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A juror in the trial of former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann told the media after he was unanimously acquitted Tuesday that she did not think the case should have been prosecuted because lying to the FBI was not a big deal. “I don’t think it should have been prosecuted,” she reportedly said, according to Jeff Mordock, White House reporter for the Washington Times. “There are bigger things that affect the nation than a possible lie to the FBI.” The case was the most high-profile prosecution undertaken by Special Counsel John H. Durham, who is investigating the origins of...

Michael Sussmann, a lawyer representing Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, has been found not guilty of a single count of lying to the FBI when he said he was not working on behalf of any client when he alleged a covert communications channel between the Trump Organization and Russia's Alfa Bank. Sussmann was charged under 18 U.S.C. 1001 with lying to the FBI during a meeting with then-FBI general counsel James Baker when he came forward with what he claimed was evidence of possible covert communications between the Trump organization and Alfa, a Russian bank. Sussmann allegedly concealed that he was...

The ConstitutionThe Founders view of the jury as being of paramount importance in defending liberty is easily seen when examining the words of the Constitution. There are only 14 words describing freedom of speech and of the press in the Constitution. But there are 186 words describing trial by jury in the Constitution. It is guaranteed in the main body in Article 3, Section 2, Paragraph 3, and in two amendments, the Sixth and the Seventh. No other right is mentioned so frequently, three times, or has as many words devoted to it. It is plain that the Founders viewed...

Bill de Blasio said Monday he was stunned that a grand jury didn’t indict a controversial Staten Island bar owner for driving into a deputy sheriff. Presti had been repeatedly cited by the city sheriff’s office for refusing to adhere to state coronavirus lockdown restrictions, declaring the bar “an autonomous zone” exempt from the mandate. New York City Sheriff Joseph Fucito told The Post Sunday that he had reported that Matos suffered “broken tibias” because of a misdiagnosis from doctors.

Lysander Spooner is an important – and not exactly obscure – figure in the history of the liberty movement. He’s an idiosyncratic figure from the 19th century with no small cheerleading section in the 21st century. A bit of a throwback to a very different time, Spooner was a champion of the labor movement and was even a member of the First International at a time when socialists and anarchists coexisted peacefully within that movement. Perhaps one of the most interesting things about Spooner is that he ran a private company in direct competition with the United States Post Office....

Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old suspected of fatally shooting at least two people and injuring another during protests in Kenosha over the shooting of Jacob Blake, has been arrested, according to local media reports. Rittenhouse, 17, was arrested in Illinois and has been reportedly charged with first-degree intentional homicide.

The left-wing juror gave large amounts to Beto O’Rourke and Jill Stein, spent years working under liberal donor Bill Gates at Microsoft. Seth Cousins, juror number 3 in Roger Stone’s recent trial, just couldn’t resist the limelight. In an op-ed published by the Washington Post, Cousins claimed that the jury, who handed down a guilty verdict on all counts against Stone, acted independently and with no bias towards Mr. Stone for his previous political activities or the fact that he is one of President Trump’s most ardent defenders and longtime friends. Reading Mr. Cousins op-ed is like reading a summation...

The name of a Navy veteran may be cleared after he was convicted, fined, and imprisoned for digging ponds in a wooded area near his Montana home, to supply water in case of fire. The Supreme Court has vacated a lower court ruling against Joe Robertson, who was sent to federal prison and ordered to pay $130,000 in restitution through deductions from his Social Security checks. Any definitive legal victory for Robertson would be posthumous, since he died March 18 at age 80. But his lawyers describe the Supreme Court’s action as a “big win” for Robertson’s widow, Carrie, who...

(Javonnie McCoy and Atlanta attorney Catherine Bernard after his acquittal) Javonnie McCoy was growing marijuana when the cops came to his Middle Georgia home. He was caught red-handed with it. Almost a pound of it, in fact. He admitted it to police, and later he looked jurors in the eye and said, yep, it was mine. I used it as medicine. The jurors let him go. He was minding his own business and wasn’t hurting anybody, they reasoned. He just doesn’t belong in prison. The jury’s decision earlier this month in Dublin, Ga., may have been due to a...

Brittany Monk's rapist received just 5 years of probation for repeatedly sexually assaulting her when she was a child. Baton Rouge, LA – A Louisiana man said he is “not sorry” that he murdered a man who raped his girlfriend when she was a child, because he believed that the justice system “failed” her. Jace Crehan, 23, admitted to having stabbed and strangled Robert Noce Jr., 47, less than two weeks after Noce was convicted for sexually assaulting Crehan’s girlfriend, 20-year-old Brittany Monk, the New York Daily News reported. A jury found Crehan guilty of the July 4, 2015 second-degree...

In an exclusive interview with ABC News, a juror in the Bill Cosby sexual assault case said that after dozens of hours of grueling deliberations in a tiny room, 10 of the 12 jurors agreed he was guilty on two counts. On a third count, only one of the jurors believed he was guilty. The final, intractable votes on the first of the three counts was 10 to two to find Cosby guilty of digitally penetrating accuser Andrea Constand without her consent, the juror said. On the second count, that she was unconscious or unaware during the incident, the juror...

In a new wrinkle in the "black lives matter" movement, an editor of a top-rated legal website is calling on blacks to scare whites by automatically acquitting African-Americans accused of murdering or raping whites, no matter what the facts. On Above The Law, African-American editor Elie Mystal called for "jury nullification" by blacks when on juries in trials that focus on white victims. "Jury nullification would get white people's attention. Remember how pissed-off white people were about O.J.? And that was just one dude. White people would notice if black jurors simply refused to play along," he wrote.

Seven people involved in the anti-federal government occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge have been found not guilty of conspiring to impede federal workers from doing their jobs, including Ammon and Ryan Bundy. A jury found all seven remaining occupiers not-guilty of all charges except for one charge that has yet to be disclosed, KBOI reported.

Update at 4:10 p.m.: All defendants found not guilty.

The media are focused on the “Bundy Militia” angle to the standoff in Burns Oregon, where Aamon Bundy and brothers have taken over a Malheur Wildlife Refuge Headquarters to draw attention to the plight of the Hammond family (Full Complex Back Story Here).However, a little research (HatTip NeverTooLate) into the original legal battle reveals a rather startling update.Hammond Family The initial, and regarded by many as overreaching, federal prosecution resulted in a federal court judge Michael Hogan assigning a 3-month sentence and 1-year sentence for Dwight Lincoln Hammond Jr (73) and his son, Steven Dwight Hammond (46) respectively.Even federal Judge...

Mitch Morrissey tried to imprison activists for passing out jury nullification pamphlets. Last August, Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey charged two local activists, Mark Iannicelli and Eric Brandt, with seven felonies each for passing out jury nullification pamphlets at the Lindsey-Flanigan Courthouse. Morrissey continued to pursue those charges even after conceding that such activity is protected by the First Amendment. When I asked Lynn Kimbrough, Morrissey's public information officer, what Iannicelli and Brandt had done that crossed the line from constitutionally protected speech to felonious jury tampering, she refused to say. That's probably because Morrissey had no case, as confirmed...

Mecosta County District Court Judge Peter Jaklevic is a former career prosecutor, like all righteous judges, and knows the purpose of jurors: to convict like they're told. So when Keith Wood — a wild-eyed former pastor and current lawless anarchist — began distributing seditious incitement to destroy the judicial system, Judge Peter Jaklevic knew just what to do: arrest him. " A 39-year-old former pastor was arrested and jailed in Mecosta County after he handed out fliers informing people about jury nullification in front of the county courthouse. " Keith Wood said he was handing out pamphlets from the Fully...

Jury nullification occurs when jurors choose not to convict a defendant they believe to be guilty of the offense charged, usually because they conclude that the law in question is unjust or the punishment is excessive. When I first thought about jury nullification as a young law student, I was inclined to be against it. Yes, it could potentially be used to curb unjust laws. But it can also be a vehicle for jury prejudice and bias. ... legal scholar Glenn Reynolds provides a strong defense of nullification. As he points out, the sort of discretion exercised by nullifying jurors...

A South Florida man charged with growing marijuana he claims he needs for a medical condition was found not guilty Monday. Jesse Teplicki, 50, had been charged with manufacturing cannabis and was facing up to five years behind bars. "This case is about medical marijuana and for the hundreds of thousands of patients who can use this medicine as an alternative," Teplicki said. It took jurors just 30 minutes to return the verdict.

While meditating on the concept of jury nullification .. I wondered ..