Voir Dire, Jury Nullification, Dred Scott & Donald Trump
An excerpt from The Sociobiology of Liberty
April 20, 2024
One of the strongest protections against run-away government was crafted into the Constitution of the American Republic by founder James Madison. It was trial by a jury of twelve of your randomly chosen peers.
The strength of this protection is seriously underrated. Since conviction requires unanimous agreement by the jury, any one of the twelve jurors can block any prosecution by simply voting “not guilty.” They can do this based not only on the asserted guilt or innocense of the defendant, but on the validity and acceptability of the law itself.
This is called “Jury Nullification” and was widely understood, accepted, and regularly used until around the time of the Dred Scott Decision.
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IF randomly chosen, a jury of twelve peers protects any minority with more than 8% of the population because odds are that one of those randomly chosen jurors will be a member of that minority.
Further, Jury Nullification serves to block legislatures and especially the enforcement apparatus from engaging in questionable legal adventures, knowing that the 12th nullifying juror is waiting out in the hall. This helped keep the whole system straight and nipped bad, stupid, and unpopular legislaton (and prosecutorial shenanigans) in the bud. No sense in spending all that time and money on something a jury will likely cancel.
For a twisted example, in Special Prosecutor Robert K. Hur’s white-wash of Joe Biden’s massive illegal Afghanistan records retention, he declined to prosecute because, he concluded,
“…at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory. Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt.”
Especially in cases of bad, stupid, and unpopular legislation — and/or prosecutorial shenannigans — defense lawyers would argue dismissal of charges based on those aspects of the case rather than on guilt or innocense.
The Dred Scott Decision? Southern slave owners were frustrated because as a result of Jury Nullification, most randomly chosen northern juries would have at least one “not guilty” vote, thus refusing to return an escaped slave, even if the owner proved beyond the shadow of a doubt he “owned” the slave in question.
To satisfy the slave owners, northern courts developed “Voire Dire” which doesn’t exist in British Common Law which was the model our own James Madison used to craft Trial by Jury. “Voire Dire” amounts to official jury tampering because during that process, the judge will now always ask the jury pool something like, “Would you have a problem voting ‘guilty’ if you were convinced that Jill Defendant was guilty of the crime charged? If so, raise your hand.”
All potential jurors who raise their hands are summarily dismissed from jury duty. Thus juries are no longer randomly chosen and are instead, inherently biased in favor of The System. This has pretty much snuffed-out Jury Nullification.
With Voire Dire, the system could now empanel a jury which would return Dred Scott to his “owner,” and in fact, a jury which can now convict anyone of anything. Being bald or failing to genuflect correctly for example — or failing to wear your Star of David.
You might of course, fail to raise your hand. And you are not obliged to pay any attention to the judge’s jury instructions. You might not want to tell the other jurors, however, because the system has a deathly fear of Jury Nullification.
And then, further poisoning the credibility of the justice system, there’s so-called law-fare (war-fare using the “justice” system and courts) that’s finally been caught in the headlights, especially with the mostly ludicrous and hollow quasi-legal 2023 A.D. and 2024 prosecutorial shenannigans and attacks on Donald Trump and his supporters.
Winning, not justice, has long been the goal of the modern justice
apparatus. Unfortunately, that’s now come out of the closet big-time
with the unsavory and uncredible statutes dredged-up in the stampede to
stop Trump at all costs.
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With approximately 40,000 new laws on the books every year, law-fare, with Russian Dictator Joseph Stalin’s quip — “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime” as the guideline — is now a slam-dunk.
They won’t be able to stuff that genie back in the closet.
It seems with Trump, the “Justice” machine has gotten a bit more subtle with its Voire Dire. According to dismissed juror Kara McGee,
“One [of the questions] is: Do you have opinions about the ability for a former sitting president to be tried in a court of law? Which I think the way people answered that showed how they felt about case,” she said. “The other one was: Do you have any opinions about legal limits for campaign finance donation amounts? Which I believe was another one that was kinda meant to gauge feelings about the particular case,” she added…. Excused Juror Reveals Selection Process For Trump’s ‘Hush-Money’ Trial: ‘All Have Prior Opinions’ | ZeroHedge
If Jury Nullification hadn’t been snuffed by the invention of Voir Dire to return escaped slaves to their “owners” — and defense lawyers were able to argue the legitimacy of the law and the case as well as the facts of the case — would Trump even be in court? What do you think?
Does this give you any ideas for when you’re called for jury duty?
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