From: kmarko@boi.hp.com (Kurt Marko)
Subject: Fully Informed Jury Information
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 17:30:04 GMT
Distribution: us
Organization: United States Citizen
Followup-To: talk.politics.misc

The following are excerpts taken from _the FIJAactivist_, Newsletter
of the Fully Informed Jury Association.  For more information about
the association, contact: FIJA 
			  P.O. Box 59
			  Helmville, MT  59843
			  
What is "FIJA"?

"FIJA" means Fully Informed Jury Amendment, Act, or Association.

FIJA would require by state law that judges resume telling jurors
about their right to vote their consciences when deciding on a
verdict.  Jurors would have to be told they have the right to acquit
someone because they believe that the law itself is wrong, or is being
wrongly applied, even when the facts of the case would support a
conviction. 

FIJA is also the name of the organization sponsoring this and related
jury-rights amendments.  But FIJA's ultimate goal is to tell everyone
the truth about the rights of jurors, whether or not laws requiring
that judges "read them their rights" are ever passed.

Accordingly, FIJA publishes both informational and political
materials, assists grass roots efforts to inform jurors of their
rights, assists state-level lobbying and/or ballot-issue efforts to
put FIJA up for a public vote, and sponsors conferences toward these
goals. 

WE WANT EVERY POTENTIAL JUROR IN AMERICA TO KNOW THE TRUTH!

John Adams, speaking of the juror in 1771 said:  "it is not only his
right, but his duty...to find the verdict according to his own best
understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition
to the direction of the court."  (Quoted in _Yale Law Journal_, 74
(1964):173.


Proposed Language:  A FIJA Statute

(1) In any criminal trial, the court must inform the jurors of their
    right to judge both law and facts in reaching a verdict.  The
    court must also inform civil trial jurors of their right to judge
    the law as well as the facts whenever government, or any agent of
    the government, is a part to the trial.

    Trial jurors must acknowledge by oath that they understand this
    right, and no party to the trial may be prevented from encouraging
    them to exercise it.  No potential juror may be disqualified from
    serving on a jury because he expresses a willingness to judge the
    law or its application, or to vote according to conscience.

    Failure to so inform the jury, or any other infraction of these
    rules of procedure, is grounds for mistrial and another trial by
    jury. 

(2) Before the jury hears a case, and again before jury deliberation
    begins, the court shall inform the jurors of their rights in these
    words:  "As jurors, your first responsibility is to decide whether
    the defendant has broken the law.  If you decide that he has, but
    that you cannot in good conscience support a guilty verdict, you
    are not required to do so.

    "To reach a verdict which you believe is just, each of you has the
    right to consider the motives of the defendant, and the extent to
    which the defendant's actions have actually caused harm or
    otherwise violated your sense of right and wrong.  If you believe
    justice requires it, you may also judge both the merits of the law
    under which he has been charged and the wisdom of applying that
    law to the defendant.

    "Accordingly, for each charge against the defendant, even if
    review of the evidence strictly in terms of the law would indicate
    a guilty verdict, you have the right to find him not guilty.  The
    court cautions that with the exercise of this right comes full
    moral responsibility for the verdict you bring in."


Proposed Language:  A FIJA Amendment

    Whenever state or local government is one of the parties in any
    trial by jury, the court must inform the jurors that in addition
    to their responsibility to judge the facts of the case, they have
    an inherent right to judge the law itself.
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc