Earlier this year, prosecutors charged Julian P. Heicklen, a retired chemistry professor, with jury tampering because he stood outside the federal courthouse in Manhattan providing information about jury nullification to passers-by. Given that I have been recommending nullification for nonviolent drug cases since 1995 — in such forums as The Yale Law Journal, “60 Minutes” and YouTube — I guess I, too, have committed a crime.

The prosecutors who charged Mr. Heicklen said that “advocacy of jury nullification, directed as it is to jurors, would be both criminal and without constitutional protections no matter where it occurred.” The prosecutors in this case are wrong. The First Amendment exists to protect speech like this — honest information that the government prefers citizens not know.

Laws against jury tampering are intended to deter people from threatening or intimidating jurors. To contort these laws to justify punishing Mr. Heicklen, whose court-appointed counsel describe him as “a shabby old man distributing his silly leaflets from the sidewalk outside a courthouse,” is not only unconstitutional but unpatriotic. Jury nullification is not new; its proponents have included John Hancock and John Adams.

The doctrine is premised on the idea that ordinary citizens, not government officials, should have the final say as to whether a person should be punished. As Adams put it, it is each juror’s “duty” to vote based on his or her “own best understanding, judgment and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court.”

In 1895, the Supreme Court ruled that jurors had no right, during trials, to be told about nullification. The court did not say that jurors didn’t have the power, or that they couldn’t be told about it, but only that judges were not required to instruct them on it during a trial. Since then, it’s been up to scholars like me, and activists like Mr. Heicklen, to get the word out.

Nullification has been credited with helping to end alcohol prohibition and laws that criminalized gay sex. Last year, Montana prosecutors were forced to offer a defendant in a marijuana case a favorable plea bargain after so many potential jurors said they would nullify that the judge didn’t think he could find enough jurors to hear the case. (Prosecutors now say they will remember the actions of those jurors when they consider whether to charge other people with marijuana crimes.)

There have been unfortunate instances of nullification. Racist juries in the South, for example, refused to convict people who committed violent acts against civil-rights activists, and nullification has been used in cases involving the use of excessive force by the police. But nullification is like any other democratic power; some people may try to misuse it, but that does not mean it should be taken away from everyone else.

How one feels about jury nullification ultimately depends on how much confidence one has in the jury system. Based on my experience, I trust jurors a lot. I first became interested in nullification when I prosecuted low-level drug crimes in Washington in 1990. Jurors here, who were predominantly African-American, nullified regularly because they were concerned about racially selective enforcement of the law.

Across the country, crime has fallen, but incarceration rates remain at near record levels. Last year, the New York City police made 50,000 arrests just for marijuana possession. Because prosecutors have discretion over whether to charge a suspect, and for what offense, they have more power than judges over the outcome of a case. They tend to throw the book at defendants, to compel them to plead guilty in return for less harsh sentences. In some jurisdictions, like Washington, prosecutors have responded to jurors who are fed up with their draconian tactics by lobbying lawmakers to take away the right to a jury trial in drug cases. That is precisely the kind of power grab that the Constitution’s framers were so concerned about.

In October, the Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, asked at a Senate hearing about the role of juries in checking governmental power, seemed open to the notion that jurors “can ignore the law” if the law “is producing a terrible result.” He added: “I’m a big fan of the jury.” I’m a big fan, too. I would respectfully suggest that if the prosecutors in New York bring fair cases, they won’t have to worry about jury nullification. Dropping the case against Mr. Heicklen would let citizens know that they are as committed to justice, and to free speech, as they are to locking people up.

Paul Butler, a former federal prosecutor, is a professor of law at George Washington University and the author of “Let’s Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice.”

Quote from the article: In the 2009 cable, the U.S. Embassy official warns that funding for the Mérida Initiative, one of the U.S. “War on Drugs” initiatives in Mexico and Central America, would be “contingent upon guidance from Washington regarding how best to work around Melgar.”

According to the Salvadoran digital periodical El Faro, the US finally forced Melgar out by leveraging a second international program, Partnership for Growth; El Salvador is one of four countries worldwide handpicked by the US for the new program. El Faro’s sources in the Ministry of Security claim that Melgar’s removal was a U.S. condition for sealing the Partnership for Growth, officially signed just four days prior to Melgar’s resignation. The program’s initial report named violence and crime as El Salvador’s primary constraints to economic growth, quickly turning what the U.S. had publicly touted as an economic development program into another security initiative.

Editor’s note: Amazing that the President of El Salvador accepted as a USG condition for delivery of one neoliberal (’development’) program (Partnership for Growth) that another USG neoliberal ’security’ program (Plan Mexico) be implemented by a former Salvadorean General, in violation of El Salvadorean law (and likely to the dismay of most Americans informed about Plan Mexico or Partnership for Growth).

Ex-general Replaces Leftist Leader in El Salvador’s Security Cabinet as Washington Reasserts Influence in Central America

Yesterday, President of El Salvador Mauricio Funes swore in retired general David Munguía Payés as the country´s new Minister of Public Security and Justice, following the sudden resignation of Manuel Melgar from the position on November 8. The move prompted outspoken opposition from Salvadoran social organizations who view it as a violation of the 1992 Peace Accords that ended the country’s Civil War and transferred public security from military to civilian administration.

Rest of piece here.

From excellent article written by John Washington on Friday, 21 October 2011

There is nothing more disconcerting than the patriotic enthusiasm of a downtrodden population. The government’s tolerance of crime dishonors patriotism, which calls for decorum before hysteria or praise. Government corruption turns popular joy into a sarcasm which reflects the impunity and recklessness of the government.

-José Vasconcelos, 1935, writing of events in September 1910.

So begins this incisive dismantling of Calderon’s and Obama’s attempt to celebrate and perpetuate the indefinite militarization of Mexico.

After a decade of unjust marijuana arrests, Raymond Kelly has finally issued a memo to New York City police, ordering them to end the illegal stop-and-frisk procedures that resulted in the arrests of so many young black and Latino youths.

The memo said:

“Questions have been raised about the processing of certain marihuana arrests. At issue is whether the circumstances under which uniformed members of the service recover small amounts of marihuana … from subjects in a public place support the charge of Criminal Possession of Marihuana in the Fifth Degree.”

The stop-and-frisks that helped generate the astounding 536,000 marijuana arrests between 1979 and 2010 violate the intent of the law in two ways. First, stop-and-frisks are legal only to find and confiscate guns. Second, possession of small amounts of marijuana is decriminalized in New York.

But when officers sweep poor neighborhoods to stop-and-frisk colored youths, they often demand kids empty their pockets, or pull the contents out themselves. If weed had been inside, police arrest them for marijuana “in public view,” which is not decriminalized, and the consequences of which bar arrestees from receiving federal loans and housing, as well as finding careers. This is all despite the fact that the weed wasn’t “in public view” until the cops put it there. Kelly clarified the standards for this type of arrest in the memo.

The Drug Policy Alliance, VOCAL-NY, and The Institute for Juvenile Justice Reform led the fight to stop the racially biased, damaging arrests. According to data from the Drug Policy Alliance, marijuana arrests cost New York City $75 million a year. What’s worse, 86% of those arrested are blacks and Latinos, many of whom are from poor neighborhoods. National data, however, shows that whites use marijuana at much higher rates.

Gabriel Sayegh, New York State Director for the Drug Policy Alliance, spoke about the policy change:

“This represents a tremendous victory for the many New Yorkers who are fighting to end the NYPD’s notoriously wasteful, illegal and racially discriminatory marijuana arrest policies,” she said, “But, the devil remains in the details as to whether and how the NYPD implements this new directive. If followed, then the NYPD will at last comply with both the letter and spirit of the marijuana decriminalization law enacted in New York back in 1977.”

And while Kelly’s new order is a positive for kids who will be spared the stop-and-frisk misuse, it will not change the history – or future – of those who have already been damaged.

The Village Voice recently published an article that analyzed the issue in a larger frame. It examines how Mayor Bloomberg’s Young Men’s Initiative is a hand-out to the very people he pushes down: blacks and Latinos. Giving with one hand, taking with another, Bloomberg is using the Young Men’s Initiative to fix problems his own policies created. Read more about it here.

An intriguing passage states “Mexico has strict restrictions on gun ownership, with most legitimate sales processed through one store on a military base near Mexico City.” This and other elements of the story invite suspicion that a significant portion of the cartels’ weaponry may come from the Mexican military via the US government, including the State Department-authorized Blue Lantern program exposed here.

The clock on the Torre Latinoamericana strikes 5:00 on April 6th as the ragtag group that fills the esplanade of the Bellas Artes museum yells ‘No more blood!’ and ‘Down with Felipe Calderon!’. This is not a common place to begin a protest, but this march was called by poets and artists, friends, followers, and men and women who read the poems and articles of Javier Sicilia. They all believe that poetry and art will triumph over death.

After the murder of his son and six of his friends on March 28 in Cuernavaca, the poet and social activist published “An Open Letter to Politicians and Criminals,” in which he condemns Calderon’s war as being poorly planned, poorly executed, poorly directed, and for putting the country in a state of emergency. In his letter he also called upon his fellow Mexicans to struggle for peace and justice.
For the rest of the article, please click here.

To fight the drug war in Mexico the US military conducted specialized trainings both inside and outside of the country with a focus on combating “narco-terrorism” and “counterinsurgency” conflicts, according to a recently declassified report from the State Department and Department of Defense. The document (PDF), which details foreign military training in the 2009 fiscal year, sheds more light on to the kind of instruction Mexican soldiers were receiving from the United States as violence and deaths continued to increase in the country. This includes the deployment of “mobile training teams” that were used to teach special forces combat techniques. Click here for the entire article and links to original State Dpt. and DoD report.

Consulate wires leaked by Wikileaks indicate that U.S. military grade weapons are in the hands of Mexican Drug Cartels. The attempt, by the Obama Administration to finger gun sellers in the U.S., as the source of our “Border War,” is challenged in the report from NarcoNews.

“The lot numbers of some of the grenades recovered, including the grenade used in the attack on Televisa, indicate that previously ordnance with these same lot numbers may have been sold by the USG [U.S. Government] to the El Salvadoran military in the early 1990s via the Foreign Military Sales program.”

To read this excellent piece, click here.

The US Northern Command’s Work With Mexican Armed Forces Has ‘Increased Dramatically’ and May Be Expanded

By Erin Rosa
Special to The Narco News Bulletin

October 22, 2010

To the Editor:

Re “In Mexico, Scenes From Life in a Drug War: Monterrey’s Habit” (Op-Ed, Oct. 17):

Ricardo Elizondo Elizondo’s essay about the drug war in Mexico says that Mexico must take notice of its own drug use problems and that “there can be no solution until we come to terms with the truth.”

I am sure that is true, but there is a larger truth at work that trumps all others in the drug war: We must end the folly of prohibition — that is, end the drug war — or there will be no solution.

All of the harm and horror associated with the drug issue that Mr. Elizondo wrote of are really a function of prohibition.

The case has been incontrovertibly made elsewhere. The drug war must go. We all know it; only those with a stake in it want it to continue.

D. H. Michon
St. Paul, Oct. 18, 2010