answers about nullification, links
Don't believe what the judge told you, as far as I can tell.

Not true, of course.

True, of course. :)

ASCAP! The mafia that controls music. There's a great story at wired about travelfinder.com's links to radio stations.

ASCAP wanted them to fork over royalty fees even though the music wasn't archived on their site! The links were clearly denoted as external.

Then again this isn't suprising behavior considering that ASCAP tried to strongarm the girl scouts into paying royalties for songs sung around the campfire.

119,000 disqualified voters? And what's so unusual about that? I remember reading that there was nothing unusual about the number of spoiled ballots in 2000 as compared to previous Presidential ellections. According to this link, there were 101,452,285 ballots cast in the 2000 election. Your 119,000 is 0.1173% of that total, a small percentage.

Is it anyones' fault but their own for casting spoiled ballots? Answer: no. Ballots are published WEEKS in advance. Voter guides are myriad; pick one that matches your political beliefs if you want. Conscientious voters should have a pre-marked ballot to carry to the poll with them. Standing in the booth is the wrong time to be reading a ballot for the first time.

As far as taxes go, I dream of the day we return to constitutionally correct government, shedding the largess that has been added since the New Deal (I consider myself a strict constructionist). Eliminating the unconstitutional programs would free up trillions of dollars-- money that would stay right in your pocket.

There is one more point under the Miller test that has failed to be mentioned anywhere in this discussion. The Miller test is to be applied by a court.

For an item to be declared obscene, it must go through a court trial. Filtering software does not fulfill this requirement. A librarian looking over your shoulder does not fulfill this requirement.

See http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/c onlaw/miller.html for the full text of that decision. They key bet is in the use of the phrase "trier of fact" and mention of the jury.

Scott

FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

I ON THE BASIS OF THE FOREGOING, THE FINDINGS OF THE INQUIRY ARE AS FOLLOWS:

A. Concerning Events Surrounding The Son My Operation of 16 - 19 March 1968

(1) During the period 16-19 March 1968, US Army troops of TF Barker, 11th Brigade, Americal Division, massacred a large number of noncombatants in two hamlets of Son My Village, Quang Ngai Province, Republic of Vietnam. The precise number of Vietnamese killed cannot be determined but was at least 175 and may exceed 400.

(2) The massacre occurred in conjunction with a combat operation which was intended to neutralize Son My Village as a logistical support base and staging area, and to destroy elements of an enemy battalion thought to be located in the Son My area.

(3) The massacre resulted primarily from the nature of the orders issued to persons in the chain of command within TF Barker.

(4) The task force commander's order and the associated intelligence estimate issued prior to the operation were embellished as they were disseminated through each lower level of command, and ultimately presented to the individual soldier a false and misleading picture of the Son My area as an armed enemy camp, largely devoid of civilian inhabitants.

(5) Prior to the incident, there had developed within certain elements of the 11th Brigade a permissive attitude toward the treatment and safeguarding of noncombatants which (contributed to the mistreatment of such persons during the Son Ply Operation.

(6) The permissive attitude in the treatment of Vietnamese was, on 16-19 March 1968, exemplified by an almost total disregard for the lives and property of the civilian population of Son My Village on the part of commanders and key staff officers of TF Barker.

(7) On 16 March, soldiers at the squad and platoon level, within some elements of TF Barker, murdered noncombatants while under the supervision and control of their immediate superiors.

(8) A part of the crimes visited on the inhabitants of Son My Village included individual and group acts Of murder, rape, sodomy, maiming, and assault on noncombatants and the mistreatment and killing of detainees. They further included the killing of livestock, destruction of crops, closing of wells, and the burning of dwellings within several subhamlets.

(9) Some attempts were made to stop the criminal acts in Son My Village on 16 March; but with few exceptions, such efforts were too feeble or too late.

(10) Intensive interrogation has developed no evidence that any member of the units engaged in the Son My operation was under the influence of marijuana or other narcotics.

B. Concerning The Adequacy Of Reports, Investigations And Reviews

(11) The commanders of TF Barker and the 11th Brigade had substantial knowledge as to the extent of the killing of noncombatants, but only a portion of their information was ever reported to the Commanding General of the Americal Division.

(12) Based on his observations, W01 Thompson made a specific complaint through his command channels that serious war crimes had been committed but through a series of inadequate responses at each level of command, action on his complaint was delayed and the severity of his charges considerably diluted by the time it reached the Division Commander.

(13) Sufficient information concerning the highly irregular nature of the operations of TF Barker on 16 March 1968 reached the Commanding General of the Americal Division to require that a thorough investigation be conducted.

(14) An investigation by the Commander of the 11th Brigade, conducted at the direction of the Commanding General of the Americal Division, was little more than a pretense and was subsequently misrepresented as a thorough investigation to the CG, t Americal Division in order to conceal from him the true enormity of the atrocities.

(15) Patently inadequate reports of investigation submitted by the commander of the 11th Brigade were accepted at face value and without an effective review by the CG, Americal Division.

(16) Reports of alleged war crimes, noncombatant casualties, and serious incidents concerning the Son My operation of 16 March were received at the headquarters of the Americal Division but were not reported to higher headquarters despite the existence of directives requiring such action.

(17) Reports of alleged war crimes relating to the Son My operation of 16 March reached Vietnamese government officials, but those officials did not take effective action to ascertain the- true facts.

(18) Efforts of the ARVN/GVN officials discreetly to inform the US commanders of the magnitude of the war crimes committed on 16 March 1968 met with no affirmative response.

C. Concerning Attempts To Suppress Information

(19) At every command level within the Americal Division, actions were taken, both wittingly and unwittingly, which effectively suppressed information concerning the war crimes committed at Son My Village.

(20) At the company level there was a failure to report the war crimes which had been committed. This, combined with instructions to members of one unit not to discuss the events of 16 March, contributed significantly to the suppression of information.

(21) The task force commander and at least one, and probably more, staff officers of TF Barker may have conspired to suppress information and to mislead higher headquarters concerning the events of 16 - 19 March 1968.

(22) At the 11th Brigade level, the commander and at least one principal staff officer may have conspired to suppress information to deceive the division commander concerning the true facts of the Son My operation of 16-19 March.

(23) A reporter and a photographer from the 11th Brigade observed many war crimes committed by C/1-20 Inf on 16 March. Both failed to report what they had seen; the reporter submitted a misleading account of the operation; and the photographer withheld and suppressed (and wrongfully misappropriated upon his discharge from the service) photographic evidence of such war crimes.

(24) Efforts within the 11th Brigade to suppress information concerning the Son My operation were aided in varying degrees by members of US Advisory teams working with ARVN and GVN officials.

(25) Within the Americal Division headquarters, actions taken to suppress information concerning what was purportedly believed to be the inadvertent killing of 20 to 28 noncombatants effectively served conceal the true nature and scope of the events which had taken place in Son My Village on 16-19 March 68.

(26) Failure of the Americal Division headquarters to act on reports and information received from GVN/ARVN officials in mid April served effectively to suppress the true nature and scope of the events which had taken place in Son My Village on 16-19 March 1968.

(27) Despite an exhaustive search of the files of the 11th Brigade, Americal Division, GVN/ARVN advisory team files, and records holding centers, with few exceptions, none of the documents relating to the so-called investigation of the events of 16-19 March were located.

D. With Respect To Individuals

(1) During the period March-June 1968 a number of persons assigned to the Americal Division and to US Advisory elements located in Quang Ngai Province had information as to the killing of noncombatants and other serious offenses committed by members of TF Barker during the Son My operation in March 1968 and did one or more of the following:

a. Failed to make such official report thereof as their duty required them to make;

b. Suppressed information concerning the occurrence of such offenses acting singly or in concert with others;

c. Failed to order a thorough investigation and to insure that such was made, or failed to conduct an adequate investigation, or failed to submit an adequate report of investigation, or failed to make an adequate review of a report of investigation, as applicable; or committed other derelictions related to the events of the Son My operation, some constituting criminal offenses.

(2) attached to this chapter at Inclosure 1 is a list of such persons and the omissions and commissions of which they are suspected and upon which the above findings are based.

To get the full picture, check out these transcript excerpts. Some of them are absolutely hysterical. The circus-like nature of the trial was probably part of the reason that the defendants were able to get reversals on appeal.

To get the full picture, check out these transcript excerpts. Some of them are absolutely hysterical. The circus-like nature of the trial was probably part of the reason that the defendants were able to get reversals on appeal.

To get the full picture, check out these transcript excerpts. Some of them are absolutely hysterical. The circus-like nature of the trial was probably part of the reason that the defendants were able to get reversals on appeal.

Just like SDMI's watermarking was proven to be ineffective at keeping people from filing the serial numbers off and impairing quality, the same goes for video. If it's invisible to the user and is identifiable, it's removable as well.

As I said, the movie industry will be able to get import restrictions on such devices. Heck, they could even circumvent the First Amendment by paying a judge to say that information on circumvention poses a clear and present danger to the movie industry.

The Geneva Convention

The Nuremburg Charter.

Before you think anything about Sept. 11th being something entirely new and especially evil, requiring less due process than in the past, read the Nuremburg Charter. If presumption of innocence is ok for Nazis, it's hard to see when it shouldn't apply.

Also, keep in mind that all this "anti-terrorism" talk uses Bin Laden as their reason for enacting the laws, but the laws are not confined to the acts of Sept 11th, or even confined to "violent" terrorism. There has been much effort to make sure that illegal political acts that don't involve violence fall under the category of "terrorism". Even before Sept 11th, anti-terrorism laws were used to infiltrate and disrupt non-violent activist groups and labor unions.

If a farm owner accuses non-citizen farm workers of illegal acts during a union organizing drive or strike, what is to stop these "anti-terrorism" laws and military tribunals from being used? Again, even before Sept 11th, many newspapers have referred to both violent and non-violent protestors in the U.S. as "terrorists", in many cases equating civil-disobedience (illegal acts intended to achieve a political agenda) with assassinations and mass murder.

And this is nothing new. Dissidents are often called terrorists by repressive governments. Never mind the fundamental differences between the people that destroyed the WTC and people like Martin Luther King.

He admitted that cracking websites to spread his message was illegal, he didn't admit that bomb info was illegal.

As for the question of: When does is it become illegal to advocate breaking the law? As far as I can tell, the case law goes something like obscenity case law. It has a long history with major decisions contradicting each other. It has various tests (Brandenburg test , Clear and Present Danger) being proposed. And it's essentially a gray area with no obvious place to draw the line, but a line must be drawn because one extreme is clearly legal and the other extreme is almost certainly illegal.

He admitted that cracking websites to spread his message was illegal, he didn't admit that bomb info was illegal.

As for the question of: When does is it become illegal to advocate breaking the law? As far as I can tell, the case law goes something like obscenity case law. It has a long history with major decisions contradicting each other. It has various tests (Brandenburg test , Clear and Present Danger) being proposed. And it's essentially a gray area with no obvious place to draw the line, but a line must be drawn because one extreme is clearly legal and the other extreme is almost certainly illegal.

Nowhere in the US Constitution does it state that Congress must declare war.

The powers of Congress over the military and military actions are defined in Article I, Section 8:

The Congress shall have Power to [...]
To Declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

The Authority of the President as Commander in Chief are defined in Article II, Section 2:

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States

To summarize the above articles, Congress establishes, maintains, and regulates the military. The President determines how, when, and where will military force be applied.

When the Consitution was written in the 1700's, armed conflicts were rigidly defined, where the the combatants consisted of formally recognized governments. In such an environment a Declaration of War made perfect sense. This system worked fairly well until the Second World War, which was the last time the United States formally declared war..
The tradition context of war was challenged with the rise of the Cold War and modern warfare techniques such as guerrillas, proxy wars, and non-state combatants. As armed conflict evolved, the US government had to address the issue. In 1973 the War Powers Act (WPA) was passed to address these issues. The primary reason for this act was to establish limits on the Commander in Chief's ability to use force without the formal consent of Congress, as exemplified by the Vietnam War. The WPA allows the President to commit military actions without a declaration of war, as long as certain reporting conditions to Congress are met. The heart of the WPA is Section 5 (b), which establishes concrete time limits, and Section 5 (c), which gives Congress the authority to terminate military action.

________________________

None of the words or meaning in the Constitution has changed, either. It still guarantees Justice to All. This includes a fair trial, just as much as it includes the lethal injection as punishment.

The fundamental question here is do we treat acts of terrorism as a crime or as an act of war? The various rights to trial enumerated in Section III and the Bill of Rights apply only to crimes. By history and precedent, acts of war are not treated the same as criminal acts. For example, the Nuremberg Trials were military tribunals with convictions determined by a panel of judges, not juries. Similar tribunals were called for the Japanese military and government, instead of trying them in US criminal courts for the attack on US territory (Pearl Harbor)
The US has been consistent in treating the attacks of September 11th as a military action, not criminal, to include the application of military courts to eventually try Al Qaeda members. This is no different than the application of justice at the end of WWII.

See here, among other places (search for "selective incorporation" and/or "Fourteenth Amendment" for more). States are not required to follow the second ammendment, nor the seventh, nor the fifth ammendment right to a grand jury. The first amendment and most of the bill of rights is incorporated, but only because of the fourteenth amendment. Before the fourteenth amendment, states could make laws abridging free speech. It is still unclear whether or not local governments can make laws abridging free speech, and the whole thing rests on the current interpretation of the supreme court (which wasn't always the same, as has been repeatedly disputed by minority opinions).

Here's my question -- will this story be bigger than the O.J. Simpson trial?

I am not being a smartass. Please read on.

The OJ trial was the #1 story of EVERY news broadcast, EVERY DAY for about 2 years. Half of every broadcast was dedicated to OJ, it seemed. I used to think that was an LA thing, but people tell me it was the same way all over the country. You guys must remember this... it was insane how much coverage there was. If you used a TV or radio you could not escape it. Criminal trial, civil trial, custody hearings...

My friends used to joke about what might be a bigger news story. We had to come up with some pretty bizarre stuff before it sounded like it would beat OJ. And it all involved celebrities. Couldn't think of anything IMPORTANT that would get as much coverage.

I guess my real question is what the hell is wrong with us, where some washed up football guy makes the #1 story every day for so long? Are we truly only interested in shallow things like celebrities, or does real news like the current disaster have a chance with the people?

I will be very interested to see what the coverage looks like a year from now. Who will have the staying power, The Juice or Osama bin Laden? I want to believe that as a people we are not as shallow as we appear to be most of the time.

Unfortunately, now I will get to find out for sure. And I'm afraid I will find out that the world is right, that Americans are a shallow, forgetful people. Here's hoping I'm wrong.

For the morbidly curious, here's an OJ chronology. Insane how long it went on, and how important it seemed to people.

What I did find off-putting were the chants that suddenly broke out from the picketers (who had moved to the other side of the courthouse). "What do we want? Free Dmitry! When do we want it? Now!infantile. It is not effective or witty, it is lame. It makes you look like brainless, uncreative drones on television, and people will tune you right out. Please Hey-hey, ho-ho, DMCA's got to go," etc. I know I have absolutely no practical experience in social agitation for political change, so please accept it as my woefully uneducated personal opinion that I see this sort of thing as think of something different.

However, your conclusion is ironic in light of American history. If there is a single belief that unites Americans across the sapce of the continent and through 4 centuries of existence, it is the belief that the rest of the world is going to "hell in a handbasket." if they don't do something about it. This both a source of American society's penchant for renewal and the American sense of superiority that the rest of the world so resents.

I would like to exhibit Cotton Mather, an influential man in his day, who loved to preach about how the country was falling appart adn vigourous action was call for immediately to save the "city on the hill" -- right up until the time he led the Salem Witch trials.

So keep up the pessimism -- it's patriotic! (oh - and I agree with you that the patent system has run amuck and is violating it founding principles)

Is here.

The problem that exists is that these people, often under 21, see big giant gaping holes in the security systems and this bothers them. If they report it, nothing happens because no one has, or ever will, listen to them. (Some sites have been defaced repeatedly, without ever having fixed the holes, even after the fix was placed in the HTML!)

So they make a mistake. They try to draw atttention to the fact before someone less kind, (for example a rival organization) uses the same holes to download actual sensitive information. (Warning, this kind of thought process can occurr to you when you've read too much cyberpunk.)

I'm older and wiser now. I realize that people REALLY DON'T care about security. Normally they just want something to rant about. The status quo is to lock your car door for security but if you lock the keys in your car you expect a locksmith to get them out in under a minute.

Think about it. If the locksmith can do it in under a minute, so can I.

They may not be adults, they may be fools, and they may annoy the computer professionals that are responsible for security but let's look at it this way.
If some kids can take down whitehouse.com, why couldn't Zhirinovsky hire someone to do the same, only with a lot more creativity and subtleness. (Wouldn't the media just love it if someone found a collection of porn jpegs on whitehouse.gov?)

They're criminals. They view themselves as unsung heros. In short, they're the Chicago Seven of a new generation. Even Richard Daley's famous quote could still apply:

"Gentlemen, let's get something straight. The police aren't in the streets to create disorder; they are in the streets to preserve disorder." -- Mayor Richard Daley

You can read all about it here.

I dunno if anyone is still paying attention to this sub-thread but you can read more about the WEPT at http://iml.umkc.edu/english/wept001.html .

I mention that cause I've received a couple of emails about it.

Inherit the Wind is, of course, a play written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, apparently in 1951, and is a thinly fictionalized account of the Scopes Monkey Trial. It was turned into a movie in 1960 starring Spencer Tracy and Fredric March as Henry Drummond and Matthew Harrison Brady. For the record, Drummond argued the defense (allowing the teaching of evolution in public schools), and Brady argued for the prosecution (forbidding the teaching of evolution in public schools).

The Internet Movie Database lists as well a 1988 remake TV movie (with Kirk Douglas as Brady and Jason Robards as Drummond) and a 1999 remake (with Jack Lemmon as Drummond and George C. Scott as Brady). Hmmm, that would have Lemmon arguing for evolution, and Scott arguing against.

I haven't seen either re-make, but I just checked the original movie out from the library (along with the play) over lunch, because it's time to re-watch it anyways. Great movie, worth the effort to see.

I'd love to hear whether or not the remakes are any good, and whether or not they are available anywhere.

Also, I'd like to know if anyone has a recommendation for a book or three about the Scopes Monkey Trial. I've turned up some rather interesting web pages, but they're not quite easy bed-side reading =)