told ya, a government run amok

S

SmarterthanYou

rebel
You're (probably) a federal criminal

Federal law now criminalizes activities that the average person would never dream would land him in prison. Consequently, every year, thousands of upstanding, responsible Americans run afoul of some incomprehensible federal law and end up serving time in federal prison.

With all the attention that's been paid lately to long federal sentences for drug offenders, it's surprising that a far more troubling phenomenon has barely hit the media's radar screen. Every year, thousands of upstanding, responsible Americans run afoul of some incomprehensible federal law or regulation and end up serving time in federal prison.

What is especially disturbing is that it could happen to anyone at all -- and it has.

We should applaud Reps. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), then, for holding a bipartisan hearing today to examine how federal law can make a criminal out of anyone, for even the most mundane conduct.

Federal law in particular now criminalizes entire categories of activities that the average person would never dream would land him in prison. This is an inevitable result of the fact that the criminal law is no longer restricted to punishing inherently wrongful conduct -- such as murder, rape, robbery, and the like.

Moreover, under these new laws, the government can often secure a conviction without having to prove that the person accused even intended to commit a bad act, historically a protection against wrongful conviction.

Laws like this are dangerous in the hands of social engineers and ambitious lawmakers -- not to mention overzealous prosecutors -- bent on using government's greatest civilian power to punish any activity they dislike. So many thousands of criminal offenses are now in federal law that a prominent federal appeals court judge titled his recent essay on this overcriminalization problem, "You're (Probably) a Federal Criminal."

Consider small-time inventor and entrepreneur Krister Evertson, who will testify at today's hearing. Krister never had so much as a traffic ticket before he was run off the road near his mother's home in Wasilla, Alaska, by SWAT-armored federal agents in large black SUVs training automatic weapons on him.

Evertson, who had been working on clean-energy fuel cells since he was in high school, had no idea what he'd done wrong. It turned out that when he legally sold some sodium (part of his fuel-cell materials) to raise cash, he forgot to put a federally mandated safety sticker on the UPS package he sent to the lawful purchaser.

Krister's lack of a criminal record did nothing to prevent federal agents from ransacking his mother's home in their search for evidence on this oh-so-dangerous criminal.

The good news is that a federal jury in Alaska acquitted Krister of all charges. The jurors saw through the charges and realized that Krister had done nothing wrong.

The bad news, however, is that the feds apparently had it in for Krister. Federal criminal law is so broad that it gave prosecutors a convenient vehicle to use to get their man.

Two years after arresting him, the feds brought an entirely new criminal prosecution against Krister on entirely new grounds. They used the fact that before Krister moved back to Wasilla to care for his 80-year-old mother, he had safely and securely stored all of his fuel-cell materials in Salmon, Idaho.

According to the government, when Krister was in jail in Alaska due to the first unjust charges, he had "abandoned" his fuel-cell materials in Idaho. Unfortunately for Krister, federal lawmakers had included in the Resource Recovery and Conservation Act a provision making it a crime to abandon "hazardous waste." According to the trial judge, the law didn't require prosecutors to prove that Krister had intended to abandon the materials (he hadn't) or that they were waste at all -- in reality, they were quite valuable and properly stored away for future use.

With such a broad law, the second jury didn't have much of a choice, and it convicted him. He spent almost two years locked up with real criminals in a federal prison. After he testifies today, he will have to return to his halfway house in Idaho and serve another week before he is released.

The other hardened criminal whose story members of Congress will hear today is retiree George Norris. A longtime resident of Spring, Texas, Norris made the mistake of not knowing and keeping track of all of the details of federal and international law on endangered species -- mostly paperwork requirements -- before he decided to turn his orchid hobby into a small business. What was Norris's goal? To earn a little investment income while his wife neared retirement.

The Lacey Act is an example of the dangerous overbreadth of federal criminal law. Incredibly, Congress has made it a federal crime to violate any fish or wildlife law or regulation of any nation on earth.

Facing 10 years in federal prison, Norris pled guilty and served almost two. His wife, Kathy, describes the pain of losing their life savings to pay for attorneys and trying to explain to grandchildren why for so long Poppa George couldn't see them.

Federal criminal law did not get so badly broken overnight, and it will take hard work to get it fixed. It is encouraging that members of Congress such as Reps. Scott and Gohmert are now paying attention to the toll overcriminalization takes on ordinary Americans. Congress needs to begin fixing the damage it has done by starting to restore a more reasonable, limited and just federal criminal law. Today's hearing is an excellent first step.
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Brian W. Walsh is Senior Legal Research Fellow in the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation (heritage.org).
 
With such a broad law, the second jury didn't have much of a choice, and it convicted him.
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Actually the jury DID have a choice, but they may not have known it. A jury can come out with a "Not Guilty" verdict no matter what the law says, or the evidence says. Technically a jury can also convict in spite of the evidence, with the difference being a judge can overturn a wrongful conviction, but cannot overturn a not guilty verdict.

Of course, the PTBs don't want us to know that, will go so far as to lie about it, and many courts are telling defense attorneys they cannot advise the jury of their power.
 
could a jury find a prosecutor for contemt for bringing ludcrous cahrges? could a jury make a finding completely different than waht it is asked to consider?

this widely misintererpertable legal stuff is very Soviet, allowing the PTB to jail anyone at anytime for any reason. call it RICO and screw the fourth amendment!
 
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RubberMallet said:
could a jury find a prosecutor for contemt for bringing ludcrous cahrges? could a jury make a finding completely different than waht it is asked to consider?

this widely misintererpertable legal stuff is very Soviet, allowing the PTB to jail anyone at anytime for any reason. call it RICO and screw the fourth amendment!
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see, we have this wonderfully crafted legal doctrine (created by lawyers turned judges) called qualified immunity. What this means in laymens terms is that a government official can commit any kind of atrocity they feel is necessary as long as they were operating in an official capacity, so no to your question that there is nothing that can be done to this prosecutor.
 
uscitizen said:
Or call it DEA and they take your property before you are even convicted depriving you of due process.
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the so called asset forfeiture laws, yeah funny thing about that and due process. They don't have to provide it in those instances because, yet another lawyer turned judge created doctrine, they don't charge YOU with a crime, they charge the PROPERTY with the crime.
 
RubberMallet said:
could a jury find a prosecutor for contemt for bringing ludcrous cahrges?
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Likely not; this is usually the purview of judges.

could a jury make a finding completely different than waht it is asked to consider?
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Not without forfeiting the rule of law. If we let juries make up the law as they go along, juries could make up anything they needed to make up in order to convict an unpopular but otherwise innocent person.
 
RubberMallet said:
could a jury make a finding completely different than waht it is asked to consider?
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the real power of the justice system lies with the jury, though the judge will most likely never tell you this. Jury Nullification is a right of all juries. It gives the jury the power to judge not just facts, but judge the law and its application as well. It gives a jury the power to return a not guilty verdict to a defendant if they feel the law is wrong or being applied unfairly.
 
flaja said:
Likely not; this is usually the purview of judges.



Not without forfeiting the rule of law. If we let juries make up the law as they go along, juries could make up anything they needed to make up in order to convict an unpopular but otherwise innocent person.
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I was asking because I was on a jury where the two entities in the suit where not the repobsible ones. partner B IMO colluded with bank manager to commit fraud, but Partner A was being sued by the bank (partner B was bankrupt)/. I would have loved to order the fat ass bank manager to pay partner A becuase FA failed to follow banks own internal controls which would have prevented a case of bank fraud 101.
 
Evertson, who had been working on clean-energy fuel cells since he was in high school, had no idea what he'd done wrong. It turned out that when he legally sold some sodium (part of his fuel-cell materials) to raise cash, he forgot to put a federally mandated safety sticker on the UPS package he sent to the lawful purchaser.
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If this person has done any legitimate work regarding fuel cells he would know enough about chemistry to know that pure sodium is highly reactive. It could easily be used to make a bomb, so shipping it without the proper safety precautions is a big deal. What if the package of sodium had been damaged while being handled by the UPS and somebody had been hurt? What if the UPS truck had crashed on a crowded highway- or what if the sodium had been shipped by air and an accident brought a plan down? The Feds had every right to get upset.
 
flaja said:
If this person has done any legitimate work regarding fuel cells he would know enough about chemistry to know that pure sodium is highly reactive. It could easily be used to make a bomb, so shipping it without the proper safety precautions is a big deal. What if the package of sodium had been damaged while being handled by the UPS and somebody had been hurt? What if the UPS truck had crashed on a crowded highway- or what if the sodium had been shipped by air and an accident brought a plan down? The Feds had every right to get upset.
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and he was tried and acquitted of criminal conduct on that charge. The outrage stems from the actions of the feds 2 years later.
 
flaja said:
Which does not mean he is innocent or did not put other people’s life and property at risk.
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innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. the jury acquitted him of criminal conduct. stop the authoritarian BS in you of 'all citizens are guilty until judged innocent'.
 
SmarterThanYou said:
innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. the jury acquitted him of criminal conduct. stop the authoritarian BS in you of 'all citizens are guilty until judged innocent'.
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A jury acquitted Clinton and OJ Simpson; does this mean they did not commit the crimes?
 
SmarterThanYou said:
clinton was impeached, not tried. in the eyes of the law, OJ was not guilty. Means he was not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
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U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 3:

“The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.”

You cannot try an impeachment without a trial, dimwit.
 
flaja said:
U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 3:

“The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.”

You cannot try an impeachment without a trial, dimwit.
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the senate voted not to convict. That's not a judicial trial. try again, dimwit.

I fucking hate faux conservatives who think they know it all.
 
Good Luck said:
Actually the jury DID have a choice, but they may not have known it. A jury can come out with a "Not Guilty" verdict no matter what the law says, or the evidence says. Technically a jury can also convict in spite of the evidence, with the difference being a judge can overturn a wrongful conviction, but cannot overturn a not guilty verdict.

Of course, the PTBs don't want us to know that, will go so far as to lie about it, and many courts are telling defense attorneys they cannot advise the jury of their power.
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Jury Nullification is not allowed in the federal system and in most states.

First Chief Justice of the US John Jay wrote: "It is presumed, that juries are the best judges of facts; it is, on the other hand, presumed that courts are the best judges of law. But still both objects are within your power of decision... you [juries] have a right to take it upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy". State of Georgia v. Brailsford, 3 U.S. 1, 4 (1794),

Recent court rulings have contributed to the prevention of jury nullification. A 1969 Fourth Circuit decision, U.S. v. Moylan, affirmed the right of jury nullification, but also upheld the power of the court to refuse to permit an instruction to the jury to this effect.[35] In 1972, in United States v. Dougherty, 473 F.2d 1113, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a ruling similar to Moylan that affirmed the de facto power of a jury to nullify the law but upheld the denial of the defense's chance to instruct the jury about the power to nullify.[36] In 1988, the Sixth Circuit upheld a jury instruction that "There is no such thing as valid jury nullification."[37] In 1997, the Second Circuit ruled that jurors can be removed if there is evidence that they intend to nullify the law, under Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure 23(b).[38] The Supreme Court has not recently confronted the issue of jury nullification.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_Nullification#United_States

For more information on Jury Nullification see the Fully Informed Jury Association at www.fija.org
 
Article 23 of Maryland’s Constitution states:
In the trial of all criminal cases, the Jury shall be the Judges of Law, as well as of fact, except that the
Court may pass upon the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain a conviction.

Art. 1, Sec. 19, of Indiana’s Constitution says:
In all criminal cases whatever, the jury shall have the right to determine the law and the facts.

Oregon’s Constitution, Art. 1, Sec. 16, states:
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed. Cruel and unusual punishments shall not be inflicted, but all penalties shall be proportioned to the offense. In all criminal cases whatever, the jury shall have the right to determine the law, and the facts under the direction of the Court as to the law, and the right of new trial, as in civil cases.

Art. 1, Sec. 1 of Georgia’s Constitution says:
The right to trial by jury shall remain inviolate, except that the court shall render judgment without the verdict of a jury in all civil cases where no issuable defense is filed and where a jury is not demanded in writing by either party. In criminal cases, the defendant shall have a public and speedy trial by an impartial jury; and the jury shall be judges of the law and the facts. http://www.fija.org/docs/JG_state_language_on_jury_nullification.pdf

Pass this on. This is, I believe one of the surest ways of doing way with the criminalization of marijuana. I have had as many as 2/3 of a jury panel, includin senior citizens say that they think the war on drugs has failed and drugs should be legalized, BUT they can follow the instructions of the court. If all states honored our history of jury nullification, states would stop prosecuting drug cases because more juries would acquit small time possession.
 
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