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Post-Mortem on the Charlie Lynch Trial
Friday, August 8th, 2008Includes an interview with the jury forewoman.
27 Responses to “Post-Mortem on the Charlie Lynch Trial”
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Please, Mr. Balko, may I have the link?
“if that’s what you say, I have no idea”.
Every person needs to be taught about nullification. And, the juries need to be informed about punishment, particularly jail time.
What a sickening case this is.
Fuck the DEA and the War on Drugs.
I am very curious on what the jury instructions were.
How many more dispensary owners are facing similar indictments? Why Lynch and not someone else? And where is the “great” State of California in all of this?
Fuckin crying shame is what it is. Makes my stomach turn. I risked my life defending this crap overseas?
The first step to fighting the war on drugs is to not take on the DEA or Federalies. These are the long fingers on the long hand of the government.
To fight any war, you need to go after their supply line – which in this case is the many horrible court decisions that have extended the Federal government’s power over the states by way of the Commerce Clause decisions.
If States wish to exert their rights, they need to push the hand of the Federal government off their shoulders by unbinding themselves from federal funding mechanisms they’ve been suckling up to for years now.
Poor Jury foreperson. Not too bright there.
The key isn’t whether the DEA had an obligation to tell him that they would take action, but wehter he honestly relied on their representations in violating the law and whether he would have not violated the law without their representations. It has absolutely nothing to do with anyone’s obligations to informa nother person of anything.
Yes the DEA could have said “we have no position on that.” But they didn’t and he relied on what they said. Well, either he did or he’s lying about it. But you already said he seemed like a nice man, so you probably would believe him. But rather than believe him or not believe him you made it out to be a question of whether the DEA was *obligated* to do something or the other which has no bearing on anything. Hope you know that you’re complete incapacity to understand the main theory of the defendant’s case in anything resemlbing a logical fashion sent an innocent man to jail for a very long time. Sleep well.
Nick T: as far as I understand it the whole idea of the jury system is to find the least-informed, least-capable but most impressionable individuals and put them in judgment. Come on — the jury isn’t even required to give a written justification with the reasons for their ruling, citing both the evidence and the law. How much moral weight can you attach to a court that cannot coherently explain its verdicts?
I suppose it’s just unfortunate coincidence that this guy’s last name is Lynch.
Voir dire makes a mockery of the concept of jury trials.
The jury Foreperson’s statements are proof positive of the effectiveness of ‘dumbing down’…and of the screaming necessity for the re-introduction of civics and rhetoric classes in public schools.
Remember the Ed Rosenthal trial? Recall what happened when the jurors found out they’d been hoodwinked by the Feds? They publicly denounced both the prosecution and the judge for keeping them in the dark about him being a duly authorized provider under California law. Is there something in the water in the Foreperson’s area that they don’t have in Rosenthal’s neighborhood?
When called to jury duty ,I tried to get out during voir dire. I told them of my contempt of the current court system’s actions in general. I was accepted. Now I’m glad I stayed because I was able to nullify a pot case. This was an open and shut case, the defendant had a small bag of pot. There were six jurors. Three of us, without any discussion, went right for not guilty. The three others couldn’t understand our position. The “state” had decided not to send the dope to a lab for testing. They said in court that they were confident that we could tell it was pot. The “state” was willing to spend money on incarceration but not testing!
This was the hook! We made it clear to the three for guilty jurors that if the state was willing cut corners in such a small case, what then would they do to get a larger conviction?
He got off.
If you want to nullify, find something to show the hard liners that the prosecution of the case wrong.
perlhaqr, you are SO right.
They should just call them ‘Juries of the people most likely to convict.’
What a fucking sheep! The Forewoman is exactly the kind of ignorant boob that prosecutors want on a jury. Jury trials are absolutely useless if the average IQ of a juror is 80. It’s “Justice Theater.”
Why are juries not informed about Jury Nullification?
When I reported for jury duty there was absolutely no references to nullification…in fact the jury rules conflicted with the concept of nullification.
Can we setup a project to inform potential jurors of nullification? Perhaps organize a group to distribute fliers at jury duty or some sort of push to have legislation mandating this info be available to all potential jurors?
#11
What’s funny is that one of the lawyers in my office had jury selection in a criminal case the other day, and said the judge took it upon herself to remove all potential jurors who had been arrested in the past, but let other potential jurors stay on – even in the face of “for cause” challenges by my friend – who were immediately related to police officers.
The joke in the office when my friend, exasperated, said “it doesn’t make any sense!” was to respond “oh, it makes perfect sense.”
I have jury duty soon, myself. We’ll see how that goes.
Alright, I hate to advertise my ignorance, but this is driving me nuts. Where’s the freaking link?! Everyone above seems to see it, but all I see is a link in the title back to this page, nothing in the text. I’m trying to grow an ulcer here and how am I ever going to be successful without reading ALL of Radley’s news?
Ah … heh heh. It looks like one of Firefox’s extensions was blocking the video. Let me just allow feeds from Reason.tv and I’ll move along quietly now.
Yup.
I especially liked the part where the foreperson says, “We had no choice…”
That’s because anyone who thought they did have a choice was drummed out during voir dire. By the time they’re done, the only people left on the jury are those who trust the government. And, as we all know, the jury system was established specifically because the government can’t be trusted.
#14 librul
There is a group called FIJA, Fully Informed Jury Association, http://www.fija.org/ Maybe we all should have a look and support them? In Monmouth County NJ, we once had a local chapter where a member would hand out flyers to prospective jurors on Mondays, jury selection day.
Is there any circumstance where an omniscient jury would acquit, but a person’s conviction by a jury without all the facts could be considered just?
The government routinely withholds information from juries on the claimed basis that it’s “irrelevant”, when the real reason for the withholding is that the government knows that it isn’t irrelevant–rather, it conveys a message the government doesn’t want the jury to hear.
To be sure, a defendant shouldn’t have an unlimited ability to introduce surprise new legal theories which are false but which the prosecution would take time to rebut. On the other hand, judges routinely disallow evidence that would cause juries to discredit the state’s case.
Among other things, under current practice, if a judge declares that a search is reasonable, a defendant is often not allowed to question it. Under a legitimate government, police would have to not only convince a judge that their search could be vaguely construed as “reasonable”–they’d have to convince a jury that it actually was reasonable. No-knock robberies and murders would no longer be routine if police knew that jurors wouldn’t accept them.
I have nearly zero trust in the US judicial system anymore. I have discovered in adulthood that it is a pick and guess game on prosecution, that the police lie often in testimony and destroy evidence and fabricate other evidence, even in the highest of profile cases where one would expect a modest containment of corruption, and the jurors all seem to feel good about themselves when they convict and come out and tell everyone it was anice person but they had “no choice” in the matter.
NO CHOICE. That’s very, very interesting.
I do wonder why there were even there if they had no choice. Just let the State convict and sentence, you didn’t have a choice.
Then there’s the prosecutions ability to indefinitely hide exculpatory evidence, then the judge and lawyers get together and the judge bans whatever evidence from the courtroom they so desire, then the jurors are locked in sequester jails for the entire period, since they are so incapable of judging evidence that rumors and fantasies must be kept from their eyes and ears…
It’s JOKE. The populace of jurors are treated like plyable 2 year olds. The system is so overly controlled and coagulated and to top it all off judges allow just about any insanity into their courtrooms.
It’s a wonder the conviction rates aren’t 100%, but then of course we all see how the keystone cops will do anything to grab the nearest citizen in the area for a conviction.
I’m so disgusted with it all.
Toe tapping while taking a crap is a crime. LOL Not only that, but some blubbering buffoon slimeball rookie freak sits on the crapper and tries to play footsie with you, and is stupid enough to claim he watched you with his eyes peeping through the cracks to “make eye contact” and that is considered evidence. Not sure which one is the “eye looking criminal” in that case, but apparently there are enough idiots around that it made sense to most.
I loved the one where the cops when jackboot with 5 tasers and 15 pigs on a roidrage, and took down to death the down on his luck lawyer student walking down the sidewalk with ” a threatenting deadly pencil” – I guess his pocket protector actually flared a sun glare toward the piggers eyeballs – an attempted felonious assault that had the street team fearing for their lives, no doubt. That one will never see a courtroom or a jury, the pigforce has 100% immunity.
When the jury pool is selected for a federal court, the first thing they do is watch a “welcome to jury duty” video. It’s meant to mollify those who might be unhappy about being on the jury, but it also includes a quick overview of the jury system, and several times makes the point that juries are the last check on government tyranny.
And then the judge promptly proves what a tyrant he is by telling the jury that they have no choice but to follow the law, that he is the sole judge of the law, that the jury may only judge the facts and not the law. He will repeat this charge several times during the trial, and emphasize it most strongly during final jury instructions.
The only time I served on a federal jury, I was the foreman. I reminded the others that regardless of the judge’s instructions, we could do whatever we wanted. The judge’s bullying demeanor toward us, his refusal to provide documents we requested, and his insistence that not only would we stay past 9 p.m. on a Friday, but would spend the whole weekend in deliberations, pretty much sealed the deal. They defied what the judge wanted, and we reached a unanimous verdict that was not what the judge obviously favored.
KBCCraig,
While the Judge is the sole arbiter of what the law is, the jury decides how to apply it really. Take the concept of beyond a reasonable doubt, the jury will ultimately determine what that means, or what “intentionally” or “knowingly” means. Keep in mind that the criminal law has ot be very clearly defined so that people can have fair notice of what exactly is criminal activity. Given that, it’s also pretty important that the law is clearly layed out for the jury so that they don’t go off convicting people cuz they “must have done something” or seem like a scumbag.
The jury can’t just go creating the law in their mind or from their own morals. I think juries do have wiggle room as your example shows to *apply* the law in a reasonable and just way even if they don’t get to determine what the law is. Of course juries need to do it more in a way that undermines immoral and excessive prosecutions.
As Soundgarden would say,
“LAME! LAME! LAME! LAME!”
Hello All,
I’m very happy to see you all discussing Charles Lynch’s trial. I sat through the entire trial (except the verdict reading) and I’d like to make a few comments.
Mike Leatherwood,
Over 13 pages with over 40 individual instructions were given to the jury. It was long and complicated. I also wanted to say, thanks for serving our country.
Colson,
You’re right the federal law has to change. Federal laws change in congress not the courtroom. Have you told your congress people how you feel about cannabis? You’d be surprised about how little they know and even more surprised about how few constituents they hear from. All they hear from is the White House’s ONDCP which is required by Congressional law to OPPOSE any legalization efforts for substance 1 drugs (i.e. cannabis) for ANY purpose (even medical).
http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2007/10/09/theDrugCzarIsRequiredByLaw.html
I met with both my Senator’s offices during the trial and I have an appointment with my House of Representative’s office next week. I’m asking them to support the John Conyers letter to the DEA.
http://www.safeaccessnow.org/downloads/Conyers_DEA_Letter.pdf
Nick T
The jury had a hard time believing Charlie’s “affirmative defense” after the prosecution brought in DEA special agent Diane Rueter whose phone # is the one Charles called before opening his dispensary.
FedUp
We could have used you on this jury.
Librul,
Jury nullification is illegal yet essential like cannabis. One potential juror brought up the concept & Judge Wu (Charlie’s judge) cleared the courtroom of all potential jurors why he and the prosecution scrambled to figure out how to handle the situation. Later he explained the concept of jury nullification goes against the juries oath.
PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD about CHARLES LYNCH and keep your eyes out for PROTEST alerts.
FREE CHARLES LYNCH 8am Court Support 11am PROTEST
Body: Americans for Safe Access (ASA) members and friends will be providing court support and protesting for medical cannabis provider Charles Lynch on Monday, October 6, in Los Angeles. Mr. Lynch was convicted in federal court earlier this month of operating a medical cannabis dispensing collective and faces decades in federal prison. We need to show our support for Charles and his family as his attorneys ask for a new trial. We also need to let federal officials and local representatives know that Californians will not tolerate federal interference or local cooperation with DEA raids.
What: Free Charles Lynch – Court Support & Rally
When: 8:00 AM Courtroom #10, 11:00 AM in front of Courthouse, Monday, October 6, 2008
Where: 312 N. Spring St. (at Temple St.
) in downtown Los Angeles
For public transit information, visit http://www. metro. net/riding_metro/default. htm
Join us on Saturday, August 16, for a the LA-ASA meeting to start planning! The meeting is at 1:00 PM at the patient ID Center, located at 470 S. san Vicente Blvd., in Los Angeles.
Get a map and details at http://www. ASAaction. org
Invite your friends and loved ones to the meeting and protest!
Don Duncan
ASA California Campaign Director
Americans for Safe Access (ASA) is the largest national member-based organization of patients, medical professionals, scientists and concerned citizens promoting safe and legal access to cannabis for therapeutic use and research.
For all interested parties, I have posted the original indictment and other motions filed by both sides on Scribd.
http://www.scribd.com/Phoenix%20Wright