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.”

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.

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.

From the oped:
“In an extraordinary new initiative announced earlier this month, the Global Commission on Drug Policy has made some courageous and profoundly important recommendations in a report on how to bring more effective control over the illicit drug trade. The commission includes the former presidents or prime ministers of five countries, a former secretary general of the United Nations, human rights leaders, and business and government leaders, including Richard Branson, George P. Shultz and Paul A. Volcker.

The report describes the total failure of the present global antidrug effort, and in particular America’s “war on drugs,” which was declared 40 years ago today.
. . .
The commission’s facts and arguments are persuasive. It recommends that governments be encouraged to experiment “with models of legal regulation of drugs … that are designed to undermine the power of organized crime and safeguard the health and security of their citizens.” For effective examples, they can look to policies that have shown promising results in Europe, Australia and other places.”

Read the entire oped 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.

Quote: “Colombian history demonstrates the State’s security agencies have considered as enemies those from society who are committed to the defence and promotion of human rights. Additionally, since February 2004, the DAS has substantially increased its persecution of human rights organisations. In this respect, it created special strategic-intelligence groups with the purpose of structurally persecuting human rights organisations as they were considered to be “a threat or risk to national security.”

Within this context, the DAS decided to undertake intelligence activities against CAJAR through a very laborious, extensive and sophisticated operation called OPERATION TRANSMILENIO, the funds for which came out of a heading designated for RESEVERED EXPENSES. This OPERATION TRANSMILENIO has consisted in gathering information on the Lawyers’ Collective and its members, and specifically information on activities relating to human rights defence work, international cooperation, and the organisation’s financial records. During this time, the DAS has carried out diverse intelligence activities against members of CAJAR, including the identification of their nuclear families and the gathering of biographical economic, financial and work-related information. Political and psychological profiles were also developed and fingerprint records were kept. The DAS kept track of the members’ routines and travel routes and surveillance was carried out throughout the country (along with ongoing surveillance at set points by way of apartment rentals). Photographs and video have also been taken of the lawyers and their families at home and in their places of work. Telephone conversations and email communication have also been intercepted on a massive scale. Lastly, records have been kept on their migratory movements and their national and international contacts have been cross-referenced. The DAS has obtained this information from the government protection program for human rights defenders, public and private institutions, and what were called “human and technical sources.” The Colombian State Employs the Administrative Department of Security Against Human Rights Organizations”

The rest of this frightening document by the Lawyers Collective here.

by Jeremy Bigwood

Published in In These Times, May 13, 2009.

From the article: “Obama may not understand the dangerous waters his administration is drifting into by expanding “public safety” policing programs. If the history of the OPS and similar projects are any indication of what will come, U.S. policing initiatives in Latin America and elsewhere could result in violence and political repression.”
Read all of it, here.

Sad testament to that human rights organization.

RJ

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080629/OPINION03/806290306

Drug wars next door

As if our military didn’t have its hands full in Iraq and Afghanistan, the head of the Minuteman Project border security group seems to think they might also make good narcotics cops.

Minuteman cofounder Jim Gilchrist suggested in recent radio interviews that the U.S. give Mexico 12 months to corral its criminal drug cartels and rising violence, particularly in border towns like Juarez and Tijuana — or deploy the U.S. Army to do the job.

That’s the Minutemen. Their remedies for the drug war next door sound simplistic, but at least they’re paying attention.

While most of us north of the border have been absorbed with our presidential sweepstakes and other happenings, or southern neighbor has exploded into the full-scale drug violence previously associated with Colombia or Peru.

For now, we’re not sending troops, just money. The Senate last week approved a $1.6 billion, three-year package of anti-drug assistance to Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. Known as the “Merida Initiative,” it includes $400 million for military equipment and technical assistance for Mexico’s anti-drug fight. The bill was passed earlier by the House, and President Bush is expected to sign it.

Mexico’s government cheered the bill, because it waters down proposed restrictions that would have required Mexico to change the way it handles allegations of human rights abuses by its military. Mexican leaders threatened to reject the money, if there were too many restrictions on their sovereignty.

But the omission brought jeers from Amnesty International and some other human rights organizations, like the Friends of Brad Will, founded in the name of a freelance New York journalist who was shot and killed while shooting video of a teachers strike in Oaxaca two years ago. Will was 36.

His final video shows protesters hurling rocks and captures the sounds of gunshots, along with a shout: “Stop taking photos!” A shot is heard whizzing toward Will. He was struck in the abdomen and once in the right side.

Within days, state authorities took two men into custody, a local town councilor and his security chief. But they were released less than two months later. A state judge ruled that they were not close enough to have shot Will.

No further suspects were brought in. Publicity eventually helped to nudge federal authorities into taking over the state’s investigation, but the federals have not made much progress, even with a murder that was caught on tape.

Twenty-one journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2000, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, of which I am a board member, seven of them in direct reprisal for their work. Seven others have gone missing in the past three years.

“Mexico is not at war,” said Joel Simon, executive director of the committee. “And yet it is one of the world’s most dangerous countries for the press.”

But that’s only a sliver of the thousands of drug-related murders of non-journalists in Mexico. By various counts, more than 4,000 people — including some 500 local, state and federal police officers — have been killed in the 18 months since President Felipe Calderon launched his campaign against the drug gangs.

Gang wars have escalated in recent years over smuggling routes to the United States and over control of local police forces. Among other particularly grisly touches, drug gangs in the northern state of Durango recently have left severed heads with warning notes attached in coolers by the side of the road.

Journalists like Francisco Ortiz Franco, co-editor of the Tijuana newsweekly Zeta, have been killed for aggressively covering corruption and drug trafficking. At age 50, he was fatally shot in front of his children on a downtown Tijuana street.

Cases like his led to a meeting between President Calderon, who has sent federal troops in to bring peace to some towns, and CPJ board members, including me, in Mexico City on June 9. Among other press freedom reforms, he agreed to work toward laws that would protect speech and press freedoms at the federal level, not just the states, where corruption is more rampant.

With hundreds of millions of Washington anti-drug dollars still pending at the time, Calderon had ample reason to speak in glowing terms about human rights reforms. Now he needs to follow his talk with action — and Americans needs to keep an eye on how well our money is being used.

Clarence Page writes for the Chicago Tribune. His column is distributed by Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, NY 14207. You can reach him at cpage@tribune.com.

We agree.

And now that the human rights conditions” which Amnesty International and WOLA advocated as necessary for them to support the Merida Initiative are being softened into ‘guidelines’, we urge them to make their voices heard in opposition to this military aid package. An action alert from Amnesty may undo all of the tacit support they’ve given this Bush initiative to date. RJ

LASC Position on the Merida Initiative
June 2008

As Congress enters the final stages to approve the Merida Initiative, an aid package to Mexico and Central America that seeks to further militarize the region under the guise of the U.S.’s “war on drugs/war on terror,” we find manifold reasons to stand in opposition:

1) Money for Central America through the Merida Initiative would mark a significant increase in funding for military/police equipment and training in the region at a time when the need is for anti-poverty and crime-prevention programs.

The Merida Initiative, also known as Plan Mexico, builds on the troubling model of Plan Colombia, which has poured billions of dollars into a failed military approach to combating drugs while doing little to address rural poverty and urban unemployment. Central America has already become a satellite for U.S. military and police training in Latin America, despite the poor human rights records of some governments in the region. With the opening of the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) in 2005, El Salvador-already the second largest recipient of military training in the region-became the hub of police training. The ILEA has the capacity to train 1500 students per year, more than the current Western Hemisphere Institute for Security and Cooperation, also known as the SOA. U.S. officials refuse to acknowledge the corruption, misconduct and human rights violations committed by the Salvadoran police. To the contrary, the Merida Initiative now proposes to further support ILEA and further equip those police. Meanwhile, the Initiative wholly ignores the root problems that continue to compel regional involvement in drug trafficking-poverty and unemployment.

2) The Merida Initiative would further threaten human rights by supporting repression of the rights to free speech and protest.

The money from the U.S. would be an open invitation for the Mexican and Central American governments to continue using “iron fist” and anti-terrorism laws to crack down on legitimate social movements.

Over the last decade, Mexican police and military personnel have repeatedly committed human rights violations in attempt to silence civil dissent. Taking the most recent example, in 2006 security forces responded to civil society protest in Oaxaca with hundreds of arbitrary detentions, acts of torture, and over 20 assassinations. Numerous Mexican and international human rights organizations have expressed concern that Merida Initiative aid for Mexico’s military and police constitutes a recipe for unchecked human rights violations.

Meanwhile, an “anti-terrorism” law passed by the Salvadoran legislature in 2006 uses language that, like the Iron Fist laws implemented in other Latin American countries, is very vague, leaving them open to a wide variety of repressive applications. The Salvadoran government has already used these laws to further criminalize protest tactics commonly used by social movements. The US Ambassador to El Salvador has expressed explicit support for police crackdowns, condoning the use of police force in protecting US trade interests. Through funding the ILEA – in addition to other police training programs in Central America and the Caribbean – the Merida Initiative would legitimize and justify such crackdowns. Vague human rights provisions in the bill would not change this reality.

Finally, there is evidence that the countries receiving aid from the Merida Initiative are already working to militarize their police forces. The separation between police and military in El Salvador and Guatemala, the top two Central American recipients of Merida Initiative aid, has declined dramatically in the years since Peace Accords led to the demilitarization of police in those countries. There has also been a resurgence of death squad-style murders, some linked to the police, in both Guatemala and El Salvador.

3) The Initiative would not effectively combat drug-trafficking.

Military interdiction efforts have a “balloon” effect. In Colombia, U.S. military efforts to stop coca production and trafficking in key locations have simply shifted production and trafficking to new locations, causing the number of coca-producing states to jump from 8 to 24 over the course of Plan Colombia. The Merida Initiative would likely have a parallel effect on drug trafficking, simply diverting trafficking routes from one place to another and forcing cartels to become more sophisticated.

Military interdiction efforts fail because they ignore a root cause of the problem:

U.S. demand. Widespread drug use in the U.S. makes drug trafficking a lucrative business. Colombia has taught us that so long as demand remains high, even a multi-billion dollar military solution will fail. Even the right-wing RAND Corporation has concluded that far-flung attempts to stop drugs at their source is 23 times less cost effective than domestic drug treatment at home. While Merida proposes another step down the failed supply-side path, no parallel funds are being destined to state-side drug demand reduction programs.

4) Programs like the Merida Initiative have a worrisome lack of oversight and transparency.

Congress has not been given sufficient information about how the Central American and Mexican police will utilize the funding included for the region in the Merida Initiative. The examples of the ILEA and the SOA are instructive, in that officials at these institutions have actually blocked availability to basic information. Human rights groups that have sought to monitor the SOA and the ILEA have been denied documentation, such as course descriptions and names of students and instructors. Though backers of these military and police training programs promise conditions will be placed on the funds, given the history of poor oversight of such programs there is no guarantee this will occur.

In addition, the process in Congress for assessing the Merida Initiative was rushed and unclear, preventing opposition voices from making themselves heard. By including the Merida Initiative in the Emergency Supplemental bill to fund the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, promoters of the initiative short-circuited the normal process of going first through authorization and then through appropriations, preventing all sides and viewpoints to be heard and considered.

5) US military and police training contributes to violence rather than diminishing it.

Ample evidence gathered by SOA Watch and other human rights groups demonstrates that US training increases the level of official and extrajudicial violence in Latin America. There is no reason to believe that any of the structural problems have been addressed when it comes to police training. Reports from Mexico indicate that over 200 soldiers and police trained and equipped by the US have used the skills they learned to join and prop up various drug cartels. The proliferation of repression tactics only perpetuates the cycles of violence. The governments of Latin America do not need more police and military equipment and training from the country whose training has only raised the level of violence in the hemisphere.

The Latin America Solidarity Coalition demands:

1) No funding for the Merida Initiative.
2) Close the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security and Cooperation (SOA).
3) Close the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) for Latin America.

–
The Latin America Solidarity Coalition is an association of US-based grassroots Latin America and Caribbean solidarity groups. Visit us on the web at http://www.LASolidarity.org

The 4th Latin America Solidarity Coalition conference will take place from April 14-15, 2007 in Chicago.