Power to the People

HB146, 'relative to the right of a jury to judge the application of the law in relationship to the facts in controversy' -- that's jury nullification, a plank of the NH GOP's own platform -- before the NH Senate Judiciary Committee, 4/14/2011.

There's really no question about the existence of the natural and common-law right of jury nullification. Juries find contrary to the government's desires every single day, and need give no accounting of themselves whatsoever. They already do it, and there's nothing that can stop them.

The issue at hand is merely whether your servant government may continue to suppress this information, or must instead acknowledge this "inconvenient truth," must inform you, the juror, of your rightful independence, of your inalienable, Constitutionally protected (Part First, Article 4) natural right of conscience, a Constitutionally recognized right that (at the very least) thereby clearly supersedes any RSA a legislature can fancifully dream up. As Jim Rockford once relatedly admonished, "General, I'm a civilian. I outrank you."

Government cannot be allowed the hubris of presuming to be the ultimate arbiter of its own authority. The jury of these government-outranking peers of civilians is the final 'box' available to a civil society before the revolution comes:

• the soap box to persuade
• the ballot box to instruct
• the jury box to overrule
• the ammo box "to alter or abolish"

By what point in that progression would you, dear reader, prefer resolution be found? When government is unresponsive to its bosses, the People, the jury is the last peaceful refuge of a free, moral society against tyranny. And that is why government is so deeply loath to recognize the jury's inherent and intended independence over its servants.

Grand thanks to Ed Comeau for babysitting my second camera while I covered the concurrent HB442 medical marijuana hearing next door.