Lawyers, Law & the Courts

TRIALS

The Trial in American Life, Robert A. Ferguson, 2007.  Thanks to this post.  

JURY NULLIFICATION [Posted on Friday, March 31, 2023]

Start here.

How Jury Nullification Accelerates the Drug War’s Demise,” Steve Silverman, December 21, 2013.  Flex Your Rights.  Vis-a-vis your encounters with the police. 

8 Jury Nullification Objection Rebuttals,” Steve Silverman, May 23, 2014.  

TOM WOODS ON NULLIFICATION

Nullification,” on a key Jeffersonian principle, Tom Woods, March 9, 2018.  

Is Nullification Unconstitutional?” Tom Woods, February 7, 2013. 

Our Low IQ Elites Strike Again,” November 14, 2018. “the states have the power to nullify unconstitutional federal laws.”

Jury Nullification,” Stephan Kinsella, December 1, 2003.  

Why have juries largely failed in their intended function? There are some obvious and some less obvious reasons. First, juries have been stripped of their rightful, historical power to judge the law as well as the fact. For example, juries with the power to nullify unjust laws routinely acquitted those charged with violating the Fugitive Slave Law. A jury that must follow the law as explained by the judge, would have been forced to convict the liberators.”

But have juries really been stripped of their power to judge the law? We still have double jeopardy, which prevents any defendant acquitted by the jury from being tried again by the state for the same crime. The effect of this is that a juror still has the practical power and right to judge the law–all he has to do is refuse to convict.

I am not a litigator, as Ostrowski is, but as far as I am aware, jurors are not really “forced” to convict. The judge just does not tell them of their (practical) right to nullify the law. So as far as I can tell, the problem is not that jurors don’t have the right to nullify the law. They do. The problem is that they are ignorant. Why are they ignorant? Because the judge does not inform them; and because they are generally ignorant of constitutional, legal, or other rights. In part because of the horrible government-influenced/run education system, in part because of human nature. And most people, even if aware of their right, would not exercise it in most cases, e.g. drug or tax evasion convictions–because they think these laws are justified. That’s how they get enacted in the first place–most people are knaves, low-quality individuals who are willing to trample the rights of their fellow men.

 

Posted Sunday, February 19, 2023

How do lawyers stomach defending criminally corrupt clients?  Doesn’t that make these lawyers equally corrupt?  No. 

NATIONAL CRIME REPORTING
1.  Breaking911.
2.  Judicial Watch.
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ASSAULTS
1.  Santa Ana man killed after being hit over the head with a skateboard owned by a 20-year-old kid.
2.  Children Killed by Illegal Immigrants, Julia Hahn, Breitbart, July 25, 2016.
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LAWYERS
1. Tom Mesereau, Bill Cosby’s and Michael Jackson’s lawyer, got Michael Jackson acquitted.  
2.  Jonathan Turley.  A professor at George Washington University Law School, he has testified in United States Congressional proceedings about constitutional and statutory issues.  His blogHis Twitter page
3.  Robert Barnes.  His law siteHis Twitter page
4.  Robert GrulerHis Twitter pageHis law siteYouTube channel
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BAD LAWS
1.  Congress Wants to Send Teenagers to Prison for 15 Years for Sexting, The Anti-Media.org, June 1, 2017.
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BODIES of LAW
1.  Constitutional Law is thought of as being opposed to international law.
2.  Different areas of Law.
3.  Common-Law, America, and Britain.
4.  Case Law is referred to as Precedent law.
5.  Civil Rights Laws.
6.  Civil Law.  Civilian law or Roman law is a legal system originating in Europe, intellectualized within the framework of late Roman law, whose most prevalent feature is that its core principles are codified into a referrable system that serves as the primary source of law. This can be contrasted with common law systems whose intellectual framework comes from a judge-made decisional law which gives precedential authority to prior court decisions on the principle that it is unfair to treat similar facts differently on different occasions (doctrine of judicial precedent, or stare decisis)
7.  Customary Law.  Most customary laws deal with standards of community that have been long-established in a given locale. However, the term can also apply to areas of international law where certain standards have been nearly universal in their acceptance as correct bases of action, for example, laws against piracy or slavery (see hostis humani generis). In many, though not all instances, customary laws will have supportive court rulings and case law that has evolved over time to give additional weight to their rule as law and also to demonstrate the trajectory of evolution (if any) in the interpretation of such law by relevant courts.
8.  And other laws.
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BOOKS
1.  Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent, Harvey Silvergate, 2011.
2.  English Law, Frederic William Maitland.
3.  Law and Revolution, I: The Formation of Western Legal Tradition, Harold Berman, 1983.
4.  Aquinas: Moral, Political, and Legal Theory (Founders of Modern Political and Social Thought)
5.  The Law of Nations, Emmerich de Vattel, 1758.
6.  Authoritarian Sociopathy: Toward a Renegade Psychological Experiment, Davi Barker, 2014 (Free Press Publications, 2015), p. 4.
7.  “The Myth of the Rule of Law,” John Hasnas, 1995.  See his page from Georgetown.
8.  Trapped: When Acting Ethically Is Against the Law, John Hasnas, 2006.
9.  You Have the Right to Remain Innocent, James Duanne, 2016.
10.  Arrest-Proof Yourself, Dale C. Carson and Wes Denham, 2013.
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BOOKS on THE COURTS
1. Dumbing Down the Courts: How Politics Keeps the Smartest Judges Off the Bench, John R. Lott, Jr.
2. Acquittal: An Insider Reveals the Stories and Strategies Behind Today’s Most Infamous Verdicts, Richard Gabriel.
3. The Courts and the New Deal,” William Anderson, 2005.
4. Licensed to Lie, Sidney Powell, 2014.
5. The Price of Perfect Justice: The Adverse Consequences of Current Legal Doctrine on the American Courtroom, Macklin Fleming, 1974.
6.  No Crueler Tyrannies:  Accusation, False Witness, and Other Terrors of Our Times, Dorothy Rabinowitz, 2004.  Posted here Thursday, October 22, 2015.
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ARTICLES on the COURTS
1. “Why Does Our Justice System Fight So Hard to Keep Innocent People Behind Bars?” Joshua Holland, The Nation, January 24, 2018.  
2.  “Are Innocent People Pleading Guilty?” Walter Pavlo, Forbes Magazine, July 31, 2018.  On June 11, 2019, at 7:41am, William Anderson commented, “Every decent American should be ashamed of this monstrous evil. And I especially point my fingers at the legal class in this country, with special emphasis on judges and prosecutors. And defense attorneys are all-too-eager to sell out their clients. Don’t kid yourselves; this happens every day court is in session.”

3.  “Restitution-Based Criminal Justice in Japan,” Bruce L. Benson, 09/20/2019.
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FIGHT TRAFFIC TICKETS IN CALIFORNIA
1.  from Constitutionalist, John Shanahan of Southern California.  Thanks to Martin Hill.  More from Martin Hill.
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CRIMINAL DATABASES
1.  State of California Dept. of Justice, Public Records.
2.  California Dept. of Justice Databases.
3.  California Crime Data.
4.  Background Checks.
5.  Free Records Search.
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INNOCENCE or WRONGFUL CONVICTION PROJECTS
1.  Innocence Clinic of Michigan.  
2.  The Innocence Project.
3.  Wrongful Conviction Blog.
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LAW
1.  Legal Information Institute.

2.  Legal Zoom.  So what is Legal Zoom?  LegalZoom.com, Inc. is an American online legal technology and services company launched in 2001. It helps its customers create legal documents without necessarily having to hire a lawyer. Available documents include wills and living trusts, business formation documents, copyright registrations, and trademark applications. The company also offers attorney referrals and registered agent services. Wikipedia
3.  The Myth of the Rule of Law, John Hasnas, 1995.
4.  The Depoliticization of Law, John Hasnas, 2008.
5.  The Obviousness of Anarchy, John Hasnas, Chapter 8 . . . , 2008.
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LAWSUITS
1.  Peter Thiel, Lawsuits As a Service, Juan Martinez, Sept. 12, 2016.
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LEGAL DOCUMENTS
1.  Legal Documents listed by Wikipedia.
2.  General Requirements of Legal Documents.
3.  Sample Deposition:  Deposition.  What’s in a deposition?
4.  LawDepot’s Contracts.
5.  Contracts.
6.  Here is a list of hyperlinked samples.
7.  Find free legal documents here. https://formswift.com/free-legal-forms
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Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Positive Law is man-made law as opposed to divine law (which is penned and represented by men).

Natural Law
Natural & Unnatural Law Governments.

LIBERTY
1.  Liberty.menu.
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MOB VIOLENCE
1.  Mob Violence defined.
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POLICE
1.  William Norman Grigg, aka, “Thesaurus Rex,” was one of the most courageous writers and fearless investigators of police corruption that I’d ever known.  But there was more to the man, much, much more than the valiant reporter who gave us all the courage and insight on how to wrought leverage against a corrupt legal and policing system.  Will was the most gentle kind of man, an articulate reporter not just on the nefarious deeds of our costumed overlords, folks with $.69 worth of authority, but he knew justice and music better than anyone I’d known.   Which made his loss last year, April 12, 2017, a stunning loss that left a crater among the more articulate league of libertarians.  Thanks to the great Lew Rockwell, we’ve got Grigg’s work collected and indexed as well as Will’s Freedom in Our Time blog.  I will never forget his coverage of Bradley Manning after Manning released that video and other murderous malignancies of the military. And here is Will’s Facebook page, where he’d post inspiring songs, inspiring artists [one of his favorite bands was Thin Lizzy and lead singer, Phil Lyncott], artists whom I’d heard of back in the 70s and early 80s but did not follow or even knew their works to any detail. You should be able to find any interview of his at YouTube.  Will also posted the most tender of animal videos.  There was always something more tender to life in those videos he’d post.  Paul Huebl does the same thing with dogs or animals who are natural enemies.  Clever.  But it doesn’t come close to the tenderness of Will.  And he touched everyone’s heart like no other.  If you had a verbal exchange with him it left you feeling like the best personal friend you could imagine.  I recall once that I left a comment about Poco, whom I’d seen in the open air amphitheater at Universal Studies back with Eric’s cousin, Stephen, and Will penned the nicest reply to me, a guy he’d never met, but a guy who had plenty of affinity for good music.  In addition to being perhaps the best wordsmith, known worthily as Thesaurus Rex,” defender of freedoms against the aggressive state, Will was without a doubt a very gentle, judicious, and loving father.  

An excellent interview of Will by Ry Dawson was produced back on June 17, 2014.  A great point made in that interview is that when an officer says that he has “suspicion to search your car,” suspicion is not a legal justification.  It’s just suspicion.  Officers must have probable cause.   That’s an important distinction to make.  Apparently, the Deming, New Mexico police probed him, a phrase that meant not only a search of his body but something more disgusting.  There’s an official judicial statute, called Object Rape.  Here is Will’s coverage on Eckert’s ordeal.  He references qualified immunity.  All the presumptions benefit the aggressors.  It was in reference to the Aiyana Jones slaughter in Detroit.  Garrity Rule? where they develop a narrative that will exculpate the offending police officer.  It always exonerates the police officer.  “I feared for my life,” “I was worried for my safety, the safety of my partner, the safety of the public” or some version thereof.  Cops have no civil or moral authority to protect us.  None.  A police officer does not have to intervene.
2.  Ademo Freeman’s CopBlock.
3. Photography Is Not a Crime.
4. Here is an officer convicted of rape and oral sodomy. What is amazing about this is that a cop is actually convicted of a crime.  Oklahoma City cop convicted on 18 or 36 rape charges.  Turns out that this young man, Daniel Holtzclaw, was innocent.  Thanks to Janice Fiamengo for her tireless efforts at spotting then destroying the false indictments against men.  It is unconscionable how murderous the media are, how they conduct show trials on people on behalf of the criminal state.  

5.  Pine Bluff, Arkansas SWAT Team slaughters 107-year old man.  Then city awards officers medal of valor.  Incredible.  Written by the fearless genius, Will Grigg, July 27, 2016.  In addition to being one of the best writers I’ve read, Grigg’s legacy (February 4, 1963–April 12, 2017 [dying on the same date as my dad’s]), among many, will be that he did not allow people to die in vain, that he brings their story to a brilliant and appreciative light often done by extracting the truth, digit by crippled digit from the city, police, and judicial bureaucracies that protect criminals.  I don’t like to say that.
6.  DON’T TALK TO THE POLICE: THE POLICE AND LAWYERS DON’T.
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DON’T TALK TO THE POLICE
One good reason not to talk to the police–Lawyers and police charged with a crime never talk to the police.

Regent Law Professor James Duane gives viewers startling reasons why they should always exercise their 5th Amendment rights when questioned by government officials. Download his article on the topic at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

Cops cite the Miranda Warning, which says,

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you by the court. With these rights in mind, are you still willing to talk with me about the charges against you?”

Okay, so what you say and will be used against you in a court of law.  Remember that!!!  Because what you say CANNOT BE USED FOR YOU!!!

LEGAL OPTIONS
1.  Cease and Desist Court Orders.  See what you need to know.
2.  Hire a private investigator.  
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POLITICAL BLOGS
1.  The National Review, the former flagship publication of the Buckleyite wing of conservatism and NeoCon hotbed.  About the National Review, Daniel McAdams notes that “Where once learned men (and women) made their case from the heights of argumentation and erudition — a force to be reckoned with, like it or not — the publication has over the years accelerated to absurdity, devolved to inanity, shrunk into a whiny club of simpering sycophants screaming full force in an empty echo chamber. An exercise in intellectual onanism, today’s NRO has nothing to say about the future because it remembers nothing of the past. It is conservatism not only without a conscience but without an understanding of that which it purports to conserve.”
2.  Breitbart, conservative site.
3.  Lew Rockwell, the greatest libertarian site in the world.
4.  The Unz Review, the best conservative site on the internet.
5.  Breitbart, conservative.  As good as The Unz Review?  Sometimes better.
6.  The Weekly Standard is NeoCon headquarters.  “A neo-conservative (abbreviated as neo-con or neocon) is part of a U.S. based political movement rooted in liberal Cold War anticommunism and a backlash to the social liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s. These liberals drifted toward conservatism: thus they are new (neo) conservatives. They favor an aggressive unilateral U.S. foreign policy. They generally believe that elites protect democracy from mob rule. Sometimes the spelling is ‘neoconservative.'”
7.  The Hill, another NeoCon, Beltway site.
8.  Global Research,
9.  SourcWatch.org tracks corporations and PR spin.  Hmm.
10.  TeaPartyEconomist, Gary North’s economics, Christian, and cultural site.  Always reliable.
11.  Political Financing, OpenSecrets.org.  From Wenzel’s page: Rothfeld got paid big bucks for providing this type of advice to the Pauls. During the 2012 presidential race alone, Ron Paul’s campaign paid Rothfeld more than $7.6 million.
12.  George Soros funded non-profits.
13.  “In Nazi Germany, [25%] of all ruthless experiments on humans were conducted by academics from leading institutions of learning. I haven’t seen any figures for contemporary America, so go conjecture, but many Ph.D.s are steering the public down blind alleys to conceal their own crimes” says Alex Constantine.
14.  OnTheIssues.org.  Any politician on any issue.
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Posted on April 30, 2015
This is one of my favorite interviews.

The essay mentioned in the interview is Murray Rothbard’s “The Anatomy of the State.”  The other is Mark Skousen’s “Force vs.  Persuasion.”

Posted on April 2, 2015
Police Videos. Oh, boy.

Posted on Saturday, February 7, 2015
1998, Ron Paul on the US bombings in Kenya.
1998, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya bombings.

Posted on Saturday, January 24, 2015
Global Warming

I am fairly inured with the dishonesty of the media’s treatment of global warming. Newspaper and magazine subscriptions are down . . . way down and the gate-keepers of news are teetering both financially and professionally.  So these entities and agencies need to discuss a topic using the vaguest, most doubtful terms to present a topic whose foregone facts conclude and persuade that, yes, the earth heats up but it also cools down. And . . . and that CO2 production does not drive temperatures.  This is a hard pill to swallow for any of the do-gooders who want to view the world as one large pit. The planet is okay, folks.  But it seems that that story never reaches the ears or the labs of global warming alarmists.

Taken for instance this recent piece from the NY Times whose headline ran “2014 Breaks Heat Record, Challenging Global Warming Skeptics.”  This is the extent to which skeptics are treated with any respect.  I’ve heard that skeptics have been horribly harassed and denied positions, tenure, and whatnot.  The article opens:

“Last year was the hottest on earth since record-keeping began in 1880, scientists reported on Friday, underscoring warnings about the risks of runaway greenhouse gas emissions and undermining claims by climate change contrarians that global warming had somehow stopped.”

“runaway greenhouse gas emissions.”  So an increase in greenhouse gases?  Oh, my.  The sky is falling.  First, the greenhouse gases are not on the rise.  Second, they are harmless.  95% of greenhouse gases are water vapor that helps cool the earth’s surface.  Then the article retreats from its initial Mr. Nice Guy.  It opens by referring to the opposition as skeptics, a nice, respectful term.  Then it starts to get a little snide, calling skeptics “contrarians.” And no skeptic I have talked with or read has ever said or assumed that global warming “had somehow stopped.”  I wish the Times wouldn’t put words in people’s mouths.  Skeptics assert that the earth’s temperatures are in a constant state of flux.  Some might call those temperature fluctuations seasons, but who am I to assert such common sense?

The Times continues . . .

“Extreme heat blanketed Alaska and much of the western United States last year. Records were set across large areas of every inhabited continent. And the ocean surface was unusually warm virtually everywhere except near Antarctica, the scientists said, providing the energy that fueled damaging Pacific storms.”

Where’s the data?  No data.  No data? I was in Colorado in early November, about halfway through the fall season, and we were treated to an Arctic blast that came down through central Colorado that dropped temperatures to -2°; wind chill dropped the temperatures to -14°. Global warming?  At the end of October?  Further, I am sure that Alaskans and Sarah Palin may have even enjoyed warmer climates if that is, in fact, what occurred. So records were set.  Was anybody harmed by the high temperatures?  Did birds or bears go extinct as a result of the high temperatures?  So what if the state experienced record temperatures?  It doesn’t mean anything systemic about the planet.  But global warmers are alarmists and they’re afraid that if they don’t keep their fight front and center that funding will dry up.  And then what a statement follows, and by “what a statement,” I’m referring to the audacity of lying.  The line reads “And the ocean surface was unusually warm virtually everywhere except near Antarctica . . . . providing the energy that fueled damaging Pacific storms.”  The dishonesty is sickening.  “. . . damaging Pacific storms”?  Damaging to who?  What damage?  When is the Pacific Ocean for seafarers and coastal residents not damaging to some extent?  But the Times omits details.  Are you following what the Times does and how the global warming industry likes to scare readers?

And then the global warmers have their lieutenants.  In this case, a director at NASA, one Mr. Michael H. Frielich.

“Climate change is perhaps the major challenge of our generation,” said Michael H. Freilich, director of earth sciences at NASA, one of the agencies that track global temperatures.”

Climate change is perhaps the major challenge of our generation?  No, it’s not.  What about poverty?  Inflation?  World hunger?  Financial collapse? Global warmers, the alarmists that they are, will assert that each of these other concerns is directly related to global warming.  Jeeze, they have an answer for everything.

One thing that never gets addressed because the whole campaign is a scheme to pilfer productive countries is pollution.  Pollution is a separate issue from global warming.  Polluters do exist but they won’t be prosecuted.  Take the manufacturers whose factories pollute the air of the greater city population.  That one or two manufacturers have government connections and will not face prosecution.  They’ll settle out of court, if at all.  But you never hear global warmers target pollution.  Again, they will claim global warming is the same thing as pollution . . . or that they’re related.  The biggest thing that one must fight in this global warming canard is the body of lies presented falsely as facts and truths.  It is an abomination of journalism, and the writers know it.  For those who pen the canard are paid handsomely.

The article does offer up a skeptic, a Huntsville, Alabama atmospheric scientist, who admits reluctantly that, yeah, 2014 temperatures were record-setting.  Again, so?  In other words, what does it mean long-term or short-term?  Short-term absolutely nothing.  No animals in California died as a result of the Alaskan heat wave.  I mean these journals are trying to connect and tether all corners of the globe to global warming with their poor science and terrible journalism.

Such claims are unlikely to go away, though. John R. Christy, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville who is known for his skepticism about the seriousness of global warming, pointed out in an interview that 2014 had surpassed the other record-warm years by only a few hundredths of a degree, well within the error margin of global temperature measurements. “Since the end of the 20th century, the temperature hasn’t done much,” Dr. Christy said. “It’s on this kind of warmish plateau.”

All we get are educated opinions, but we’re never presented with meaningful details or facts presented in any kind of legitimate context.

Where are the real skeptics, writers, and scientists making observations that contradict the supposed record-setting heat of 2014?

1.  John Exeter, Economist, and friend of Gary North’s.
2.  George Galloway, Scottish critic, journalist, and local Scottish politician.

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POLITICAL CRIMINALS
1.  “FBI Rewrites Federal Law to Get Hillary Off the Hook?” Andrew McCarthy, July 5, 2016.
2.  “Why Hillary Wasn’t Indicted,” Ryan McMaken, July 5, 2016.
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PROSECUTORS (Posted, Wednesday, July 6, 2016)
1.  The Problem with Government Prosecutors, Michael N. Giuliano, May 13, 2015.  Michael N. Giuliano is an NY licensed attorney residing in Rochester NY. After attending law school in Buffalo, he became an attorney editor/managing publication editor at West Publishing/Thomson Reuters. Currently, he is publication editor for Corpus Juris Secundum, one of two national legal encyclopedias.
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3.  International Legal Theories.
4.  Putting Prosecutors Above the Law, Anthony Gregory, April 5, 2011.
5.  How To Prosecute Abusive Prosecutors, Brandon Buskey, NYT, Nov. 27, 2015.
6.  9th US Circuit Court of Appeals Judge, Judge Kozinski, Says It’s Time to Rein in Prosecutors, WSJ, Jacob Gershman, July 1, 2015.
7. 12 Reasons To Be Concerned for Our Criminal Justice System, Eugene Volokh, Washington Post, July 14, 2015.
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WRONGFUL CONVICTION
1. Wrongful Conviction Blog.  Here is one article on the number of wrongful convictions each year.  In 2012, it was 5,000 to 10,000.
2. The Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation.
3.  Martin Hill’s LibertyFight.com.
4.  Trucker’s Civil Rights, Don’t Wake Me Up.org.
5.  Marc Victor, Arizona Personal Injury Lawyer.

Marc Victor’s presentation starts at the 11-minute mark.  Check it out. It’s worth it.  He mentions a couple of points that need redressing.  1) Abolish mandatory minimum sentencing laws. 2) Reduce caseloads.  This won’t end until the drug war ends.
6.  The Innocence Project.

ALABAMA
1.  Anthony Ray Hinton.  What’s interesting in this Anthony Ray Hinton story is how the law applies to anybody on Death Row, guilty or innocent.  Prosecutors have way too much power over people’s lives.  Here is Hinton’s review of his case:

By Anthony Ray Hinton, Alabama death row survivor and a community educator with the Equal Justice Initiative.

I spent 30 years on Alabama’s death row for a crime I did not commit. If proposed changes to Alabama’s postconviction procedures under consideration by the state legislature had been enacted, I would have been executed despite my innocence.

I was wrongly convicted of two murders that took place in Jefferson County in 1985. Contrary to an inaccurate op-ed published by the Attorney General this week, there were no eyewitnesses to these crimes. I was convicted solely on the State’s assertion that a gun in my mother’s home was the weapon used to commit these two murders. Because my appointed lawyer failed to get adequate expert assistance to prove that the prosecutor’s claims about this weapon were false, I was convicted and sentenced to death.

Death row prisoners face enormous challenges in finding lawyers who will assist them. State law in Alabama limits compensation to lawyers to $1500 for this kind of representation and lawyers are unwilling to take on complex cases that will last years for that kind of pay. For 14 years, I could not find volunteer lawyers capable of providing the legal assistance I needed to prove my innocence.

Because the so-called “Fair Justice Act” now pending before the state legislature puts time restrictions on how long death row prisoners have to prove their innocence or a wrongful conviction, this legislation increases the risk of executing innocent people and makes our system even less fair.

Anthony Ray Hinton free after nearly 30 years on Alabama Death Row. 

Today truly is a Good Friday for Anthony Ray Hinton.  After nearly 30 years on Alabama’s death row, Hinton this morning walked out of prison a free man and into the arms of his sisters and friends.  He was freed when prosecutors dismissed the charges for his re-trial in the 1985 deaths of two fast-food managers after new testing on Hinton’s . . .

In my case, I was able to finally get the legal assistance I needed in 1999 when lawyers from the Equal Justice Initiative got some of the nation’s best firearm experts to test the weapon in my case and examine the bullets recovered from the crime scene. These experts had all agreed that there was no match between my mother’s gun and the crime evidence and no basis for convicting me of these murders. Instead of the State conducting its own tests as my lawyers requested, I spent another 16 years on death row because the Attorney General’s office refused to retest the evidence even though ethical conduct for state forensic experts dictated that such testing was required.

Only after the United States Supreme Court intervened and ruled in my favor did prosecutors finally retest the evidence and confirm the results my experts had presented 16 years earlier. I was released within a week after prosecutors agreed to drop the charges against me.

No one knows the hardship created by our inefficient system more than I do, no one. We do need significant reforms in Alabama but the legislation pending before the state House of Representatives is not the right way to proceed and would almost certainly have gotten me killed. Executions are carried out in the name of the people of Alabama and we should all be concerned if we make our system less reliable and the execution of innocent people more likely.

ALABAMA LAWS THAT IMPEDE JUSTICE:
1.  The Fair Justice Act.  
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ARIZONA

Robert Gruler.

ILLINOIS
1.  Illinois man imprisoned for 20 years on a wrongful conviction is released.  Scary how common this is.  Once out, then what?

MASSACHUSETTS
1.  Annie Dookhan: Government Chemist Falsifies Evidence in 40,000 Cases, Locking Just as Many in Long-term Prison Sentences, FilmingCops, 2013.
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This was a very fun and interesting testimony to watch and listen to. Enjoy.

MICHIGAN
These resources are needed for anyone convicted in any state.
1.  Innocence Clinic of Michigan.
2.  The Innocence Project.
3.  Wrongful Conviction Blog.

Lives the state has ruined:

1.  Lorinda Swain.  
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5. 

Crowdsourcing.  For investigative research.

The information and assessments made by Robert Barnes of Barnes Law.  Kyle Rittenhouse is stuck in jail until the end of September 2020 in Illinois.  What’s bizarre is that he tried to turn himself in, but the Kenosha, Wisconsin cops were too busy with rioters to arrest him, so he went home.  Then he went home to Illinois, and the cops there arrested him with quick charges according to Barnes.  Barnes’s view is that the videotape exonerates him across the board.  But the best evidence from a jury perspective or a judge perspective or a prosecutorial perspective–you’re going to be trying to persuade all three at different junctures–is the video evidence from when he is on the ground.  He’s looking at life in prison in Wisconsin.  The prosecution is going to pursue a provocation theory.  In Wisconsin, the prosecutor will have to prove that he went up to Kenosha with the intention to get  people to assault him in such a way that he could use deadly force against them.  It’s already happening.  If anyone knows Antifa or has studied Antifa with the Michael Strickland case a little bit of preview giving false statements they made outside of the court proceedings.  So Barnes defended Strickland.  Good, good.  This detail about Portland should perk up everyone’s self-defenses.  From Victoria Taft,

People stunned to hear about the old man chased down the streets of Portland by the mob were equally shocked to learn that the Portland Police Bureau stood by and did nothing.  Worse, the Bureau has invited the mob to file complaints against the old man in the car. Not a typo.

Barnes makes a good point: he says that the prosecution is going to get people to trash Rittenhouse.  They’ll lockdown anyone who went to school with Rittenhouse, anyone who was there on the scene.  So what does this means?  Does it mean that the prosecution has hired Antifa and Antifa-types to go dig dirt up on Rittenhouse?  So the other side is getting to other people to create this false provocation narrative, while Rittenhouse sits in jail for a month. 

 

 

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