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.”

Excerpt:

The private and public sector promoters of war reap hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds. They grow stronger as their lobbyists buy off politicians with campaign donations and the Defense Department assures itself a lion’s share of taxpayer dollars.

Peace is their enemy.

. . .

In a recent article on the winners and losers in the war on terrorism, Gareth Porter put it succinctly,

“Aggressive U.S. wars are not merely the result of mistaken policies, but of the national security institutions pursuing their own interests at the expense of the interests of the American people. The ‘war on terror’ is a means for those institutions to maintain the present allocation of national resources and power to the national security sector for the indefinite future.”

Entire analysis here.

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.

“US intervention in Colombia has caused more problems than it has helped and the FTA would only make things worse. Recent investigations by the Colombian Attorney General have uncovered extensive US involvement regarding domestic spying by former President Álvaro Uribe’s administration. Information was shared with and analyzed by embassy staff and domestic spying programs were funded by the CIA. Activities included gaining access to the bank accounts, following the families and bugging the offices of Colombian magistrates.”

Read the entire rebuttal of the Obama Administration and Congressional propaganda pushing this unpopular policy here.

Death and Drugs in Colombia, New York Review of Books, June 23, 2011 by Daniel Wilkinson
Quote: “Paramilitaries also confessed to judicial investigators that they had collaborated extensively with military officers, both before and during Uribe’s presidency, including two generals Uribe chose to lead branches of the armed forces. Perhaps most damning was evidence of collaboration with top DAS officials—including the President’s intelligence chief, who allegedly supplied the AUC with names of trade unionists who were then assassinated. Other troubling allegations involved Uribe’s younger brother—who has been accused of running a paramilitary group in Antioquia—and the use of his own cattle ranch as a meeting place for paramilitaries.

To date, only one former paramilitary has implicated Uribe himself directly in paramilitary activity—yet his testimony was full of inconsistencies. He was assassinated in 2009.

Uribe and his top officials have denied all those allegations.

The people who would know the full extent of whatever collaboration took place on Uribe’s watch are the ones he extradited to the US.

Since the extradition, however, they have essentially stopped cooperating with Colombian investigators. Several—including Mancuso—have explained that if they revealed all they know, they would be unable to protect their families from reprisals in Colombia.” (my underline)

and

“López’s book shows that the Ralito Pact’s reference to “refounding the nation”—from which the book takes its title—was not merely pompous rhetoric. Rather, it reflected a broader objective shared by the AUC commanders and local politicians and landholders: to legalize the enormous wealth and power they had amassed during years of paramilitary expansion.

The paramilitaries had driven more than one million poor farmers off their lands, preparing the way for what the authors refer to as a “counter-agrarian reform.” Large landholders and investors—including paramilitaries and other traffickers—acquired the land, and corrupt officials helped them obtain title. As one former paramilitary put it: “We went in killing, others followed buying, and the third group legalized.””

Read more about this brutal effort to legalize the stolen wealth of Colombians by US-backed paramilitaries in this account highlighting US government supported laundering scheme overseen by the ARD, a yet-to-be indicted (it is arguably illegal to give material support to terrorist organizations like the paramilitaries benefited by this scheme) USAID vendor, based in the state of human rights champion, Senator Leahy of Vermont.

The rest of the review is here.

Quotes from the story:

With headline stories across the nation exposing massive fraud and money laundering schemes infilitrating the American financial systems: how could it have been so difficult for the Feds to establish criminal intent for these lawbreakers?

Although in selected cases, a civil complaint filed by the SEC (Security Exchange Commission) is usually offered to corporations and banks that allow them to wiggle out of a criminal indictment in exchange for a fine. A civil fine is usually the norm but the bulk of wrongdoing goes unpunished.

Experts familiar with large corporations and banks that violate the law have said the fine these companies pay the government is merely the cost of doing business.

. . .

We are currently living under government more interested in preserving the integrity of financial operations that it has investigated for fraud and money laundering. Even more appalling is the fact our government found the institutions guility of intentionally breaking the law. And still no real punishment.

. . .

Adam Kaufman, chief of the investigative division of the Manhattan D.A. office defended the approach in the AP story, by saying, “prosecutors could have indicted low-level bank employees who handled the transactions on a daily basis. But that wouldn’t get the executives making the decisions and figuring out exactly who that is can be daunting.”

. . .

The DA summed up what many believe is true, that banks and corporations are “too-big-to fail and too-big-to jail.”

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.

Thousands of Mexicans changed the face of national and international politics May 8 in the world’s first mass protest against the drug war.

Read the rest of this excellent piece 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.