Learn about jury nullification successes in McClennon County, TX and how citizens of other counties can promote justice as informed jurors. Liberty Forge podcast features our own Bob Smilie.

In a January 16, 2019 article, the Dallas Morning News reported that Dallas County officials are confused as to how to implement new procedures in order to comply with a federal order to stop using a fixed cash-bail schedule that unfairly burdens poor defendants. 

- Read the full DMN article here.

- In Sept 2018, D Magazine reported on the federal judge's order here.

- And this NOLO article describes how judges set bail. 

Last Saturday, we attended a panel discussion on bail reform. The panelists were members of the Community Bail Fund of North Texas. They raise funds to provide bail for those who can’t afford it “...so that they can fight their cases from a place of freedom, retaining the presumption of innocence.”
 
You see, in many cases, low-income citizens who are arrested may be unable to afford even a small amount of bail. This fund gives these citizens the same opportunity as those who have money: to go free to gather evidence and prepare for their defense in court.
 
But helping people make bail is only one part of the overall strategy needed to bring justice back into U.S. court systems.
 
True legal reform requires three elements working hand-in-hand: bail reform, plea bargain reform, and widespread jury nullification awareness.​

Bail Reform
 
First we need a system that motivates accused citizens to return to court for trial, without jailing people merely for being too poor to post bail.
 
When citizens are held in jail while awaiting trial, several consequences can and often do follow:

1. Their incarceration costs the city taxpayers $75-$100 per day, jailing citizens who may ultimately be found not guilty.
2. In most cases, the citizens can’t afford an attorney, so they rely on overworked public defenders.
3. In jail, they cannot get access to legal resources to prepare for and support their own defense.
4. They lose their jobs, thus losing what little income they had to take care of their families.  
5. In some cases, they may lose their homes, property, even their families.
6. They are more likely to accept a plea bargain, admitting guilt even if they are innocent or broke a stupid law.
7. And they still suffer most of the consequences of conviction, even if proven innocent.

 
As we learned at the talk, Washington DC did away with its cash bail system in 1992 and now saves some $398 million a year (more than $1 million per day).  Alaska, California, and New Jersey have abolished or seriously reformed their cash bail systems as well.  The fact is, ALL states can do it and should do it!
 
Plea Bargain Reform
 
The second step is to stop this runaway train of plea bargaining. The process of forcing mostly poor people into accepting guilt for crimes they didn’t commit or for breaking bad laws deprives those citizens of their constitutionally guaranteed right to a trial by jury.
 
Accused citizens face terrible pressure when even their own attorneys advise them to admit guilt in exchange for a reduced punishment. Even if they are innocent. Even if the law is stupid or unconstitutional or just plain bad.  The accused citizens are convinced by the attorneys on both sides that if they hold out for a jury trial, they might spend months or years in jail awaiting trial. They are told that if they get a jury trial, they will probably be convicted anyway and will receive a more severe punishment than the one (the plea bargain) currently on the table.
 
These defendants typically don’t know that with informed jurors hearing their cases in a trial, they stand a far better chance of receiving justice than by accepting unfair punishment in a plea deal.
 
Jury Nullification
 
The third part of the solution is to create informed Jury Heroes out of every citizen eligible for jury duty. When jurors understand their power to judge the law as well as the facts, and to decide what is just in each case, then trial by jury becomes not just an opportunity to ensure justice for one citizen, but also a pathway to reforming the entire legal system.  
 
Putting the Pieces Together
 
When accused citizens are released without bail, they can hold out for their right to a jury trial, no matter how long the wait, rather than accepting a plea bargain that will automatically ruin their life. Meanwhile, they keep their job, and have the opportunity to research the law in order to support whatever defense their attorney might provide. They can also encourage and promote outreach efforts with JuryHero.com and FIJA.org to make sure every potential juror in their area understands and knows how to use their jury powers.
 
One More Piece
 
When the laws are bad or applications of laws are unfair, the very act of taking your case to a jury trial provides an opportunity to let the community judge the law and potentially change the law over time. When enough juries refuse to convict their fellow citizens for unjust reasons, the law becomes unenforceable. Prosecutors will stop trying these cases, and the police will stop arresting people for these crimes. Eventually, maybe with a little kick in the butt from us constituents, our legislators will repeal or revise the bad laws.
 
Next Steps
 
To advance legal reforms, there are several things you can do now:

1. Support groups in your area like Community Bail Fund of North Texas, helping low income folks protect their presumption of innocence and right to a jury trial.  
2. Press your local and state officials to eliminate the cash bail system the way Washington DC did. Better yet, run for office and become one of the officials who brings about bail reform!
3. Spread the word about JuryHero.com and jury power thru social media, word of mouth, and any groups you are part of so that everyone knows how to use the power of nullification.
4. Spread the word to those who might be arrested and accused of crimes. Let them know that they can insist on a trial by jury where informed citizens are waiting for an opportunity to ensure true justice and tell lawmakers what they can do with their bad laws.

YOU have the power to change lives for the better! Become a Jury Hero!
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LINKS:

• Community Bail Fund of North Texas
• Coffee & Politics show about bail reform 1/12/19 (Facebook)
• Cleveland.com article on bail reform
• Washington Post article on bail reform

 In 1894, the Sparf decision cited numerous prior courts’ alarmist claims that if jurors were allowed to nullify laws, then the law itself would vary recklessly from one moment to the next.

Some even argued that juries, if allowed to exercise their nullification powers, could do away with the very Constitution that created the judicial branch in the first place.

​Yet here we are, more than 120 years after Sparf, 230+ years since the U.S. Constitution became the supreme law of the land, and the judicial/legal system is not only still intact, it's more powerful than ever.

So why haven’t we citizens, with our mighty nullification hammers, beaten the Constitution and legal system to a bloody toothless pulp, as so many esteemed jurists feared? Let’s consider a few reasons.

The truth about nullification was deliberately hidden from jurors. After Sparf, most courts stopped telling jurors they had the right to judge the law as well as the facts. But even without knowledge of their legal power to nullify, good citizens still refused to deliver verdicts they believed were unfair or unjust.

Citizens typically have a conscience. Most jurors take very seriously their responsibilities with a defendant's life, freedom, and wellbeing. They also consider the consequences of their verdicts on the whole community. Are they setting free a dangerous or destructive person who might go on to harm others? Or are they unfairly locking up people who never harmed anyone, destroying their families, and turning them into career criminals forever ruined by the “felon” stigma?

Citizen jury power is hardly a match for all our opponents’ powers. Sure, informed jurors can set free one person at a time if they feel the law or the application of the law is unjust. That’s their ONE power. But does that power really level the playing field? Hardly.

On the opposing team, first we have legislators feverishly cranking out new laws that create hundreds of new victimless crimes, making criminals out of more and more of us every day. They’re making these laws, not to protect us citizens, but to benefit themselves and their cronies who are invested in various profitable enterprises at our expense.

You might say, “But we elect our representatives, so we have the power to correct their behavior or fire them.” Not really. Widespread election fraud gives us very little control over who holds office. Our legislators primarily represent their parties’ leadership and the Big Money interests that paid for their campaigns and continue to influence them during their terms in office.  

On the opposing team, we also have the law enforcers. Jury power does you no good at all when the police can stop and detain you for bogus reasons, cuff you, take your money and possessions, jail you, perhaps beat you or even kill you...even when NO crime has been committed. Jury power also doesn’t help you get your stuff back when law enforcement departments are deliberately underfunded to encourage them to aggressively seize citizens’ assets without any proof of a crime.  

And the final player on the opposing team is the justice system...where lawyers take away your presumption of innocence and convince you that your best option is to accept a plea bargain with reduced prison time rather than hold out for a jury trial that might set you free. Where bail is set so high that regular working people have no choice but to sit in jail, sometimes for years, waiting for the jury trial that could prove them innocent. Where that quaint old right to a “speedy trial,” guaranteed by the Constitution, is a joke, subject to the interpretation of those paid to oppose you. Where judges can refuse to tell juries about other applicable laws, like the First Amendment, that actually give you the right to do what you did. Where prosecutors or the judge can trick or cheat you out of a jury trial. Where governments sign contracts agreeing to keep private prisons filled to a high percentage of capacity. And where judges and lawyers are incentivized by those contracts, as well as by conflicts of interest and heartless games, to lock up as many defendants as possible, regardless of innocence or guilt.  

The other question to ask here is, “If jurors were meant to rubber-stamp the judge’s instructions, why bother having juries at all?” The answer is that our constitutional right to trial by jury is precisely designed to balance the judge’s experience, conscience and biases with the experience, conscience and biases of society and the community in general to ensure justice.   

So, to those in the legal system now and over the centuries who have warned that jurors exercising their nullification powers might bring about the demise of our very system of justice, I call BS on you. In truth, you’re just worried that we might take back even a tiny sliver of our own power that your system has stolen from us.

Our Founders designed you to be our adversaries. They knew that in your roles you would be drawn to the corruption of power and be blinded and disoriented by the darkness and echoes inside your silos. That’s why the Constitution deliberately gives us citizens ALL the powers not specifically assigned to the government...including the power to decide verdicts, in secret, according to whatever standards we deem necessary to ensure justice.

​But it’s obvious our powers are no match for yours. Clearly, you are the giants in this battle...and we are merely the ones with the slingshots.

Sons of Freedom activists, using a guillotine as a symbol of cutting illegal laws and illegal taxes, made the mainstream news in Dallas, TX, yesterday (12/29/18).  Speakers emphasized the power juries have to legally push back against bad laws and bad applications of the law and described how plea bargains deprive defendants of their Constitutional right to be judged by a jury of their peers.

​Full 2-hour video of Sons of Freedom march with presentations is available ​here.