ACTION ALERT: Copy this proposal and mail it to your representative today. Demand that they take action and support this measure now. Follow-up weekly with another mailing of the same document. Get your relatives and friends to do the same. For liberty to prevail, this act must be enacted.

(December 2, 2004) This proposed law would require specific jury instructions that notify jurors of their right and duty to nullify bad law. Under current law, juries are not told of their right to also judge the law. This creates inconsistent jury verdicts because pre-existing, informed jurors occasionally are called to jury duty, and regardless of the judge's instructions, they judge the evidence, potential punishment, and the law itself. In cases of non-violent drug offenses, these informed jurors either hang the jury or convince the remaining eleven jurors to return a verdict of not guilty.

When some juries send a defendant charged with possession to state prison for a staggering number of years, while other juries find another defendant in a similar case with parallel evidence, not guilty, this is an unpalatable outcome that can only be corrected by all juries becoming equally informed juries. This action could be the first step toward ending the outrageous, inhumane War on Drugs. If non-violent drug offenders with court dates pending would unify and insist upon a jury trial, the state would be unable to provide fair and speedy trials simply because of the enormous caseload. Additionally, if said cases were to go to trial, and juries continued to fail to convict, the state would be forced by the people to cease trying to gain convictions for non-violent drug offenses. That is exactly how alcohol prohibition ended and that is the only way drug prohibition will end too. Let's work together to make this happen!

South Carolina General Assembly

XXX^th Session, 200X-200X

[General Bill Proposal]

Sponsors:

Introduced in the House:

Introduced in the Senate:

Committee: Judiciary

Summary: AN ACT relative to an informed jury.

Date: XX/XX/XXXX

FULLY INFORMED JURY INSTRUCTION ACT

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina:

(1) Findings and Intent. Under the decisions of lower courts, supreme courts, and the United States Supreme Court, along with the collective wisdom of our founding fathers and American scholars, the jury has an undeniable right to judge both the law and the facts in controversy.

It's not only…(The juror's) right but also his duty, in that case, to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court. John Adams, 1771

I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution. Thomas Jefferson, 1789

The jury has a right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy. John Jay, 1794

Jurors should acquit even against the judge's instruction, if exercising their judgment with discretion and honesty they have a clear conviction that the charge of the court is wrong. Alexander Hamilton, 1804

The jury has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth of both the law and the facts. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Horning v. District of Columbia, 249 U.S. 596 (1920)

The pages of history shine on instances of the jury’s exercise of its prerogative to disregard instructions of the judge… U.S. v. Dougherty, 473 F 2d. 1113, 1139 (1972)

(2) The jury system functions at its best when it is fully informed of these prerogatives. The General Assembly wishes to perpetuate and reiterate the rights of the jury, as ordained under common law and recognized in the American jurisprudence, while preserving the rights of the criminal defendant.

(3) Recognizing that the concept of a jury arriving at a verdict at variance with the judge’s instructions is most often not tolerable from a judge’s point of view, yet nevertheless, a jury can and often does arrive at a verdict at variance with the judge’s instructions, the need to inform all jurors of their rights and duties is absolutely necessary to the establishment of fairness and equality under the law.

(4) Acknowledging and accepting that fallible men sometimes create fallible laws, the General Assembly concurs with, and now reiterates the opinion of Justice Byron White, specifically:

a. A right to a jury trial is granted to criminal defendants in order to prevent oppression by the Government.

b. Those who wrote our constitutions knew from history and experience that it was necessary to protect against unfounded criminal charges brought to eliminate enemies and against judges too responsive to the voice of higher authority.

c. Providing an accused with the right to be tried by a jury of his peers gave him an inestimable safeguard against the corrupt or overzealous prosecutor and against the compliant, biased, or eccentric judge. If the defendant preferred the common-sense judgment of a jury to the more tutored but perhaps less sympathetic reaction of the single judge, he was to have it. Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 155-156 (1968)

(5) Right of Accused. Jury Instruction. In all criminal proceedings where the defendant has made a timely request, the court shall explicitly instruct the jury of its inherent, unalienable right to disregard the law as well as the facts and to nullify.

(6) Text of Jury Instruction.

If you have a reasonable doubt as to whether the state has proved any one or more of the elements of the crime charged, you must find the defendant not guilty. However, if you find that the state has proved all of the elements of the offense charged beyond a reasonable doubt, you should find the defendant guilty. Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, the words for these instructions are chosen carefully. I emphasize the word “should” because you as jurors have the absolute right to decline to enter a verdict which could do violence to your conscience, even if you find that the state has proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt. On the contrary, if you find that the state has failed to prove any element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt, you must find the defendant not guilty.

(7) Effective Date. This act shall take effect - -

Freelance writer / author, Ed Haas, is the editor and columnist for the Muckraker Report. Get smart. Read the Muckraker Report. [http://teamliberty.net] To learn more about Ed’s current and previous work, visit Crafting Prose. [http://craftingprose.com]