August 18, 2005

Helena, MT — When Judge Gregory Hulse of Adel, Iowa, threatened Iowa citizens with arrest because they were distributing jury informational pamphlets, he was subverting both the First and Sixth Amendments of the Constitution, according to Iloilo M. Jones, Executive Director of the Fully Informed Jury Association, of Helena, MT (FIJA).

“He should know better,” exclaimed Jones, when she learned that Judge Hulse had heatedly threatened Iowans Frank Brown and Dell Lawrence with arrest when he discovered them distributing jury information outside the Adel school which was serving as a temporary courthouse.

In a scene reminiscent of the civil rights days, peaceful volunteers handing out information at a local school were threatened with arrest for exercising their civil rights. Nothing in the distributed literature included anything about any specific case being heard Judge Hulse’s court, or any other court, explained Jones. She said that judges usually want to control juries and verdicts, but that in accosting Brown and Dell on public grounds, the judge had “…gone over the top.”

The implication of “jury tampering” is not valid, said Jones, pointing out that citizens entering the courthouse (in this case, the school) are not jurors until they have been selected and sworn in as jurors.

“Judges who threaten citizens with arrest for handing out educational literature remind me of the racist judges who threatened civil rights workers for handing out literature on voter registration,” added Jones.

On August 15, Brown & Lawrence were using materials which highlight the historic, constitutionally-guaranteed power of the jury — a power that judges across the land have become adept at hiding from today’s jurors, according to Jones and FIJA literature. (available at www.fija.org)

“These Iowa citizens were doing nothing more than exercising their First Amendment right of free speech, generally educating fellow citizens and potential jurors about the importance of the Sixth Amendment right of Trial by Jury; and of the lawful and historic power of the jury to vote its conscience, even if in opposition to a judge’s instructions,” commented Jones. (According to FIJA literature, jurors need all relevant material, including all evidence the defense wishes to introduce. Juries have the right to consider the severity of the proposed sentence, and even to come to a personal judgment about fairness of the law in question, and whether or not to enforce it at all!)

Jurors have often been called the fourth branch of government because they do have veto power against bad laws or the misuse of the law, or, as Jones explained, “The power of the jury to deliver a conscientious verdict and to judge the law is, above all, a political issue. The jury has a political role to play in protecting the rights of citizens accused of a crime, and in judging the acceptability of the law under which the citizen is charged. By exercising their veto as jurors, private citizens fulfill the roles the founders established, as a check and balance on government abuses of power, in much the same way we expect the three other branches of government to check and balance one another.

“If the jury is to dispense justice and fairness,” Jones said, “it is essential that they have access to all evidence — anything — that helps them carefully consider their verdict. It is an essential element of our system of constitutional law, that jurors understand their historic power to refuse to convict a defendant if they believe that the law in question is unfair or misapplied; or that the prosecutor is overzealously charging the defendant; or that the potential penalty is all out of proportion to the supposed crime.”

Ms. Jones said it is a disappointing and disillusioning state of affairs when a judge, who is a public servant who is supposed to know and protect individual civil rights, tries instead to intimidate and mislead not only jurors and potential jurors, but also private, peaceful citizens, by trying to restrict what they can say in a public area, well outside of the courtroom — a place where the judge has no jurisdiction at all.

Contact: American Jury Institute/Fully Informed Jury Association
Post Office Box 5570 Helena, Montana 59604
406-442-7800 or 406-442-9332 FAX
www.fija.org web site fijamail@earthlink.net AJI/FIJA email address