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."

Comments

Fully Informed Jury Association

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Fully Informed Jury Association

[ericartman]

jury nullification---its a good thing
BTW the last time I was being questioned for service on a jury I asked the judge about it and I was dismissed and thanked for my time. I have yet to be called for jury duty again.

Re:Fully Informed Jury Association

[D'Sphitz]

jury nullification---its a good thing

Would this also apply to, say, an all white jury acquitting a KKK member of bombing a church and killing 4 young black girls?

Re:Fully Informed Jury Association

[Anonymous Coward]

No, and I'll explain why. The same all white jury would not acquit a Black Panther member who bombed a church killing 4 young white girls.

The issue is that the jury needs to be opposed to the law in general, not it's application in a specific case.

Meaning, only if you truly believed that bombing and murder should be LEGAL FOR EVERYONE should you vote to acquit.

Re:Fully Informed Jury Association

[Moryath]

Yeah. This was more a case of "You idiot prosecutor, the law you charged them under has nothing to do with this case and is completely inapplicable. Oh, and by the way, we don't agree with the trumped-up 'resisting arrest' bullshit you tried to tag on either."

From comparison of experiences of numerous acquiantances, friends, co-workers, and family who have ever dealt with police, "resisting arrest" is a bullshit charge they throw in just to punish people for bothering to assert their right to trial instead of plea-bargaining guilty.

The plea bargain system is about forcing the innocent to plead guilty, nothing else.

Re:Fully Informed Jury Association

[Ixokai]

I think you're confused about what "jury nullification" means. It is not the right of a single juror to decide not to vote to convict -- it is when a jury reaches a verdict that is contrary to the law. Thus, by definition, it has to be all 12 people -- otherwise there is no verdict. Jury nullification is not a mistrial, its not a hung jury.

The law says "this act is a crime"; the judge interprets and applies the law (including determining if the law is valid or not, and such), and the jury then determines the *facts* of the case -- they determine what is true and not true, evaluating evidence and deciding what did, or did not, happen. Then they use those facts to determine if the law was violated or not: but the law is the law. They aren't (in general) supposed to determine if the law itself is invalid, if the act itself shouldn't really be a crime or not, or what not.

Jury nullification isn't about a juror voting their conscience, or failure to convict -- jury nullification is about the jury looking at the facts, deciding that the person did do the thing, and voting not guilty *anyways*, thus... (especially if it becomes a pattern) nullifying the law itself, as it applies to that case at least.

Yes, its a power juries have innately, by being... juries, and there's nothing you can do to take away the power, really. But its not, in general, SUPPOSED to be their part of the job to counter and nullify law. That's what the legislature and the judicial branches are supposed to do. Juries are the triers of fact, not law.

Jury nullification can be used for good or ill. You can have them vote not-guilty in some tragic one-off case where despite the law, in the interests of justice and their conscience, they can't convict someone due to extenuating circumstances. Or, a community can decide that killing black people is A-OK, and in effect essentially nullify the law against murder so that it only says "thou shalt not kill white people".

Re:Fully Informed Jury Association

[fyngyrz]

Haven't citizens already passed judgment on a law in the very process of creating it?

Not in the USA. The citizenry have nothing to do with crafting the law here. That's done by legislators, pre-selected by the political party machines, where both said political machines and legislators work for lobbyists, who in turn represent special interest groups such as "Drill, baby, Drill", "Zygotes Are People Too", "OMFG homos!, LLC" and the hon. Rev. Dumbkopf, Holy Leader of "Mythology Should Control Sexuality." In the process, they typically ignore their solemn oaths to obey and defend the constitution that authorizes them to even have jobs making law which is required to conform to the constitution; even above and beyond that, they don't think the process through and almost uniformly create waves of unintended consequences (prohibition is the poster child for that one, not by any means alone but certainly one of the most high-profile foulups our government has ever entered into); and they hardly ever go back and fix anything they've broken. Even when it harms the living heck out of said citizens, obviously, publicly, and with great regularity.

Basically, it's a madhouse. Our legal system sucks rocks, doesn't address fairness or justice worth a darn, and is not uncommonly completely unauthorized to our form of government. Also, it is basically a form of institutionalized corporate fellatio. So those of us who are actually paying attention tend to be very grateful for the opportunity to redress a few of the government's many, many wrongs with low-level tools like jury nullification.

Re:Fully Informed Jury Association

[Anonymous Coward]

Juries are the triers of fact, not law.

"The jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy."
John Jay Georgia v. Brailsford, 1794 first Chief Justice of the United States.

Not justice

[Hatta]

There won't be justice until we can hold the people who arrested and tried these men accountable.

Re:Not justice

[Nittle]

The DA should have dropped these charges.

Re:Not justice

[sjames]

There is plenty of reason to hold a good many people accountable. The police for making the unjustifiable arrest, the DA for pressing forward with criminal charges in spite of the obvious injustice, and the JUDGE for not sanctioning the DA.

Judges have the authority AND the responsibility to throw a trial out early if it cannot succeed as a matter of law. That is, if the facts as laid out by the DA cannot support a criminal charge, that charge should be thrown out on the spot. They also have a responsibility to sanction a DA who brings charges that cannot be justified by the facts.

Most particularly, it is the judge's responsibility to make sure that the court does not become a crude bludgeon used as a punishment against those who annoy the police and the DA.

As far as relative guilt goes, the judge should probably get off with a reminder of those important responsibilities. The DA and police should face more significant sanctions.

Another victory for Cop Block

[osgeek]

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.

To become second?

[tepples]

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?

Re:To become second?

[YrWrstNtmr]

Traditionally, it goes soap box, ballot box, jury box, ammo box.

We're in that awkward stage where it's too late to vote them out but too early to shoot them