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by Francis Steffan
TheAmericanVoice.com
editor@theamericanvoice.com
The prosecution against the
Juror, Carol Asher is over. The court decided that the State did not show the
elements necessary to proceed with a perjury case against her.
That is the good news.
The bad news is that the
premise of the judge being the ruler of law and the jury being the ruler of
facts does not get a public challenge in the light of day.
There are many disturbing
considerations about this case, some concerning the jury have been mentioned in
the prior article, but there is more to be concerned about than just the
intimidation of juries to render accused people to State punishment regardless
of the moral, constitutional or lawful misgivings of individual jurists and
punishments of juries for not bringing back favorable, to the State, rulings.
There is also the concern
that both law enforcement and prosecutors have become so accustomed to easy
convictions from uninformed and intimidated juries that they no longer
feel it necessary to go to the trouble of actually proving the elements of a
crime....cops say its true...judge says he broke the law....gee, golly I guess
he has to be guilty. Law enforcement and prosecutors seem to be so
confident that the judge will rule to exclude evidence that could demonstrate
innocence and admit evidence unlawfully and/or unconstitutionally, discovered
by a simple declaration. And they have good reason to be confident.
So, we have law
enforcement, State paid employees, prosecutors, State paid employees, and
judges, State paid employees, deciding what evidence the jury is allowed to
see, what testimony the jury is allowed to hear and what the written
"law" that the accused is charged with violation actually means. I
might add that every agency named above has a direct or indirect (financial,
political, resource allocation, etc...) interest in accused people being
convicted. This is a huge problem.
In order for the above to
be a widespread and enduring success one other element has been corrupted,
assistance of counsel.
When I write
"assistance of counsel" I mean effective and competent counsel. There
is a mountain of evidence that demonstrates every single man or woman
"provided an attorney" by the court is denied "Assistance of
Counsel" as commanded within the Sixth (6th) amendment to the Constitution
for the United States of America.
It is demonstrated in this
case, and nearly every case in which a "public defender" is the
accused so-called assistance of counsel, that the attorney for the accused was
ineffective, incompetent or negligent. An attorney who e-mailed me critiquing
the article by writing, "Your article shows a lack of understanding of
criminal law" also went on to point out that, "the defense had at
least two chances before trial and one after trial to attack the search."
By this attorney, who doesn't think much of my understanding of law, points out by his own analysis that the defense
attorney had at least three chances to challenge the search and failed to do
so.
This attorney professes
that it is somehow "dangerous" "for a jury to make up the law as
they go along" because "Jurors are rarely lawyers or in possession of
specialized legal knowledge."
So, basically, us average
Joe's out here are too ignorant to read and understand a law.
"The right of the
people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants
shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and
particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to
be seized."
See, most of you, who are
not attorneys, are too stupid to see within the above paragraph where it says
"except in the car." You poor uneducated ignoramus's probably think
"shall not be violated" is a command, as legal dictionary's state it
is, not a discretionary suggestion that only applies when it is convenient and
does not interfere with the government enforcers ability to collect
evidence.
Let's just for one minute
accept this attorney's evaluation of your average jury. The average Jury is
ignorant of the law and does not possess the specialized legal knowledge
necessary to make up the law as you go, as attorney's
and the judge apparently do.
Where does this leave the
accused attorney's performance? At least three opportunities missed to
challenge the search and suppress evidence gathered based on that search. The
fact there was no evidence tying the accused to the drugs could have also been
used to suppress the evidence. Seems to me it would be more difficult, not
impossible in today's courts, to convict someone for possession of drugs if all
evidence of drugs is suppressed. Remember, the accused had an
attorney who supposedly possess specialized legal knowledge and has been
accepted into the court to practice his "craft" expected to have
knowledge of the law.
What would happen to you if
you conducted yourself at your job as this "defense attorney" did at
his/her job? What about the prosecutor or the enforcers? You would be warned and
fired if you didn't straighten up.
One more problem exposed by
this case, no accountability on the part of the State players. No one is
running to hold the defense attorney responsible for ineffective counsel and
negligence or the enforcers for not getting the evidence to prove their
accusations, not the prosecutor for not realizing he/she could not prove all
the elements of the crime. NO they go after a lone juror, one out of four, who
saw through their lack of evidence and shoddy prosecution.
It is clear that the INTENT
of the Jury Trial, demonstrated by many court rulings provided within the prior
article on this case, as laid out in the LAW of the land, the Constitution, and
within the several State's Constitutions is that the JURY has the power, prerogative
and Right to disregard the instructions on the law given by the judge.
As far as I know it is
still a precept in American Jurisprudence that the letter of the law does not
override the intent of the law, and any law repugnant to the Constitution is
null and void from it's inception. Enforcing by
punishment the "idea" of the judge being the judge of the law and the
jury being the judge of the facts is not within the limits set forth within the
Constitution and truly puts anyone who has taken an Oath to support the
constitution in a position of perjury of Oath who promotes that
"idea."
We, as The People, need to
stop accepting the "idea" that we are too stupid to decide what is
right and what is wrong. We need to stop accepting the "don't you worry
your little head about the law " mentality pushed
on us by the legal profession. We, The People, need to start educating our
fellow people to the power we, as The People, are charged to exercise when we
sit as a Jury and the responsibility to demand all the information we conclude
is necessary for our educated decision.
We need to point out that
the law enforcers regularly lie in order to foment a conviction and are not
held accountable even when caught red-handed. We need to remind The People that
we are all innocent until every element of a crime can be proved beyond a
reasonable doubt.
Start now, it is too late
when you or a friend is about to go to trial and you think you are going to sit
outside the "justice building" and pass out jury nullification
material. Start now, take out ads in your local newspapers, try
to get on local talk radio, put up a website.
Don't wait for someone else
to do it.
by Francis Steffan Carol Asher is a 66-year old
retired nun and school teacher who volunteers tirelessly as an assistant to
Retired Phoenix, Arizona Police Officer Jack McLamb.
Her energies are siphoned into the organization, Aid & Abet Police & Military organization. As a hard
worker and a caring person who strives to help others, she is now facing the possibility of serving 14 years in prison. What could a retired nun
and school teacher possibly do to warrant fourteen years in prison?. She committed what must
be considered near blasphemy among American Judges these days; in the privacy
and sanctity of the jury deliberation room she may have told the other jurors
that ultimately, she answered to a Higher Authority than the judge. In retribution for Carols
alleged blasphemy against a wannabe god of the Idaho judiciary, she has been
charged by Lawrence G. Wasden, who is the Idaho
Attorney General; by Stephen A. Bywater, who is
Deputy Attorney General, Chief, Criminal Division and by Justin D. Whatcott, who is Deputy Attorney General--all of whom
pretend to work for the people of the state of Idaho. They have charged her
with felony perjury for doing her duty as a juror within the confidentiality
of the jury deliberation room. Am I Serious?? Sadly YES. Here are some facts as we
have them that have led to this point:. A man was stopped for a
traffic infraction while driving a company owned truck and during the stop as
found to have an outstanding warrant against him. He locked the company
vehicle as he was to be arrested for the warrant. The Officers decided to
have the vehicle impounded and then took the keys away from him, unlocked the
vehicle and conducted an "inventory
search," which is a necessary device to shield the impounding department
from being sued for stealing people’s things
out of their car or, for less credible
reasons as “safety purposes.” During the inventory search, a small
amount of an illegal drug was allegedly discovered within the company
vehicle. Carol Usher was summoned
for jury duty and selected to sit on the case described above. She
listened to the evidence of the case and conscientiously the facts, and
American jurisprudence of the accused being innocent until the State can
prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. However, the prosecutor and judge
must have considered this case, to be a
slam-dunk, young-male-minority drug conviction. Carol conducted herself as a
thinking, attentive, and conscientious juror, who did her best to It has been reported to
The American Voice that during deliberation Carol had sent a note to the
judge asking to clarify how the warrantless search
was valid, since it had not been based on any probable cause of any crime
being committed but under the pretext of inventorying the contents of the
locked company vehicle could muster constitutional validity. In reply, the judge
responded that he, the prosecutor, and the defense attorney had decided in
the Judge’s chambers that the search was lawful. Deliberation continued
but Carol had additional difficulties identifying any evidence that actually
tied the accused to the illegal drugs. As mentioned previously, the accused
was driving a company vehicle that had been driven by others within the
company prior to the accused's use of it. The
prosecution also failed to produce any evidence of the accused's
fingerprints on the bag containing the alleged illegal drugs. As Carol
discussed this lack of evidence with her fellow jurors within the supposed
sanctity and privacy of the jury deliberation chamber she reportedly
mentioned to her fellow jurors that she still had a problem with the
constitutionality of the search in addition to the lack of evidence produced
by the prosecution. The
jury foreman jumped up and told Carol that she shouldn't even think about the
constitutionality of the search because the judge had already decided that it
was lawful. It is further reported that Carol's reply to him was that she
answers to a higher authority than the Judge. At the end of their deliberation, Carol and three other jurors had decided that the evidence against the accused
left reasonable doubt of the his guilt and,
therefore, he was acquitted. Another
juror, perhaps unhappy that Carol honestly said what Apparently
in This
is arguably an extreme example; however, the decision to allow certain
evidence to be considered by the jury and other evidence to be withheld is a
common tactic used by prosecutors in league with their fellow state employees
that judges use to control the facts that only they think should be
presented. The
argument made and advice given by a judge who writes for "The Judges
Journal," Frederic B. Rodgers, states ,"The jury oath I give to
jurors selected to try the case makes them promise to respect and follow the
applicable law in finding the facts. The court's job, not the jury's, is to
determine what laws apply." and that "Violating the jury oath may
subject you to prosecution for perjury." One
must ask where exactly have judges developed this
notion that it is the "courts" -- actually meaning then, the Judge’s--prerogative
to decide what a law written and defined by the legislature actually means.
One would Nevertheless,
you have a decision to make. What kind of nation do you want to live in? What
kind of nation do you want your children to inherit? Will it be one where
probate judges turn disabled men and women
into chattel to be destroyed at their will
alone? Will it be one where members of the
jury are required to sign an oath under penalties of perjury to only rule
according to a judge’s OPINION of what a law
means? Will it be one where judges (Judge Jose
Cabranes, 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals)
sink to the level of criticizing the decisions of Northern Juries prior to
the Civil War refusing to convict slaves on escape charges that may have
forced their return to their owners? Today’s judges would have one believe that unrestrained power of the Jury will be the
destruction of society and the ringing in of anarchy. Perhaps the judges of King George felt the same? The founders of this nation and our long standing Supreme Court rulings indicate
otherwise. Whatever your view is of the men who founded this nation, one
thing seems certain: They realized that there is a difference between being
guided by "feelings" and being guided by conscience and they
trusted the Jury. "The
jury has a right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy." "The
jury has the right to determine both the law and the facts." The
jury has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth of both law and fact." "The
law itself is on trial quite as much as the cause which is to be decided." "The
pages of history shine on instance of the jury's exercise of its prerogative
to disregard instructions of the judge..." "You
have a right to take upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the
law as well as the fact in controversy." "The
JURY has an unreviewable and unreversible
power...to aquit in disregard of the instructions
on the law given by the trial judge..." "The opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide
what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their
own sphere of action, but for the legislative and executive also in their
spheres, would make the judiciary a despotic branch." -Thomas Jefferson If
every juror who serves on a jury must guard his or her tongue in the privacy
of the jury deliberation room, fearful of making a statement which will be
reported to the prosecutor or the defense attorney or judge by some jury
snitch, then what happened to the privacy, the sanctity, and the
confidentiality of jury deliberations? Have
we gone back to a time in this land where jurors will be punished by the
"court" for refusing to render a verdict according to the demands
of the government, when jurors will be punished if they refuse to ignore
their conscience and blindly accept the orders of the judge as the supreme
law of the land? Have we reached a time when to hold the moral and religious
reservations held by the majority of the people in this country- those
reservations which allow us all to consult our own conscience, to rely upon
our own guiding principles and religious teachings - must be ignored, set
aside? In
a time when there is credible evidence of widespread election rigging and
blatant bribery, now called lobbying, and an unprecedented level of
impropriety and influence of special interest groups within government, not
always American groups either, and a frightening shift in government policy
towards the good of corporate interests and away from the interests of the
people of the several States of the union we as the People need to hold on to
and defend our right to be impartial jurists free to decide what is just by
the law, the facts and our conscience. Jurors,
as the direct representatives of the people, hold no personal agenda during
any trial and most certainly not the government's agenda. Let us not forget
that the prosecutors, judges, arresting officers --
and the forensic investigators in most cases --
are all a part of, and receive their paychecks from, government, with
personal power bases to build and personal careers to protect through the
"productivity" of successful prosecutions resulting in convictions.
Jurors have no such stake in the outcome, and Juries
were intended as the protectors against government's power-hungry, expansion, and the resultant rise of tyranny. The primary role of our jurors remains that or serving as
an independent body to protect private citizens from dangerous,
unconstitutional government laws and actions. Many existing laws erode and
deny the rights of the people. Jurors protect against tyranny by refusing to
convict harmless people. Juries are the last peaceful defense of our civil
liberties. Is
this a failure of government employees of the state of It
certainly isn't a failure on the part of Carol Asher who stood up and did her
duty of legitimately exercising her rights of reason and conscience. All
thinking people should rise to her defense, in righteous indignation, and in
outrage over the arrogant, despotic actions of state Attorney-General Wasden, and his staff, all of whom are complicit in an
official conspiracy to deny God given rights, in defiant opposition to the
clear dictates of our Constitution and long standing American jurisprudence.
Because if we do not stand up for Carol Asher now….we are all NEXT. |