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Can Jury Slaves Say What’s True?

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Until last week, I had managed all of my adult life to avoid jury duty. As a young adult in Topeka, Kan., I was never summoned. For my two decades living in Las Vegas, I was able to call in a couple times declaring economic hardship. Most of the time, I seemed to be off their radar screen. I always suspected it was because I hadn’t registered to vote.

But finally in my new home in this small Southern town, the state got me. There seemed to be no reasonable way out. Alabama finds its victims to serve by choosing from driver’s license records.

My plan was to show up, be asked a couple questions that reveal my hatred of the state, and especially the criminal justice system, be judged as unreliable for the jury box, and be sent on my way.

Unfortunately that’s not how the system works. I’m to serve a two-week hitch. That doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll be picked as a juror, but I’m on call with my local county court system, all for $10 a day and a nickel a mile. The jury coordinator was quick to inform us that we could sign a form and waive payment. “After all,” she said, “the state of Alabama requires that your employers pay you your normal wage for these two weeks.”

She pleaded her case by saying that the county had paid out a couple million dollars in expenses for jurors the previous year and it would be great if we could help them with their budget. Many staff members at the court had been laid off, and even the bailiffs worked on a volunteer basis.

I provided no such waiver.

I was part of a group that seemed to be around 80-90 people. The group was a normal cross section of occupations. I was struck by the half dozen or so self-employed truck drivers that were stuck working for the state for two weeks rather than hauling loads. They had no employer paying them their normal wage.

The largest employer in the city, the local university, was well represented, with various professors, maintenance people, and even the head track coach. They were working for the court, but still getting paid by the taxpayers — a double hit, if you will.

A young, blond woman eyed us impassively as we filed into the courtroom, chewing her gum at a slow, rhythmic pace. She turned out to be the head assistant district attorney. The judge administered the oath and asked some questions. Only in the South would a judge address a jury pool as “all y’all.”

Soon the assistant DA started asking questions to weed out inappropriate juror prospects, and I began to think that I was the perfect candidate. I didn’t know anyone involved in the case, anyone who worked for the DA or the defense attorney’s firm. I hadn’t heard about the attempted murder or the discharge of weapon in an occupied building. I was thinking I might just get selected. I was a blank slate.

Then the question was asked, “Do any of you believe marijuana should be legalized?” As I raised my card with my juror number, I’m wondering what does this have to do with an attempted murder? Shockingly, I was one of only five or six out of 80-90 who believed (or at least would admit it) marijuana use should be legalized. The follow-up question was then, “Those that answered yes just believe marijuana should be legalized, not other drugs, right?”

I quickly interjected, “No, everything should be legalized.”

“What was your number again, sir?”

Remember, 17 states have legalized marijuana for medical use. In a couple weeks, voters in Washington and Colorado will decide if recreational use of marijuana will be legal in their states. In the city of Denver, there are over 200 stores that sell medical marijuana, more than three times the number of Starbucks and McDonald’s combined.

I wasn’t selected for the attempted murder trial and was allowed to leave about 2:30 in the afternoon. “But make sure you call in after 5:00 to see if you have to report tomorrow,” the unselected were told.

The next day, I didn’t have to report, but the following day, I was to be at the jury waiting room at 9:00 a.m. About 9:30 (the court is always running late, it seems), they herded us into the courtroom for voir dire.

This case was a DUI charge along with assault. The questions were similar to cull through the pool to select 13 people (a jury of 12 plus an alternate) to decide guilt or innocence. For those not wanting to answer the questions in front of the other jurors, you are allowed to tell the court your answers without the other jurors present. Also, the judge can ask you to remain for follow-up questioning to clarify the answers provided during voir dire.

Again, I didn’t make the cut. “Please return at 2:00,” was the command.

About 2:20, we filed into the courtroom. The defendant, a small man in his 40s, calmly looked us over as we filed in, as did his attorney, who was nattily dressed in a brown suit accented with an orange tie and pocket scarf.

The assistant DA was again a young woman wearing what seemed to be the standard DA uniform, dark pantsuit with white blouse.

The defendant was charged with trafficking more than 2.2 pounds of marijuana.

The typical questions ensued, and then the big one came from the assistant DA: “Is there anyone here who thinks marijuana is no big deal and should be legalized?” I again held up my card with a half dozen others.

But the DA pressed on. “Of those of you who answered yes, will you be able to put your feelings aside and rule on the facts of the case, recognizing that trafficking marijuana is against the law in the state of Alabama?”

“No,” I said.

“If the facts show that the defendant did indeed traffic more than 2.2 pounds of marijuana, will you be able to rule on the basis of Alabama law, complying with the judge’s order, recognizing that trafficking marijuana is against Alabama statute?”

“No, I believe in jury nullification.”

“OK,” said the DA as she jotted something in her notes.

I figured that would be it. I was wrong again. The questioning was completed and the respective counsels conferred with the judge, who then rattled off a series of numbers: jurors who needed to stay behind for further questioning. My number was among those called, and we were ushered into the hallway.

Waiting in the hallway, I heard one of the jury veterans say to someone, “They’ve got us for two weeks. You might as well find a case you like and shut up, ’cause eventually you’re gonna get picked. You might as well serve on a case you like.”

One at a time, each of us was called into the courtroom for follow-up questions.

When called in, I walked to a designated spot that faced the judge, from which I was to answer questions.

The judge began. “Mr. French, you answered that you couldn’t serve as an impartial juror in this case, is that correct?”

“Yes, your honor. I don’t believe the defendant did anything wrong, even if he did what the state alleges.”

The defense attorney quickly said, “I want this guy.”

“You understand that it is against the law in the state of Alabama to traffic marijuana. Are you saying you cannot uphold the law?”

“I would say, using a famous quote, the law is an ass.”

Once those words left my lips and no rebuke came from the judge, I kept going.

“I would remind this court that if it weren’t for jury nullification, we would still have slavery in this country,” I said while spinning around directing the comments to the defendant and his attorney, both African-Americans, and the district attorney’s team. “I will not be the juror, and this will not be the case, but one of these days a jury must nullify these crazy drug laws.”

This comment produced a wide smile from one of the court’s staff.

The judge was unmoved by my outburst.

“Have you ever served on a jury?” the defense attorney asked.

“No, of course not,” I said. “I’ve never made it this far before. There is nothing she can say,” I said, pointing at the assistant DA, “that will change my mind.”

“I dunno, I’m pretty good,” she replied.

“I’m sure you are, as are your colleagues,” I said. “But the defendant did nothing wrong.”

The judge interjected again, “Are you sure you cannot listen to the evidence and judge the innocence or guilt of the defendant applying the law of the state of Alabama.”

“No, your honor. That man,” I said while pointing to the defendant, “did not do anything wrong. I assume if he did what the charges allege, he was only carrying out a commercial transaction with a willing buyer or seller. It is no different than if he were selling popsicles on a street corner.”

The defense attorney winced and asked, “What do you mean commercial transaction?”

Before I could explain, the judge directed me out of the courtroom.

I waited patiently in the jury room to be excused for the day. After half an hour, the jury coordinator rattled off 13 numbers. None was mine.

“Please call after 5 and see if you must report tomorrow.”

A couple days later, it was front-page news that the defendant in this case was found guilty. He had never laid eyes on or touched the reported 154 pounds of marijuana seized during the police investigation. He accepted delivery of packages delivered via UPS. The packages would remain on his porch and be picked up by a friend. He said he thought the packages contained auto parts. He was merely doing his friend a favor.

“Y’all ever hear of partners in crime? That’s what we got there,” the assistant DA told the jury, according to the local paper.

A police narcotics officer posed as a UPS driver, and when the defendant signed for the delivery of 70 pounds of what turned out to be marijuana, he was arrested and charged with trafficking.

“We’re here because UPS got suspicious,” the assistant DA said. “This is because normal, everyday people smelled something funny.”

The state never proved the defendant wasn’t ignorant of the boxes’ contents or that he had opened a box. They didn’t need to. The state found a dozen normal, everyday people ready and willing to do the state’s drug war bidding.

In his book For a New Liberty, Murray Rothbard questions the legitimacy of compulsory jury duty. “What is this but prison and involuntary servitude for noncriminals?” Rothbard asked. Plenty of people believe jury duty to be a vital civic function. After all, judges are part of the same justice system that the prosecutors are and thus will tend to be biased. Therefore, a fair system depends upon being judged by one’s peers.

But Rothbard points out that slave labor is not efficient labor. Compulsory juries stand the division of labor on its head. Since when would you pick people randomly to do something as important as weighing evidence and determining guilt and innocence? This is a job someone should be trained in. To pick people randomly gives the appearance of being unbiased, but in fact, it accentuates the state’s advantage in the courtroom.

Yours,

Douglas French

Author Image for Douglas French

Douglas French

Douglas E. French is senior editor of the Laissez Faire Club. He received his master's degree under the direction of Murray N. Rothbard at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, after many years in the business of banking. He is the author of three books, Early Speculative Bubbles and Increases in the Supply of Money, the first major empirical study of the relationship between early bubbles and the money supply; Walk Away, a monograph assessing the philosophy and morality of strategic default; and The Failure of Common Knowledge, which takes on many common economic fallacies. He is founder and editor of LibertyWatch magazine. Write him.

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  • tim_lebsack

    Several years ago I volunteered to work a poll for a candidate for political office. I was given a car ride to the poll and dropped off before voting started at 7am. For hours I marched up and down that elementary school sidewalk waving that sign.

    At 6pm my ride, the campaign manager, arrived to pick me up. He said, “We’ll stay until the last voters leave right after 7pm. Have you been talking to everybody and telling them why we deserve there vote?”

    “No, I haven’t been talking to them. I’ve said ‘Hi’ to a few people and tried to smile but mostly I’ve been waving at the cars as they enter the parking lot and waving my sign.”

    “You haven’t been approaching them? Why haven’t you been approaching them and asking for their vote? You’ve got to be more aggressive. You suck as a poll worker.”

    For some people, your best isn’t good enough.

  • va942

    I have a question for Mr. French. First you answer the question “If the facts show that the defendant did indeed traffic more than 2.2 pounds of marijuana, will you be able to rule on the basis of Alabama law, complying with the judge’s order, recognizing that trafficking marijuana is against Alabama statute?”
    with a “No.” Then you say: “I will not be the juror, and this will not be the case, but one of these days a jury must nullify these crazy drug laws.” but, if everyone answers the above question as you did, please tell me how that is to happen?

    In the early years of the United States a juror was conceived of as having the right to judge the law as well as the evidence. Noah Webster wrote his original 1828 dictionary to prevent the meanings of the words in the Constitution from drifting over time. He defined a juror exactly this way. Jefferson said: “I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet devised by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.” First Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay said: “The jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy.”

    Note that, at least as you presented it, the judge you encountered did not say “solely”. That is because you still have the right to judge the law and to decide based upon your conscience. Until 1895 judges routinely informed jurors of that fact. Then the Supreme Court decided that the failure of a judge to remind jurors of these powers was not a basis for mistrial or appeal. (Lately, of course, these idiots have ruled that higher tax revenue now constitutes “public use” and justification for eminent domain!)

    Then, you wrote: “The judge interjected again, ‘Are you sure you cannot listen to the evidence and judge the innocence or guilt of the defendant applying the law of the state of Alabama.’” Again, did he say “solely”? You don’t have to lie. First, you apply the law. Second, you decide the law is bogus. Third, you find the defendant not guilty. But in this case you may have been able to do better.

    By what you wrote, had I been on the jury, as soon as I was in the jury room I would have said: “Did anyone hear any proof at all that this guy knew what was in the package? I didn’t. Anyway, they surely didn’t establish it beyond a reasonable doubt to me. Wow! If all that it takes is a simple assertion that any one of us was involved in something like this to be found guilty I’ll never sign for a package for anyone ever again!” With any luck a few minutes later we’d have returned with a “not guilty” verdict not just a hung jury.

  • Pingback: Swimming in the Jury Pool | Laissez-Faire Bookstore

  • JdLxx

    I’d like to ask the author of the original column if he has any second thoughts after reading Graham Dugas’ (and others’) passionate appeals to get seated on a jury and vote to acquit when appropriate, rather than to tell the judge to F*** off. I find Jeffrey Tucker’s smug assertion that it does more good to bless off the judge than to hang a jury to be patent nonsense. Yes, the case may be retried, but if you were a doctor and someone came to you on death’s door, would you say, “Well, I COULD give you an injection that would keep you alive for a while, but hey, you’ll probably die soon anyway, so I’m not going to bother.”??

    The notion that it does any good at all to stand up to a judge as Mr. French did, strikes me as wishful thinking. That judge has his entire life’s work bound up in rationalizing that what he’s doing is not evil, and no single man or group of men is likely to break through those layers of rationalization. Hanging a jury (or, let’s not completely discount the possibility that one might get the other jurors to join in acquitting the defendant) is a definite positive act for good.

    I’m not sure I’d go as far as Mr. Dugas in condemning Mr. French as morally reprehensible for the choice he made, but definitely agree that self-congratulation is not in order. Please consider another option should the opportunity arise again, Mr. French.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Graham-Dugas/1584240856 Graham Dugas

    Remember, being on a jury is not “participating in the system”. It is “the system” coming to you and asking permission to screw your fellow man. We should relish the opportunity to thwart their predatory plans. Why should we ever roll over and let them proceed unimpeded? They can’t advance without your consent or your abdication. Mr. French’s lecture to the judge was nothing more that a dressed-up pious abdication of his human obligation towards his fellow man and a public denial of his professed anti-statist creed.

  • Brian

    If nothing else Mr. French is consistent. He wags his finger at a problem and then chooses to abstain from participation. Read his solution for influencing elections.

  • Franklin

    Very puzzled and dismayed by some of the responses here. Doug French was asked a direct question by the judge and DA and he answered them with conviction (no pun intended) and forthrightness. In fact, many persons would have folded up and “gone on to get along,” been bullied during the sequestered deliberations and been told, “Ah, shut up. It doesn’t matter if the law is correct, take it up at the next election.” The state has further options and surrepetitiously infiltrating the gang of twelve would hardly have been the end of the story. Instead Doug took it right to the man, directly and in his face.
    He was asked if he could be an impartial juror; he could not and he advertised this in broad daylight.
    Apparently for some of you, his truthtful and courageous answer reflecting a moral philosophy is somehow akin to subverting the underground railroad. Cripe.

    • Iloilo Jones

      To think that the verbal response of one individual when confronted with a situation of vast evil is to think too small.

      There is the opportunity to participate in the process at the core levels of influence which is intended as the role of the juror. By directly and courageously participating in the outcome of the jury trial to protect the persecuted is a far more effective use of one’s voice than to scold some government-employed factotum who will immediately dismiss those spoken words as the silliness of some “uninformed civilian.”

      I speak here not as some innocent who has no experience with speaking truth to power, but as someone who has placed her body and mind against injustice. If our comfort levels are those of merely standing and scolding a judge on the judge’s turf, we are missing the entire opportunity of juror participation: to raise an independent voice in defense of the individual being persecuted.

      Speaking truth to power is far, far less effective than speaking truth in one’s verdict.

      But this is not a question of character or courage: it is a simple matter of most effectively utilizing those tools we have by right of our humanity: we have the right to speak truth in the most effective way possible, to free and protect others from predatory actions undertaken against us.

      I hope to see more people infiltrating juries and speaking truth through their veto vote against bad laws. I do not think power addicts can hear reason, for power is deaf to words which do not strike the core of their contradictions. Not guilty verdicts strike at the core of the abuse of power that is the abusive machinery of the state.

      While I do not condemn Mr. French, his self-congratulatory discourse is weak at best, if misinformed, and misdirected if informed and yet failing to exercise his individual authority to protect his neighbor. To whom do we turn for peaceful protection from the state if not to the neighbors who serve on our juries?

      IMJ

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Graham-Dugas/1584240856 Graham Dugas

    Repent Now Doug

    • Jeffrey Tucker

      Ok, you are a fool.

      • JdLxx

        If all else fails, resort to empty name-calling, eh Tucker?

  • http://mikezentz.com/ Mike

    I would have tried to get selected. Who cares if you have to lie to the state.

    • Jake_Witmer

      Apparently, these big, bad, brave libertarians cannot tell a lie to the Nazis who are at the door looking for Anne Frank! They cannot tell a lie to the fugitive slave hunters who are trying to return an escaped piece of chattel to the firing squad, as an example to any other slave who might be likewise tempted! Their allegiance is not to the truth, justice, or human liberty: it’s to a theoretical concept of anarchy made unattainable by their own damned cowardice.

      I sincerely hope that they eventually are called before big brother with their own fate hanging in the balance, and watch well-meaning moron after moron (pseudo-libertarians, like themselves) get themselves kicked off of their jury, leaving only brainless elderly John McCain clones to decide their fate. Then, I hope the judge drops the gavel on them and sends them to jail for 10 years. …For doing nothing at all wrong. …Because the freedom movement is far better off with people like Doug French behind bars, than with him posting asinine bad memes like this one on an internet full of government youth propaganda camp graduates who might be dumb enough to be influenced.

      Doug French gave “Big Brother” everything he asked for! He threw up all over himself, and rendered himself useless to the cause of liberty. And, if you’re useless to the cause of liberty, you’re useful to the cause of slavery. Like many of the useful idiots at Mises.org, French is pathetic. PATHETIC. By refusing to be a “jury slave” French succeeded in emboldening the slavemasters, and making Alabama that much more the territory of the Federal Reserve Plantation.

      Don’t you “libertarian” idiots at the organization that stains Mises’ name know by now that the entire evil of the system is only accomplished because of the existence of “voir dire”? Voir dire: “to see the truth” (about what this slave is thinking, and neutralize those slaves who are thinking disobedient thoughts). Haven’t any of you read Thoreau? Spooner? Suprynowicz? Conrad? Abramson? Butler?

      Jury service is the time and place where a person is LEAST a slave. You abject morons have it exactly inverted! Any moron can get out of jury service, and that’s exactly what the state wants! They want to fill up all their shiny new for-profit prisons with victimless crime offenders! And if Doug French, Stephan Kinsella, and Jeff Tucker have their way, they will!

      The next time you think something like this through, think about what would best serve the police state. If that’s the thing you plan to do, you might want to rethink your plan.

      Congratulations on sending an innocent man to the drug war gulag, or at very least losing your prior ability to prevent him from being sent to the gulag. …And all to make a self-serving, cowardly, and wrong point. …All so you can claim to be a bigger “anarchist.” Cunt-trarian is more like it. You’re now earned the title “libertarian lite” for all eternity, or until you’ve proven that you’ve caused at least ten people to be acquitted of victimless crime offenses by your encouragement of jury nullification.

      Jeff Tucker, Stephan Kinsella, Doug French: People you need not call when the rubber meets the road. The list of “libertarian anarchist” intellectual cowards keeps growing and growing. Good thing the abolitionist movement and underground railroad didn’t take your stance on “jury slavery,” or we’d still have actual, real, negro chattel slavery! You are truly “hacking at the branches of tyranny” rather than “striking at the root.”

      In “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,” Douglass writes about how a free black man threatened a runaway slave with snitching, and a return to slavery. The abolitionists lured him to a fake town meeting under false pretext, and said something to the effect of “We have him now, don’t let him out alive!” and the traitor to the cause only narrowly escaped. He never showed his face in town again, knowing that he was persona non grata as a tool of the slavery state.

      Every libertarian should be held to that standard, so long as juries can be hung by one not guilty vote. And if French’s speech was anything other than hot air, and self-aggrandizing bullshit, then why didn’t he have faith in his power to convince the other jurors and obtain an acquittal? Sorry, this commentary is purely a self-serving apology for having taken the stupid, appeasing, immoral, and weak-minded course of action.

      …The abolitionists were serious about individual freedom. They didn’t waste what little power the system was forced to give them. They didn’t throw away the hard won victory that people like Nicholas Bayard were drawn and quartered to give them, and for which John “Freeborn John” Lilburne spent most of his life in jail securing.

      The abolitionists of Spooner’s time were very unlike today’s libertarian movement.

      As soon as we are as serious as they were, we’ll have our freedom, and the free market that Hayek and Mises dreamed of.

      As a seated juror, if Doug French is even a slightly competent messenger of liberty, he could have profiled the other jurors, and convinced them to acquit. If he succeeded, he could have gone further and given special instructions to the judge, and asked the judge to read them into the record, for other defense attorneys (or pro se defendants like me!) in similar cases to cite.

      How dare they get on this public forum, defend a cowardly, wrong decision as if it was a righteous one? How dare they? COWARDS!

  • liberty first

    I found this Laissez Faire article by Mr French, reportedly a “senior editor of the Laissez Faire Club” as somewhat disturbing. Although he did avoid the “slavery” of actually serving on a jury, he did not avoid being forced to serve the jury duty process. Most importantly, taking the easy way out, he missed the opportunity to hang a jury that voted to convict based on only circumstantial evidence, if his reporting of the circumstances in the case are to be believed.

    Further, if he truly believed that the alleged “drug trafficking” was merely a “commercial transaction”, he missed an opportunity to make that case through his nullification vote as a juror. In the end, he served the will of the state, by encouraging his dismissal as someone not willing to accept the state’s version of “criminal activity”.

    In my opinion, Mr French spared himself the inconvenience of actually participating on a jury but failed to really advance the cause of liberty.

    • Jeffrey Tucker

      Standing up to a judge, a jury pool, and two attorneys in a court and telling them all that the system is unjust and oppressive? You think that has no benefit for the cause? That’s WAY more effective than sitting on a jury that gets hung, get retried, and then you are prosecuted for perjury.

      • Franklin

        Amen to that.
        I couldn’t be more frustrated than to read this pious, holier-than-thou attitude of…… those who are bitching here about a man who steadfastly took it right to the judge. People who were not there, but apparently are prescient enough to think that had Doug made the final cut, then the case would be dropped, and liberty would have reigned supreme.
        To your point, it’s retried, and barely a whisper is heard about the eleven’s private, disgruntled confusion that “some kook that here wasting all of our time, and why? Not really sure…”

        • http://www.facebook.com/people/Graham-Dugas/1584240856 Graham Dugas

          Franklin,

          If you were the defendant would you rather someone mouth off to the judge or rather he shut up and snuck onto the jury and then hung it? Answer honestly.

          • Dempy

            And then be prosecuted for perjury?

          • http://www.facebook.com/jake.witmer Jake Witmer

            Dempy, please visit http://www.fija.org and learn. Thanks. How can they punish you for perjury, without having access to your thoughts? They can’t.

  • iloilo Jones

    … and as to the primary question: can jury slaves say what is true? :
    Jury slaves can say what is true as much as any individual who has been indoctrinated by the state to be obedient to authority; as much as anyone who takes stolen money to pay their bills; as much as anyone who is not actively engaged in the struggle; as much as any uninformed individual, and certainly as much as any other human. Slavery is pervasive on Earth right now. If you find a totally free person, who is in no way enslaved, let me know. And if you find the lowest slave in the meanest circumstances, please explain how her station limits her ability to discern and state the truth, more than would the circumstances of a free person. For Sojourner Truth said what was true. Moreso than Abraham Lincoln, most definitely.
    So, I question the efficacy of the above question in disclosing the contradictions involved. Jury slaves have no reason to lie, after all, other than to protect the innocent from the guilty, and such lies are the same as those told by Quakers to slave hunters, when the Quakers lied about the slaves hiding in their double-built walls.

    Yes, jury slaves, just as any other slave, can say what is true.
    iloilojones.com
    fija.org

  • iloilo Jones

    I think if Jurors knew their authority to veto bad laws and stupid prosecutions brought by government employees to advance the political self-promoting and financially self-enhancing agenda of government bureaucrats and politicians, then jurors would line up to volunteer to be on jury duty, knowing they could fix the system through the jury box. I would certainly volunteer far, far beyond the borders of Montana.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Graham-Dugas/1584240856 Graham Dugas

      This person “gets it”. The aggressors can’t do anything apart from our acquiescence. The perfidy of neglect is our undoing. The preservation of liberty requires vigilance and a knowledgeable participation. Beg, borrow, lie, cheat, steal to get on the jury… then hang it when they are persecuting an innocent. If we had just one in twelve we could be fully free from the IRS.

      But, Mr. French… you have to serve (self-sacrifice) to protect your fellow man and stop tyranny.

  • http://www.facebook.com/john.lowe.792740 John Lowe

    In Brunei or Malaysia, said trafficker would have been sentenced to death for this. He got off easy. Notice those two countries don’t have much of a drug problem, and they don’t even have to spend that much on the drug war. It’s simple: you traffic drugs, you die.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Graham-Dugas/1584240856 Graham Dugas

      That sounds like heaven for you. Go live there. As for me, I want freedom.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Graham-Dugas/1584240856 Graham Dugas

    Doug,

    Congratulations on grandstanding more piously than Rudy
    Giuliani’s infamous demagoguery of Ron Paul.

    How will we ever have nullification if we aren’t willing to
    penetrate their roadblocks, get on the jury and hang it? Your piece in Laissez
    Faire show how you knowingly and willfully abandoned your fellow man to the
    thugs and their gulag. Why should anyone be on a jury to rescue you when you
    come into their crosshairs for one of the “Three Felonies a Day” that you
    commit? You self-righteously abandoned that kid and allowed aggressors to ruin
    his life forever.

    Would you do the same if Lew was charged by the IRS and you
    were in the jury pool? Or would you think like the French Underground and go to
    great lengths to get on the jury where you could thwart their plans to commit
    evil against an innocent? Members of the French Underground, lied, forged
    documents, took false oaths and got to positions of power where they could
    subvert the occupying Nazis. They even wore a uniform they detested. But once
    in those positions, they could obtain travel papers to give to forgers who
    smuggled out dissidents, they provided
    info on scheduled supply trains to their buddies who would blow up the tracks
    etc.

    How will we ever have juries nullify anything if we are
    unwilling to suffer the crap necessary to rescue our fellow man? I hope you get
    charged with some Federal crime and some “libertarian” juror openly abandons
    you. Closing your heart towards this innocent man is despicable. You need to
    repent and write him a public letter of apology and circulate it to everyone
    that read your article in Laissez Faire.

    Please read http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig10/dugas1.html

    Ron Paul is a great hero because he has a servant’s heart
    and is willing to endure hardship, defamation, personal expense and more to get
    to a position where he can nominally thwart the progress of evil. You had a
    golden opportunity to do something similar but your selfishness and
    unwillingness ensured that evil would prevail. Words cannot express my disgust.
    You need to repent. I don’t even know if you are capable of caring for
    something other than yourself but in the event that you are, it would behoove
    you to know that such pious selfishness deservedly gives libertarianism a bad
    name. You need to search your soul. Ugggh…. Utter disgust.

    • Jeffrey Tucker

      See my reply above. This note is profoundly foolish.

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Graham-Dugas/1584240856 Graham Dugas

        OK, I get it, abandon all principle and stick with your friend Doug. May God grant you a jury of idiots when you are on trial because the “libertarian” in the jury pool acted like Doug French and abandons you to the machine.

      • http://www.facebook.com/jake.witmer Jake Witmer

        No, Jeff, you’re promoting being bent to the will of tyrants, because your stupid and uninformed “anarchist” philosophy places more value on pontification than it does actual freedom. You clueless windbag, if anyone’s the fool, it’s you. Graham is right, you are wrong.

  • WOLVERINES!!!

    Doug, why did you even answer the jury summons? If your summons are like they are in Michigan, then they are sent via regular U.S. mail, therefore no proof of delivery is required. I ignore them and have never been penalized or contacted by the court. If they do contact you some other way, then I guess you would have no choice but to go to court and use the jury nullification argument.

  • Bigfoot.

    Would have been great if you had taken the FIJA approach, served, and freed this innocent victim of the state.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Graham-Dugas/1584240856 Graham Dugas

      How fast and how loud can I say “Amen!” to you Bigfoot? I am disgusted beyond words at the willful abandonment of an innocent to the ruthless cogs of Leviathan. Doug has posted his shame for all the world to see.

      • Jeffrey Tucker

        Have you sat in a jury? It’s not like the movies. The best you can hope for in a clean case like this is a hung jury, 11-1, and then it gets retried. This does far less good than a verbal standing up to the judge!! This is what we need more of.

        • Jeffrey Tucker

          And have you ever stood in front of a judge and told him that he was doing evil? It is a terrifying experience. Very few people would EVER do this. It is also extremely risky. Graham, the enemy is the state, not the opponents of it.

          • http://www.facebook.com/people/Graham-Dugas/1584240856 Graham Dugas

            Jeffrey,

            Do I need credentials, court experience, letters after my name etc. to assert something? If Hitler said the sun rises in the east, is it still not so? The force of my argument should stand by the integrity of the logic applied. Ron Paul has no degree in economics, no letters after his name from some great educational institution documenting his economic education and yet we cheer him on against those who do such as Krugman. He is persuasive because of the logical force of his arguments.

            There was a man on beach throwing baby turtles into the sea rescuing them from hundreds of swarming sea gulls who were feasting on the hatchlings as they pitifully scrambled towards the safety of the water. A bystander laughed at him and said “What are you doing? Can’t you see it is useless? You aren’t making any difference. Helping the turtles is hopeless.” The man replied to his critic by stooping down and picking up a hatchling, holding it up and saying: “It does to this one.” and resumed throwing as many as he could into the sea. His critic was stupified and sat stunned for a minute before he too started throwing the little turtles into the sea.

            Doug French abandoned that kid to get ground up in the gears of Leviathan. His pious rebuke of the unjust laws amounted to bluster similar to when Rudy Giuliani barked at Ron Paul.

            As to your question about my court experience… I will answer your indulge your folly. It adds nothing to the logic of my assertions and condemnation of Doug French’s failure.

            In a matter of political protest and activism I have fought an unjust “law”, one that was upheld by the FL Supreme Court, upheld by the 11th Federal Circuit Court, and upheld by the SCOTUS and has sent around 400 people to jail. I challenged it in a way that others failed to. But I had to do it alone, risk 6-9 months of jail by putting my neck on the line AND defend myself pro-se to do it. By the grace of God I prevailed because God was with me. I was standing up for others, not myself. I effectively nullified a “law” that SCOTUS upheld. There were no more arrests after my case despite the rabid hatred of the police towards us. I have had the boot of the police literally mash my face into the hot asphalt, been hit with their batons, sat in their jails, had the zip-tie cuffs turn my hands blue. Are you happy? You have forced me to say this. It is not a boast. I would rather stick to the thrust of the logic and that is very simple… Doug French cruelly abandoned his fellow man to get chewed up and did nothing when he could have rescued him.

            You assert that “the enemy is the State, not the opponents of it”…. Well said but Mr. French did not oppose it, rather he was too easily wearied by their odious procedure to the point where he allowed them to proceed unhindered in their depredations. He then placates his already seared conscience with some grandstanding bluster that went in one ear and out the other ear of recalcitrant state goons who quickly got on their way of feasting on the life of their victim.

            Even if they re-tried the case after Mr. French would have hung the jury, at least he did his part. What you are saying is that jury nullification is totally useless because they will just re-try the case so we shouldn’t even make the effort. Well I say BUNK on that. Stick your neck out for your fellow man. Do what is right.

          • Iloilo Jones

            Dear Jeffrey,
            What an interesting question.
            I see no risk at all in challenging power in a courtroom. My life nor health are not likely in danger.
            Have I ever challenged power? Yes.
            A judge? Yes.
            I don’t know of any risk to speaking out as Mr. French did in a courtroom. If he had hung the jury, if he had tried to persuade other jurors to nullify, he might feel some wrath from the government court employees. But I imagine Mr. French was merely an object of amusement and patronizing shuffling, for he had played his hand early, and held nothing in reserve to be of assistance to the person being persecuted.

            Risk? I have stood before ranks of armed men, and have been beaten, electrocuted, and gassed. Jailed and beaten again. It was terrifying. I have never felt the least bit terrified when before a judge, for it is difficult to reach out and initiate violence in a court room—difficult even for court employees. If we fear the anger of power, then we need to rethink our efforts for freedom, and perhaps seek counseling, for this is not place for the weak of heart nor for those who wish to brag for shaking a fist at power. Speaking truth to power is ineffective. It is especially ineffective when one could actively assist in freeing a neighbor from the predatory clutches of the state.
            IMJ

          • Jake_Witmer

            BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLSHIT! This argument is actually very much about attacking the guy who makes too much noise at night, as the slaves are making their way off the plantation. That guy, has no rightful claim to be a messenger of liberty. Nobody should ever trust that guy, in the presence of silverware, ever again! …Everybody ought to know about “that guy.”

            What’s to “respect” about the prison term that marijuana slave got? I think I’ll speak for him, since he’s BEHIND BARS BECAUSE OF THIS _IDIOT_.

            This French idiot was FULLY INFORMED. But the full information couldn’t defeat his servility, intellectual cowardice, conformity, and general uselessness as a “libertarian” human being.

            I respect FIJA, in spite of the goofy sound of made up words like “Fijactivist.” I respect Don Doig and Larry Dodge for being pioneers in keeping the embers of Lilburne’s long battle alive. I respect you for keeping the embers of civilization that they rekindled, red and glowing. But more than FIJA, I respect jury nullification of victimless crimes. To the extent that anything interferes with that goal, or downplays its value, that thing is evil.

            …Because prosecuting innocent people for trading in forbidden flower buds, or any other kind of “mala prohibita” is EVIL.

            Doug French’s only legitimate defense for this course of action would be STUPIDITY or IGNORANCE. But he cannot make those claims. Well then, it must be an abject lack of character or lack of bravery.

            If people were never criticized for a lack of bravery, or for caving in and doing the wrong thing, then humanity would have already ceased to exist. What is needed now is heroic action. Watch this video for a good exposition of that fact of reality:

          • Iloilo Jones

            Dear Jeffrey,

            What an interesting question.

            I see no risk at all in challenging power in a courtroom. My life and health are not likely in danger.

            Have I ever challenged power? Yes.

            A judge? Yes.

            I don’t know of any risk to speaking out as Mr. French did in a courtroom. If he had hung the jury, if he had tried to persuade other jurors to nullify, he might feel some wrath from the government court employees. But I imagine Mr. French was merely an object of amusement and patronizing shuffling, for he had played his hand early, and held nothing in reserve to be of assistance to the person being persecuted.

            Risk? I have stood before ranks of armed men, and have been beaten, electrocuted, and gassed. Jailed and beaten again. It was terrifying. I have never felt the least bit terrified when before a judge, for it is difficult to reach out and initiate violence in a court room—difficult even for court employees. If we fear the anger of power, then we need to rethink our efforts for freedom, and perhaps seek counseling, for this is not place for the weak of heart nor for those who wish to brag for shaking a fist at power. Speaking truth to power is ineffective. It is especially ineffective when one could actively assist in freeing a neighbor from the predatory clutches of the state.

            Here are some worthy goals:

            Gain new ground for justice and liberty;

            Defend the gains of the past;

            Make unjust actions of the state as uncomfortable and embarrassing to state agents as possible.

            When the state loses cases which the government-employed prosecutor, judge, and law officers consider a slam dunk, it is a wonderful way to gesture against power, and such successful gestures are not ignored by people, but rather serve to educate and spread the message of juror independence.

            A significant number of nullified cases against the same law serve to render that law unenforcible in that community. Police and prosecutors and judges get the message: their political bosses are being silly. Laughter is a very good gesture against power, if one cannot get on the jury to protect a neighbor.

            Let us not forget that as we teach and witness on behalf of juror independence and authority, we remove the mystique of power from the state. Justice is certainly not a function of the state, but of individual action and thought. Juries are not institutions of the state, but of the People. It is a remarkably salient distinction which many fail to recognize.

            I am willing to listen to all arguments to the contrary on any of my statements.

            Respectfully.

            IMJ

          • http://www.facebook.com/jake.witmer Jake Witmer

            Jeff is a total pussy, Ilo. Did his knees tremble before they authoritay of the judge? LOL!!! (The site lets me uprank your comments, but won’t let me downrank his! LOL! Some commitment to objectivity!) He and this Doug French idiot have voltages wired to conformity, not liberty. The same is true of that idiot Kinsella (who was a bar-licensed attorney who got himself dismissed from a similar case), and a former pot-smoking professor of mine who voted guilty in a cocaine case. America, at this point, is too stupid to live, hence, it is dying. When even those who know better are used as tools of the state, the underground railroad fails to exist, as does the warsaw ghetto uprising. It takes real spine to stand up to the man, and risk imprisonment, as all of us, minus those who skipped out, have done. Laura Kriho and Marcy Brooks both know what I mean. They both had more balls than this French character.

          • Jake_Witmer

            [And have you ever stood in front of a judge and told him that he was
            doing evil?]
            Yes. AFTER I GOT MY CASE DISMISSED, AND GOT IT IN WRITING, I DID. All it takes is a set of balls, which Doug apparently lacks.

            [It is a terrifying experience.]
            For quivering knock-kneed intellectual cowards. For the rest of us, it’s business as usual in the police states of AmeriKKKa.

            [Very few people would EVER do
            this.]
            Very few abject cowards. Doug Casey is 100% right. Americans are a bunch of whipped dogs.

            [It is also extremely risky.]
            BULLSHIT. Watch the video of George Donnelly, Julian Heicklen, and James Babb staring down several armed and totally belligerent U.S. Marshalls outside the Federal Court in Philadelphia, at the peak fervor of the post-9-11 police state. That was extremely risky. (And they still played it cool, even while being PHYSICALLY THREATENED BY WELL-ARMED, BELLIGERENT, TOTALLY-UNEDUCATED COPS) What Doug French was subjected to was NOTHING. He made sure of that.

            [Graham, the enemy is the state, not
            the opponents of it.]
            No. False friends of freedom are also the enemies of liberty. They dare to boldly circulate bad memes on internet fora like this, which embolden tyrants, and misdirect the weak-minded. You and your pals are being called out for being spineless and defending being spineless.

            If you simply said “Hey, that whimpering guy who’s crying over there in the corner simply crumbled under intimidation from the police state. He’s not the enemy. Why don’t you guys ease off, and go fight the state itself.” Then you might have a point. But the guy who crumbled and wet himself in response to a nasty look from the police state, had the temerity to defend cowering and wetting yourself as THE OPTIMAL, RIGHTEOUS COURSE OF ACTION.

            And letting a blatant falsehood like that stand would simply be unacceptable to any decent, morally upright person.

            Libertarians shouldn’t be easily-manipulated tools of the police state.

            If one’s philosophy can’t prevent that degree of servile uselessness, then one has no right to claim that one even has a philosophy.

        • http://www.facebook.com/people/Graham-Dugas/1584240856 Graham Dugas

          Answer a simple question. If the IRS came after you would you rather a juror grandstanded like Doug French brags of or would you rather he snuck onto the jury and hung it? Answer truthfully Jeffrey.

          Make them retry it a thousand times. But it starts with the first. Get on juries and hang them. Fight for your fellow man. THAT is what we need more of.

          • Guest

            25 And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
            26 He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou?
            27 And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.
            28 And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.
            29 But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?
            30 And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
            31 And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
            32 And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.
            33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,
            34 And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
            35 And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.
            36 Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?
            37 And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.

          • Iloilo Jones

            For those of you not familiar with the history of the influence of the jury in this nation, I suggest you study a bit prior to attempting to defend a position which has no basis in the reality of justice or our concept of juror independence. We have juries to protect us from government tyranny, whether that tyranny arises from a king, a politician, a bureaucrat, or a judge.
            We have the opportunity to be a juror and thus directly protect the life of another person.

            For I must ask: what good to anyone does shaking one’s fist at power do? Perhaps amuse power, but it does not help any individual being held in captivity, or threatened with captivity, unless that fist-shaker places their body between the captor and the individual by participating in the jury process and hanging, or swaying, the jury.
            IMJ

        • http://www.facebook.com/people/Graham-Dugas/1584240856 Graham Dugas

          OK then, get on the jury, hang it, THEN tell the judge he is a scoundrel after the gavel has been struck.

          • Iloilo Jones

            Exactly, Graham, or else, even better, hang the jury, then give interviews, educate others, and write letters to the editor explaining the role of the individual juror in protecting the human rights of neighbors and family. We have inherited this elegant tool of peaceful resistance, handed down to us at least since the Magna Carta. When we fail to exercise our rights, we abdicate our authority to protect our neighbors from the state. When we fail to protect our own future interests by our particular verdicts as a juror, we therefore erode our own future by allowing venal and vicious laws passed by corrupt politicians to be enforced. When your human rights are violated, my human rights are violated as well.
            IMJ

        • Ray

          We need people willing to rub the state the-wrong-way of every stripe. I am sad that nobody worked on this man’s behalf, but we need to educate more people to what this government is really all about. This individual served notice that he was not a yes-man for the criminal syndicate known as the “state”.

          Considering we’re talking about Alabama — I’m only surprised they did not give the man the death penalty. I’ve only met one judge in southeast Alabama, but he was a embarrassment to the entire human race — I kid you not.

          • http://www.facebook.com/people/Graham-Dugas/1584240856 Graham Dugas

            “Educate more people” by making your lecture AFTER you hang the jury if you are so inclined. That will “rub the state the-wrong-way” AND free the man of his immediate burden in a first trial (should they retry it). Nullification is no good if we hold it as an abstract doctrine and don’t use it. Make them try it again and again if we must but NEVER roll over and play dead just because they threaten to retry the case. Call their bluff. Make them work hard for their pound of flesh. Since a juror does not need to explain his vote, I would just vote to acquit and say nothing. Why place a target on yourself? Just say you had some doubts. Say you think he was on CIA mind-control drugs or was hypnotized into making incriminating statements. Say any nonsense you want. It is not a crime.

            It might be a crime to say you don’t have any misgivings about drug laws during voire dire (if the juror candidates are under oath). Even then I would give them as much truth as I would give to the gestapo when answering the question “Are there any Jews here?”. The Nazis want to kill the Jews and the statist thugs want to cage a man in their rape chambers and take away years of his life. There really isn’t much difference.

            The question to all you so-called anti-statist anarcho voluntarist wannabes, do you believe your own rhetoric? And the measure of that belief is not in words but in actions. We ARE our brother’s keeper. That is the lesson of the oft quoted Martin Niemoller confession…”First they came for….”

            And I will ask this again and again until I am blue in the face… If you were on trial for some bogus crime, would you want a juror to lecture the judge or would you want him to penetrate their roadblocks and make it to the jury and hang it? As you have done unto others, so it shall be done unto you. Go and do likewise.

          • http://www.facebook.com/jake.witmer Jake Witmer

            If this is the libertarian movement, little whipped dogs who get kicked off of juries rather than strike a blow for freedom by denying leviathan his victim, then leviathan has NOTHING to fear from libertarians. Luckily, I know some libertarians with brains and balls enough to make a difference. Apparently they aren’t at Mises.org. WOW.

          • Iloilo Jones

            Yes, Ray, this man may have served verbal notice to the state that he is no yes-man, but he shook his fist at a blind icon, while the person he should have been intent on protecting has been sent into captivity and probably slavery.

            Thumbing one’s nose at evil is far less effective for liberty than assisting in the rescue and escape of someone who has been caught in the grasp of the machinery of a largely corrupt “justice: system, Jurors can still stand as individual, independent bulwarks against this machinery.

            Yelling at the machine is far, far less effective than tossing a monkey wrench of a verdict into state machinery that is accustomed to functioning through threats, evasion, lies, and rigid process. We individuals often become too inured to the depredations of the state to comprehend the evil of state control of the process of Trial by Jury.
            IMJ

        • Iloilo Jones

          Dear Jeffrey,
          Tell me what good, and for whom, standing up to the judge did in the case discussed by Mr. French.
          I am truly interested in hearing of the good that was done from your perception, and to know the beneficiary of the good, as well as how one might thus reform the present system of the state called the “justice system.”
          Thank you for correcting my thinking with your response.
          IMJ

  • http://peacerequiresanarchy.wordpress.com/ PeaceRequiresAnarchy

    Thanks for doing this and for sharing your story with us here, Mr. French!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Cathleen-Converse/1374717926 Cathleen Converse

    How sad. My story is almost identical, but I searched my soul and knew I could honestly listen to testimony before deciding a man’s fate. No, it wasn’t fun or easy, but in the end we nullified and gave his life back to him. And he was fully cognizant of what he was growing out back.

    • Iloilo Jones

      Bravo! Kathleen. All Best WIshes.
      iloilo

  • http://www.facebook.com/robert.a.lawson Bob Lawson

    Doug, I was called in Lee County too and the same thing happened to me. Mine was an eminent domain case though. To this day, I regret that I didn’t keep my mouth shut in the hopes of making the jury and then voting for the property owner. But I was honest in telling the judge that I hate eminent domain and could not set aside that view as a juror. I don’t know if he won the case or not.

  • Waimeajim

    Maybe the country should elect jurors the way we elect politicians; then and only then will the people who want to be there, and serve justice be found.
    Professional jurors; ordinary citizens who don’t want Government intruding into our lives and deciding if the Laws are really Constitutional or not.
    Pay them a real living wage, not the chump change that the Republic now pays. Adjusted for inflation, the pay for jurors is less than Welfare Recipients. Who in their right mind would want to serve.
    Professional Lawyers need not apply.

    • Iloilo Jones

      Who would pay the jurors in your system of elected jurors? The same entity that pays the judges and prosecutors?
      How about a voluntary jury service pool? Let anyone who has an interest in jury service volunteer for service for a specified period of time. Come to that, why not have all functions of government filled by volunteers for specified periods of time, and jurors could serve in the same was as a function of the protection of the people against government.
      If you wish to disenfranchise a group, paying them less than minimum wage is a sure way to discourage and impoverish them, isn’t it? Perhaps both sides should pay the jurors.
      I had no idea there were lawyers who were not professional. All of them are licensed by the government, after all.
      Have you considered the ramifications of elected jurors? How well have elections worked to put honest, decent people in other elected offices?
      I am smiling at your suggestions, but understand that you are at least trying to find new solutions to old problems. Unfortunately, your proposal falls short in that it merely shifts the burden to an electorate to discern honest politicians running for juror offices.
      respectfully,
      Iloilo M. Jones