Free Republic

Panelists claim woman wouldn't consider evidence, accused them of racism - The sole black juror on a panel deadlocked along racial lines lied to win a seat on the jury and then set out to exact revenge on law enforcement by serving as the spoiler in the trial of an alleged drug chief serving as his own lawyer, some of her fellow jurors said Monday.Jurors in the trial of Johnnie "Bro" Martin walked out of U.S. District Court with nothing to show for nine days of work but a mistrial. "She made a mockery of the system," one juror said...

Associated Press CHEYENNE - The state of Wyoming says the federal agency that enforces gun laws was wrong to reject a state law that seeks to allow people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence to regain their firearms rights in the state courts. Wyoming this week filed its opening brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver, challenging a ruling issued in May by U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson of Cheyenne. Johnson ruled against the state's claim that the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arbitrarily rejected a 2004 state law allowing people convicted of domestic violence to...

The government will retry a prominent marijuana advocate on cultivation charges even though he faces no punishment if convicted, beyond the one day in jail he's already served, a federal prosecutor said today. Prosecutors decided on a second trial for Ed Rosenthal after a "thorough and careful review,'' Assistant U.S. Attorney George Bevan told U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer... Defense lawyer Shari Greenberger said she would ask Breyer to order the government to reimburse Rosenthal for the time his lawyers spent getting the new charges dismissed.

Just flashed on Fox, jury has a verdict, to be read at 4:30PM EST!

How do you devise a system of limited government that actually works? It is easy enough to put words on paper that purport to accomplish that task, but where has that (or any other) approach worked in the long run? Certainly not in the United States, where the Founders’ design for a limited and highly decentralized system of government came apart at the seams in the 20th century. What is very little known, even among those few Americans who have an understanding of the Constitution and our early history, is how quickly the stitching began to fray. The new nation...

Last night, during a "Law and Order" episode, the 'judge' said that juror annullment was illegal.

This is a WorldNetDaily printer-friendly version of the article which follows. To view this item online, visit http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=37016 Monday, February 9, 2004 Mitt Romney: Meet Cal Coolidge Posted: February 9, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern By Patrick J. Buchanan © 2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc. "There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time." With that sentence in a letter to Sam Gompers of the AFL, denouncing the Boston police strike of 1919, Gov. Calvin Coolidge electrified a nation and found himself on the Republican ticket in 1920. When Warren Harding collapsed and died in 1923, Silent Cal...

A reluctant juror who served on Robert Durst's murder trial initially rejected an offer to be interviewed on Good Morning America. Then someone from the ABC-TV program showed up on Texas City resident Vernon Steed's doorstep to make another pitch. Steed, 59, originally had been asked simply to travel to a Houston TV studio for a taped interview, but a staffer for the show upgraded the offer to a trip to New York to appear in person. "She even ironed his shirt, too," said Steed's wife, of the shirt her husband will wear this morning. Steed won't be appearing solo....

Has Montgomery County, Maryland, seceded from the Union? If only the federal government may promulgate and enforce immigration law, and conduct foreign relations, then Montgomery County is now a sovereign nation. Last week, the Montgomery County Council voted to accept the matricula consular (MC) card issued by the Mexican government, as legal ID for illegal immigrants seeking social services. That was not a typo. Actually, the council reportedly said “immigrants,” but the MC is only distributed by the Mexican government for use by illegal immigrants. For folks looking to engage in legal travel outside of Mexico, the Mexican government...

The State of Alabama has the Power of Nullification By Robert Greenslade The Ten Commandment controversy raging in Alabama goes far beyond the First Amendment. This case goes to the very heart of political compacts and the power of a party to a contract to nullify the unlawful acts of its agent. The State of Alabama, in its capacity as one of the United States and a party to the constitutional compact between the several States, has the power of nullification whenever any branch of the federal government blatantly exceeds its delegation of authority. This is one of those...

Not long ago I wrote an article on nullification for a well-known libertarian publication. Nullification is the idea, pioneered by Thomas Jefferson and John C. Calhoun, that an American state has the right to "nullify" federal legislation that it believes violates the Constitution. As Virginian political thinker Abel Upshur put it, since no common umpire exists between the federal government and the states to render judgments on breaches of the Constitution, each state – as a constituent part and co-creator of the Union – has to make such determinations for itself. (The idea that the Supreme Court, itself a branch...