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Jury Acquits Citizens of Illegally Filming Police
sexybomber writes "The Springfield (MA) Republican reports two men accused of illegally filming the process as they bailed friends out of jail that last summer, were acquitted of all charges Tuesday. Pete Eyre and Adam Mueller initially were granted permission to film the bail process, but later were forbidden by jail officials from recording the procedure. When they continued to digitally recording their encounter with jail officials, they were arrested by police. Eyre and Mueller testified that they never attempted to hide the fact that they were recording at the jail. Not only did they ask permission to film the bail-out process — which initially was granted — but their recording devices were 'out in the open,' Eyre said. The Jury found the defendants not guilty of three criminal counts: Each was acquitted of unlawful wiretapping, while Mueller also was acquitted of a charge of resisting arrest."
fija.org
The primary function of the independent juror is not, as many think, to dispense punishment to fellow citizens accused of breaking various laws, but rather to protect fellow citizens from tyrannical abuses of power by government.
The Constitution guarantees you the right to trial by jury. This means that government must bring its case before a jury of The People if government wants to deprive any person of life, liberty, or property. Jurors can say no to government tyranny by refusing to convict.
FIJA Works To:
Inform potential jurors of their traditional, legal authority to refuse to enforce corrupt laws;
Inform potential jurors that they cannot be required to check their conscience at the courthouse door;
Inform potential jurors that they cannot be punished for their verdict;
Inform everyone that juror veto—juror nullification—is a peaceful way to protect human rights against corrupt politicians and government tyranny.
There won't be justice until we can hold the people who arrested and tried these men accountable.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Good on ya, America, for remembering the third box - the jury box - as the last line of defense, and for using it in the correct order.
Cop Block is a brilliant resource for those wanting information on abusive state practices.
As always, government needs to be on a short leash. Give these folks too much power and they'll abuse it time and time again.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
Traditionally, it goes soap box, ballot box, jury box, ammo box. But with powerful media corporations corrupting the electoral process by choosing which issues and which candidates for public office to play up and which to play down on national TV news, should the jury box be moved in front of the ballot box now?
Eliza? Is that you?
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Once in college I had to bail a friend out of Orleans Parish Prison after an overnight stay. I was taking a photography class at the time and brought my 35mm. They stopped me as soon as I walked in and said no photography of any kind was allowed. Presumed innocence and such, major disruptions from people not wanting their pics taken, etc. I was directed to a wall of pay-lockers by the door.
I didn't argue - wouldn't have wanted my picture taken (even inadvertently) on the worst day of my life either.
aren't these two members of the FreeState group? (keene, n.h. possibly?) nice going, hope more of this trend emerges. filming open police work should NOT be a crime.
I love it how every questionable incident with the police involves a charge of "resisting arrest".
Maybe it's a good predictor of BS.
When people start "borgifying" themselves by having implants that record everything they hear and see, what's the law's position going to be on recording in that regard?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Control the media with the zeroth box: the lock box, namely your wallet.
Citizens who don't care about the lock box outnumber me. Even if I myself boycott The Walt Disney Company over the Bono Act, so many more people in my country don't boycott Disney than boycott Disney that Disney remains profitable, and home broadband ISPs still pay Disney for ESPN3.com access whether I want it or not.
The jury box is a failsafe against politicians who no longer represent their constituents.
The Bono Act and the DMCA had enough bipartisan support to pass by unanimous consent procedures. This shows that politicians no longer even attempt to represent me as a constituent. The media gatekeepers would in fact probably just refuse to cover any candidate who represents me. Their soap boxes are bigger than those of free speech advocates.
Voters who allow themselves to be corrupted by the MPAA's soap box outnumber voters who care about free speech. Now what?
Congrats to Pete and Ademo! These guys have been, often alone, pushing the bounds of keeping cops accountable, which of course often leads to them ending up behind bars. Most of the time they have charges against them dropped, but apparently the prosecutor in this case saw it necessary to push it to trial. Good thing the jury saw the light. Perhaps this case will motivate politicians to come up with clear legislation banning cops from arresting citizens for filming or recording their actions; maybe holding cops personally liable for their actions would be a good place to start since right now they cannot be sued personally and they simply do not care what the outcome of a case it.
Little Brother is watching you.
This isn't a case of jury nullification, at least according to the blurb, and the fine article.
They were acquitted of the charges. There was no noble rejection of bad laws in this news, and no citizen wielded her power as a juryman to refuse to convict.
I certainly don't want to be thought of as against the dissemination of what really is a neglected view of jury duty, but really if you want teach it this isn't an example and you should make that clear in your post.
This article is a fine example of corrupt and overweening power of the justice system used against innocent citizens. The law was shoehorned to fit the prosecutor's case against them, but why they were attacked is not answered, only that they didn't really do the thing's the law forbids.
But you know, this isn't where it ends. The abusive cops are still going to do what they want to do. Worse, they think they are right to do so.
But with all this police hate moving about here these days, imagine what it would be like if they decided the job wasn't worth doing any longer. Perhaps the good ones would be the last to quit.... perhaps the first. There are still very real bad people out there and they are ready and willing to do you harm for fun and for profit. We need some balance.
Still. Bad cops have got to go. And they need to understand that they are bad. They have the "right" to behave as they do exactly as the burger flipper has the right to do unspeakable things to you food.
Rubbing balls on your fries makes them juicier. Besides, I thought you wanted some special sauce.
We need more cases brought before a jury of peers.
Fantastically simple as it seems, it does render justice.
Bravo.
And we may still argue the merits thereof and the addmissible
evidence.
Within the statute of limitations a new trial and a new jury with
deposition of new evidence can be arranged within the law.
Justice served yet again.
--//
This case never should have gotten to trial. Further, bringing it to trial is an abuse of authority and should not be tolerated.
I think it's obvious from basic principles that there should be severe consequences for any law enforcement employee to purposefully attempt to abuse their position to get rid of things that may be evidence against them. I'm talking about a situation where, if everyone in a police department routinely prevent videos being captured of what they do, then everyone in that department who carried out such a policy goes to jail for a non-trivial amount of time. These people are in a trusted position that gives them the means to cover up their own abuses. As such, abuses must be investigated aggressively, punished harshly and the opportunities to engage in abuses without detection must be reduced - such as by having the citizens videotape the police.
Quote from TFA:
================== Start quote ========
Two other charges initially lodged against Eyre were dropped before the case even made it to trial -- a point Eyre was prohibited from making during the trial because of Banks' objections, which were sustained by Judge William F. Mazanec III.
=========== End quote ==============
I wonder what those charges were?
the book "Incredible Shrinking Son of Man" written by someone who actually knows the bible. (I know it's kind of a dick move to just recommend a book, but I haven't the time nor willpower to go into details here.)
It presents a very well-reasoned argument that Jesus is actually an example of a story-person, that is: a person made up to fit a particular story. (This is indepedent of the miracle claims, but of course they "add to the probability" of a story-person... so to speak.)
Yes, jury nullification happens when the jury finds the law itself invalid. In this case, the police & prosecutor are clearly abusing the legal system to harass innocent people they simply don't like.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
What I was saying, and I believe fyngyrz as well, is not that #1 isnt true because #2 isnt true. What we are saying is there is simply put no clear evidence of #1. And it's true. Literally EVERYTHING about him is written either by Paul (fr Saul) who never met him as a man but converted on the road to Damascus some years after his death, or else is written even later.
Once you rule out stuff written long after he died, and a couple of christian insertians in Josephus, there is nothing at all to prove that he existed.
It may be objected that I have set myself an unreasonably easy task, as you couldnt prove that most of the people alive in those years ever lived either of course, but he was supposed to have been someone rather more extraordinary than many of the ancients about whom we have real evidence, and I did not set the task for myself in any case. I simply responded to someone who ignorantly asserted that it is a well-proven fact. It is not.
There were plenty of people in that time/space vicinity named Jesus (or rather, Yeshua,) of course. It was a very popular name in Syria Palestina. But a single one that could be definitively matched up with the gospel Jesus simply isnt in evidence. There were several "Jesuses" in the vicinity from the period 250bc-20bc about whom one form of story or another was preserved, in fact. But none of them seem to match up with the gospel Jesus.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
That at any given hour, on any given day, there is at least one cop drama playing on cable tv? You know the shows: the bad guys are pure evil and all the cops are the whitest of white hats.
I'm beginning to think there is a mandate for these shows to be pervasive, just to broadcast the message: do not question authority and the organs of enforcement as they are beyond reproach.
One of the more disturbing things about this country in the last half-century or so is how governments who were supposed to be operating "in the sunshine" have in fact, been moving underground.
Case in point: public service communications. At one time, anyone with a fairly inexpensive radio could monitor the everyday goings-on of the various public service agencies (police, fire, rescue and general civic infrastructure). Subject, of course, to the Communications act of 1936, which said that things said in confidence must be kept in confidence. These days, almost all public communications in this state are encrypted. Although very frequently they're recorded, they can no longer be heard by the Unwashed Masses.
Certain communications SHOULD be encrypted to ensure that things like stakeouts aren't monitored by the very people under scrutiny. But blanket encryption of EVERYTHING adds a shroud of secrecy to the everyday operations of the government, and I don't think that that's really all that good for either the people or the government. You can feel a lot more sympathy for the police when you hear what they have to deal with on a routine basis. Sometimes it sounded like the only people in the city were either drunk or crazy; you don't usually dispatch the police to visit the well-behaved, normal people. So far, anyway.
Not content with what they have so far, the local government has added yet another layer of obscurity by taking away the scanners that they had been renting to local news agencies.
I'm paying these people's salaries, lest they forget that. I select their bosses. That should give me the right to have a certain level of oversight into what they do when they conduct public business. I respect their need for confidentiality, but not in cases where it's simply secrecy for its own sake or for flimsy "someone might..." reasons. "Someone might..." do a lot of things. "Someone" often does. And that includes public employees.
I have read somewhere the reason the 2nd amendment guarantees trial by a jury of one's peers due to an incident prior to the revolution in Massachusetts. A British customs agent was killed by a colonist who vigorously objected to high customs fees. A local jury acquitted whereupon the poor man was sent to England to be retried and eventually hanged. Can anyone confirm this story?
The point of course is that at least in criminal trials the prosecutors can't shop for favorable trial venues.
LOL, my wife was being interrogated by some detectives for some criminal shit. Routine investigation, and nothing came of it. But she was the only person of interest in the case. Ultimately, it was an accident they were investigating.
Anyway, she recorded every conversation on the phone, in the interrogation room, and at our house with a digital audio recorder stuck between her boobs. Just in case.
Every safeguard for freedom has the potential for abuse.
Not only is it used when the law is considered unfair, but when the application of the law is considered unfair. In this case, I doubt few thought wiretapping law is unfair, they just thought this use of it was.
What it does say is that they wanted to "harmonize" the US law with the European Union law.
And once 2018 comes around, the incumbent publishing companies are going to want to "harmonize" to Mexico, which currently offers life plus 100 years. There'll always be a country with a longer copyright term, unfettered by even a nominal "for limited Times" restriction, to which Disney and Gershwin can beg Congress to harmonize.
But you know, this isn't where it ends. The abusive cops are still going to do what they want to do. Worse, they think they are right to do so.
The problem is the very police department is set against the citizens. You get the attitude of "us vs. them," and worst of all, the corrupt notion of "we have to protect our own." The system is set up to foster corruption.
The Supreme Court (final phase of jury box) routinely lets Congress get away with stepping outside what some perceive to be Congress's constitutional authority. Wickard v. Filburn erased "among the several states" from the commerce clause, and Eldred v. Ashcroft erased "for limited times" from the copyright clause.