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This was written before the Bill of Rights, but some of these warning were right on.
1 posted on 03/25/2005 7:12:40 PM PST by Dan from Michigan
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To: Dan from Michigan

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.


2 posted on 03/25/2005 7:16:35 PM PST by cripplecreek (I'm apathetic but really don't care.)
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To: Dan from Michigan
The supreme court then have a right, independent of the legislature, to give a construction to the constitution and every part of it, and there is no power provided in this system to correct their construction or do it away. If, therefore, the legislature pass any laws, inconsistent with the sense the judges put upon the constitution, they will declare it void; and therefore in this respect their power is superior to that of the legislature

Scalia called this the basis of 'Marbury vs Madison'.
3 posted on 03/25/2005 7:18:56 PM PST by Borges
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To: Dan from Michigan

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



4 posted on 03/25/2005 7:41:13 PM PST by ewin
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To: Dan from Michigan

But, but, but, the Constitutional lawyers around here never mentioned this, so it cannot be true!


5 posted on 03/25/2005 7:43:22 PM PST by frogjerk
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To: Dan from Michigan

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.


7 posted on 03/25/2005 7:45:56 PM PST by Natural Law
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To: Dan from Michigan

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.




8 posted on 03/25/2005 7:47:51 PM PST by cripplecreek (I'm apathetic but really don't care.)
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To: Dan from Michigan
Judges today think they're part of the international elite. The law of the people is sooooo beneath them. I know a lawyer who wants to do away with the jury system and have paid professionals (read "liberal elites") be juries. This is a profession that's forgotten their power comes from the people. They are not our philosopher kings. They are not Gods.

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.

10 posted on 03/25/2005 7:57:14 PM PST by GOPJ (Liberals haven't had a new idea in 40 years.)
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To: Dan from Michigan

BUMP for reference


12 posted on 03/25/2005 8:21:20 PM PST by Nowhere Man (I hope you enjoyed your dinner, Terri Schiavo can't. B-()
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To: Dan from Michigan

Thank you for an excellent post.


13 posted on 03/25/2005 9:20:44 PM PST by DanielLongo (don't tread on me)
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marker


14 posted on 03/26/2005 1:47:04 AM PST by GretchenM (Diplomacy is the art of letting the other fellow have your way--former Canadian PM Lester B. Pearson)
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To: Dan from Michigan

Did you get a court order to post this? How dare you otherwise...


15 posted on 03/26/2005 1:51:18 AM PST by nickcarraway (I'm Only Alive, Because a Judge Hasn't Ruled I Should Die...)
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To: MHGinTN; Coleus; nickcarraway; narses; Mr. Silverback; Canticle_of_Deborah; ...
Pro-Life Pro-Constitution PING

Please FreepMail me if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.

16 posted on 03/26/2005 2:39:45 AM PST by cpforlife.org (The Missing Key of The Pro-Life Movement is at www.CpForLife.org)
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To: Dan from Michigan
This will certainly give the first clause in that article a construction which I confess I think the most natural and grammatical one, to authorise the Congress to do any thing which in their judgment will tend to provide for the general welfare, and this amounts to the same thing as general and unlimited powers of legislation in all cases.

Can't say we weren't warned...

17 posted on 03/26/2005 8:42:33 AM PST by garbanzo (Free people will set the course of history)
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To: Dan from Michigan

Bump for later


18 posted on 03/26/2005 7:57:03 PM PST by Colorado Doug
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To: All

BTTT


20 posted on 03/26/2005 8:10:32 PM PST by Dan from Michigan ("Mama, take this judgeship off of Greer, he can't use it, anymore")
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To: Dan from Michigan

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 ?


22 posted on 03/28/2005 10:36:05 AM PST by John Lenin
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To: Dan from Michigan

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.


23 posted on 03/28/2005 11:05:51 AM PST by atomicweeder
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To: All

BTTT


25 posted on 03/30/2005 5:40:20 PM PST by Dan from Michigan ("Mama, take this judgeship off of Greer, he can't use it, anymore")
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To: Dan from Michigan
From part 1, paragraph 3:

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".

26 posted on 04/07/2005 9:34:02 PM PDT by secretagent
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