http://www.caught.net/juror.htm
This stuff should be taught in school. There's some interesting stuff about the 1895 supreme court ruling that effectively changed the role of judges from simple mediator to lawgiver.
The only power left to restrain judges is a fully informed jury, especially one that knows it has the obligation to not only judge the facts, but the law as well.
see: http://www.fija.org and http://www.caught.net/juror.htm
But, but, but, the Constitutional lawyers around here never mentioned this, so it cannot be true!
The Anti-Federalist Papers were quite prevalent and as widely taught and quoted as the Federalist Papers before the Civil War. Following the Civil War they slipped into near oblivion. In fact, most copies were even removed from libraries and destroyed.
There are all kinds of warnings of judicial tyranny. The case of Sparf and Hansen v. U.S., 156 U.S. 51, 174 (1894) is the one where the supreme court ruled that the jurors need not know their rights.
Also found some interesting quotes about judicial tyranny and the juries that were supposed to be the safegaurd against it.
U.S. vs. DOUGHERTY (1972) [D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals]: The jury has...."unreviewable and irreversible power...to acquit in disregard of the instructions on the law given by the trial judge."
THOMAS JEFFERSON: "To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy."
THOMAS JEFFERSON (1789): "The new Constitution has secured these [individual rights] in the Executive and Legislative departments: but not in the Judiciary. It should have established trials by the people themselves, that is to say, by jury."
SAMUEL CHASE (Justice, U. S. Supreme Court and signer of the Declaration of Independence; in 1804): "The jury has the right to determine both the law and the facts."
Justice OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (Horning v. District of Columbia, 249 U.S. 596 (1920)): "The jury has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth of both law and fact."
U.S. v. DOUGHERTY, 473 F.2d. 1113, 1139 (1972): "The pages of history shine on instances of the jury's exercise of its prerogative to disregard instructions of the judge...."
U.S. SUPREME COURT (State of Georgia v. Brailsford, 3 DALL. 1,4): "...it is presumed, that the juries are the best judges of facts; it is, on the other hand, presumed that the courts are the best judges of law. But still, both objects are within your power of decision. You have a right to take upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy."
THEOPHILUS PARSONS (2 Elliot's Debates, 94; 2 Bancroft's History of the Constitution, p. 267): "If a juror accepts as the law that which the judge states then that juror has accepted the exercise of absolute authority of a government employee and has surrendered a power and right that once was the citizen's safeguard of liberty, -- For the saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of a vanished liberty is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a saving hand while yet there was time."
LORD DENMAN, (in C.J. O'Connel v. R. ,1884): "Every jury in the land is tampered with and falsely instructed by the judge when it is told it must take (or accept) as the law that which has been given to them, or that they must bring in a certain verdict, or that they can decide only the facts of the case."
We would not have reached this point if people knew their rights. Judges and attorneys aren't going to tell us of these rights because they don't have to. They aren't going to tell us because we might actually regain control of our courts if we knew our rights.
Every two bit thugocracy has "judges" -- and their law is not legitimate because it doesn't come from the governed. If our judges set themselves above the people, they'll lose what respect they have left.
BUMP for reference
Thank you for an excellent post.
marker
Did you get a court order to post this? How dare you otherwise...
Please FreepMail me if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.
Can't say we weren't warned...
Bump for later
BTTT
Time to wake up, most politicians are lawyers and know exactly what is going down. Is this a backdoor move by our government to destroy the constitution (what's left of it) and allow international law to take over ?
There is a solution. The one thing the Supreme Court cannot overrule is the Constitution itself (although they certainly interpret it loosely).
We can have a Constitutional Amendment that puts the ultimate power back on Congress. If Congress votes, in quorum, by a 2/3 majority (House and Senate independently) to overrule a Supreme Court decision, then it's overruled.
I think such an amendment would have a lot of support among the people.
BTTT
The judges in England, it is true, hold their offices during their good behavior, but then their determinations are subject to correction by the house of lords; and their power is by no means so extensive as that of the proposed supreme court of the union. I believe they in no instance assume the authority to set aside an act of parliament under the idea that it is inconsistent with their constitution. They consider themselves bound to decide according to the existing laws of the land, and never undertake to control them by adjudging that they are inconsistent with the constitution-much less are they vested with the power of giv[ing an] equitable construction to the constitution.
I don't understand the meaning of "equitable construction to the constitution".