October 5, 1996
The Libertarian, By Vin Suprynowicz
The judges and prosecutors of Gilpin County, Colorado, hell-bent on making an example of Laura Kriho, the juror who dared think for herself in the jury room of a recent drug possession case, faced a problem:
How were they going to explain to the jurors at Ms. Kriho's trial (without inviting an indignant rebuff) their contention that jurors should be jailed if they allow themselves to be empaneled on a jury even though they have doubts about the constitutionality of the law or the reasonableness of the decision to prosecute?
How were they going to ask those citizen-jurors
to confer on them the heretofore undreamed-of power to jail fellow-jurors
who -- once in the jury room -- dare to think for themselves, saying things
like "I'm not going to send this girl away for years on some minor
possession charge," after His
Holiness has "instructed" them "not to think about or discuss"
such matters as the sentence he might impose?
That's right, as this column is written
on Oct. 1, 1996, Laura Kriho of Nederland, Colo. has just endured the first
day of what is almost certainly America's first two-day trial of
a juror who refused
to convict.
Needless to say, the judge and prosecutor found a way out of their quandary. First Judicial District Chief Judge Henry Nieto assigned himself to the case. He immediately ruled Ms. Kriho's attorney, Paul Grant, can'tbring in any evidence -- or expert witnesses -- dealing with the traditional right of jurors to deliberate without intervention from the government-salaried judge. Then, he ruled Grant and Kriho could not have any additional time to prepare for this first-of-its-kind case, and that prosecutor Jim Stanley -- who blew his original drug case thanks to Kriho -- could go ahead and prosecute Ms. Kriho as well. (No potential for vindictiveness there, surely.)
Finally -- get this -- although the prosecution had originally granted Laura Kriho's request for a jury trial at her Aug. 16 arraignment, Judge Nieto allowed prosecutor Stanley to promise that, in the event of the wayward juror being convicted, he would seek jail time of less than six months.
Although the Constitution specifically states: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury, ..." today's courtesan courts have ruled that the Sixth Amendment doesn't really mean that, at all. What it really means is the government need grant you the "privilege" of a trial by jury only if you face a sentence of more than six months.
Laura Kriho doesn't get a jury. The little
brotherhood known as the Judges of Gilpin County, determined to asphyxiate
our traditional jury rights and replace our citizen juries with government
lackeys, sworn in advance (under penalty of imprisonment) to convict as
instructed, will now
judge and sentence poor Laura Kriho, themselves.
(Another of the handful of Gilpin County judges, Frederic Rodgers, wrote an article for the summer issue of the local "Judge's Journal," misrepresenting the facts of the Kriho case and explaining to his fellow Philistines how to prosecute "obstructionist" jurors.)
"To deny me a jury trial leaves little
doubt about the outcome of the trial," Ms. Kriho told Joe Vigorito
of the group Colorado Legal Eagles in late September. "I can't imagine
how I can ever get a fair hearing in front of any judge in this district
when they have all probably read Judge
Rodgers' article. It looks like they intend to make my case a demonstration
case, ... so that they will be free to prosecute other jurors who want
to acquit based on reasonable doubts."
This little coven of black-robed incubi
think they're clever. What they fail to realize is that the guarantee of
a trial by a randomly -selected panel of our fellow citizens -- not a jury
stacked only with those who havesworn in advance, on penalty of imprisonment,
to convict if so instructed
-- serves the same function in our society as that little weight that jiggles
on top of a pressure cooker. It may seem noisy and untidy, but tie it down
and soon the whole operation will blow up.
To date, the vast majority of citizens who
have a problem with the government have been willing to surrender peacefully
to the process of justice, confident they'd eventually have a chance to
"tell it to the jury," to convince their neighbors they'd been
wronged, no matter what the
ever-expanding "letter of the law."
If the Gilpin County judges -- and others like them all across America -- finally succeed in tying down that safety valve, why wouldn't more and more victims of government taxation and oppression, urged to "surrender and you'll get a fair trial," figure "No chance in that rigged game; I might as well take as many G-men with me as I can"?
If the courts continue down this road, it becomes increasingly likely -- however strongly we may advise against the wisdom of such a course -- that bodies will eventually hang, kicking, from the light posts in front of every government building in America.
And that some will wear black robes.
Attorney Grant says that, in the event of a conviction, there will be an appeal. Donations are welcome at: Laura Kriho Legal Defense Fund, PO Box 729, Nederland, CO. 80466; e-mail pkgrant@ix.netcom.com.
Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial
page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Readers may contact him via
e-mail at vin@intermind.net. The
web site for the Suprynowicz column is at
http://www.nguworld.com/vindex/.
The column is syndicated in the United States and Canada via Mountain Media
Syndications, P.O. Box 4422, Las Vegas, NV, 89127.
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