The following two hours of video/2 DVDs are of an interview conducted with Dr. Julian Heicklen on Wednesday, 21 March 2012. Dr. Heicklen is an advocate for jury nullification and the fully informed jury movement in the U.S. Court system at all levels. His website is:
personal.psu.edu/jph13
In the United States, we are currently living under a government of unprecedented criminality, and it is guaranteed to get much worse unless “We the People” do what is necessary to prevent that from happening. The people of Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, and Communist China did not respond to the obvious threats until it was too late, and many people were murdered. That cannot-must not be allowed to happen here. Fortunately, in the U.S., we have the Constitution, the Internet, the right to bear arms, and a court system of trial by jury, through which jurors are able to “nullify” convictions, and unjust punishment by government, of people who are on trial.
Frequently, corrupt prosecutors, corrupt judges, withholding of evidence, or unjust laws either railroad innocent people into jail for crimes which they did not commit, for which laws exist but which are “unjust laws” for which there is no basis in the U.S. Constitution, or are “money makers” for local municipalities such as minor traffic violations in mass pullovers where the police are told that they must make their quota. Such violations of law, by police and governmental officials, cost people money in fines, increased insurance premiums, and loss of jobs related to restriction of driving privileges.
When the jurors sense that something is wrong with the law (i.e., unjust drug laws), that the judges and/or police are “on the take” with regard to minor traffic violations, then it is the right of those jurors (some would say the “obligation”) to vote that person “not guilty”, regardless of what any judge says are the “sentencing guidelines”, “sentencing laws”, or the laws themselves. It is said that the best way to do away with unjust laws is to make them unenforceable, and this is the power that the jurors actually have, regardless of what the law says, or what the judge says the law says.
A few years ago it was said, in a major local NY-NJ newspaper, that approximately 33% of the local judges in New Jersey were “on the take” regarding minor traffic violations. The judge in the article was being taken out in handcuffs.
A final summary of what jurors might do is as follows: If an innocent person was hurt by a real crime, then vote to convict that person. However, if there is any suspicion that the person is innocent, if the law is unjust and there is no victim of any crime (i.e. a “victim-less crime”), then vote your conscience, disregard the judge’s instructions, and vote “not guilty”.
