Jury

From the movie 12 Angry Men. Those men were "ruling judges" in a court of law for at least the "facts" but early juries in America and England decided "fact and law" it what was called Jury nullification.

The Jury

Are you using that word – Jury - Part 3

In this series we have been showing how the changing of the meaning of words can shape the thinking of society and therefore the very nature of society. These changes have taken place back and forth over the centuries with sometimes disastrous results. This modern age is no different and there is no element of the world that is immune to the crippling effects and subtleties of dissembling society through sophistry.

Before we examine more commonly misunderstood words that will likely turn your world upside down, we need to look at the word “jury” to set a foundation for the truth.

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It is not that the word jury is misused, but that when you use the term you need to know that all juries are not created equally. We will only look at the critical nature and fundamental powers or lack of power or right found in two kinds of juries.

The right of a jury to decide “fact and law” is often called Jury Nullification. It is the power to acquit, even though the facts may clearly prove the individual is guilty of the charges brought against them. This is one of the most powerful tools of a free people in tending to the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith.

There was a time when they use to call me for jury duty. After reading comments concerning “Jury Nullification” in a Jury Handbook published by the Oregon Bar Association made available during “Jury Orientation”, I wrote a series of letters to a local judge who eventually referred me to the “State Court Administrator”.

I have been in court rooms and heard about court proceedings and law since I was a small boy. I remember once hearing a judge say he did not want any “word games” in his court. I chuckle at that now because 90% of what you see in court today boils down to word games.

So I thought, when he said those words, “Let the games begin.”

Nullification

The Doctrine of Nullification from the State's point of view has been held that states have the right to declare null and void any federal law that the State deem unconstitutional. The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions declared in 1799 that nullification was to be the rightful remedy used by the states for all unauthorized acts done under the pretext of the Constitution.

That was possible when those "States remained “as foreign to each other as Mexico is to Canada" even after the ratification of the Constitution and the citizens of those state were still Not a party to that constitution. The States were truly independent in 1799 but by 1899 that was no longer true and by 1999 it could not have gotten farther from the truth.

While the process of the modern assent into bondage can be debated the out come is self evident. Today the federal government has an increased interest in its citizens whose labor, property and children have all become surety for its debt like in the days of the bondage of Egypt.

Because a citizen in the United States is no longer the same as the natural citizens in states that had once been Republics. Neither the State governments have the capacity to assert such rights as the Doctrine of Nullification nor can citizens of the U.S. as residents in those States practically defend their right through Jury Nullification either. That right was once a key element of liberty in America and freedom from unwarranted usurpation from either State or Federal governments.

The United States government and those to whom they are indebted have now a prior right to protect their interests. The citizens have become a surety for debt among other compromised positions that have come about over many generations of degeneration, by avarice and sloth, and a myriad of benefits by way of a mire of moral compromises.

For true nullification there must be a real call for a large social group of people who are bound by virtuous "social bonds" alone. Decades of "Legal charity" has bankrupted the character of society required for a free society. The people must breath life into the care for one another by attending to what Christ called the "weightier matters".

Things forgotten

Americans have forgotten the art of liberty but there is a way back that is found by creating the social bonds that have connected all free societies throughout the history of mankind and had once made America great.

• “America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

In every turn of the writings of Alexis, he saw “Individual charity is a powerful agency that must not be despised,” and that “Any measure that establishes legal charity on a permanent basis and gives it administrative form thereby creates an idle and lazy class, living at the expense of the industrial and working class." -Alexis De Tocqueville, Memoir on Pauperism

"good should be done without the hope of reward, as it is done by the Deity himself."-Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America p 147

"American moralists do not claim that one must sacrifice oneself for one's fellows because it is a fine thing to do but they are bold enough to say that such sacrifices are as necessary to the man who makes them as to those gaining from them. . .They do not, therefore, deny that every man can pursue his own self-interest but they turn themselves inside out to prove that it is in each man's interest to be virtuous" (Tocqueville 1840, 610).

"Enlightened self-love continually leads them to help one another and inclines them to devote freely a part of their time and wealthy to the welfare of the state" (Tocqueville 1840, 611).

"I have seen Americans making great and sincere sacrifices for the key common good and a hundred times I have noticed that, when needs be, they almost always gave each other faithful support" (Tocqueville 1840, 594-595).

“It is indeed difficult to imagine how men who have entirely renounced the habit of managing their own affairs could be successful in choosing those who ought to lead them. It is impossible to believe that a liberal, energetic, and wise government can ever emerge from the ballots of a nation of servants.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville

“Society will develop a new kind of servitude which covers the surface of society with a network of complicated rules, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate. It does not tyrannise but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville

"The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults." ― Alexis de Tocqueville

"When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness." Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis, like many others in history, understood more than most that "The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens." That would mean private religion which was a form of private welfare does far more to secure liberty than the legal charity of public religion.

"Americans group together to hold fêtes, found seminaries, build inns, construct churches, distribute books, dispatch missionaries to the antipodes. They establish hospitals, prisons, schools by the same method. Finally, if they wish to highlight a truth or develop an opinion by the encouragement of a great example, they form an association." Alexis de Tocqueville 1840, Democracy in America 596.

The Contrast

"There are some nations in Europe whose inhabitants think of themselves in a sense as colonists, indifferent to the fate of the place they live in. The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called “the government.” They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved. They are so divorced from their own interests that even when their own security and that of their children is finally compromised, they do not seek to avert the danger themselves but cross their arms and wait for the nation as a whole to come to their aid. Yet as utterly as they sacrifice their own free will, they are no fonder of obedience than anyone else. They submit, it is true, to the whims of a clerk, but no sooner is force removed than they are glad to defy the law as a defeated enemy. Thus one finds them ever wavering between servitude and license."

Zero Point

"When a nation has reached this point, it must either change its laws and mores or perish, for the well of public virtue has run dry: in such a place one no longer finds citizens but only subjects.” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.

"For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.” — Cicero (106-43 BC)

The night was provided by those who thought themselves righteous and born again but still loved the darkness.

Edwin Emil Witte focused on social insurance issues for the people who already were forgetting the nature of Pure Religion.

"Social insurance is a form of social welfare that provides insurance against economic risks either through public or private means.

The contributions, which may be be considered a form of insurance premiums does create a common fund out of which the individuals may then be paid benefits in the future.

That common fund is not different than the One purse referenced in Proverbs. While, in Alexis de Tocqueville's America and in the Early Church such Social protection was provided by fervent charity of the people the same Social protection, as "defined by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development is concerned with preventing, managing, and overcoming situations that adversely affect people's well-being."

This Social protection through policies and programs designed to reduce poverty and vulnerability by the use of men who exercised authority was done through the Imperial Cult of Rome and its Temples and by Herod and the Pharisees but such systems not only make the word of God to none effect but they usher in the rule of despots and tyrants.

The Gospel of the kingdom requires men to repent and seek The Way of righteousness and a rejection of the reward of unrighteousness.

Jury Nullification

I can give you hundreds of quotes about Jury Nullification being a right, not a privilege or merely a power.

In the first letters I quote only a few of them, like Chief Justice John Jay who stated in 1794 in Georgia v. Brailsford, in reference to the power of the jury to decide fact and law that, “you have a right to take it upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy.” Others also called this power a right, including the second President of the United States, John Adams, who called it not only “the juror's right, but his duty, to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment and conscience, though in direct opposition to the directions of the court.”

The first letter I wrote to the judge was simply asking a question. The answer was right there, but most would miss it. I wanted to hear the judge's words on the subject, because most people would imagine that there is no right of jury nullification for Oregon juries, based on this quote from that Jury Handbook:

“Although some peoples may claim that a jury can “nullify” the law, this view is legally incorrect and severely prejudices the administration of justice. Jurors who disregard the trial judge's instructions have violated their oath.”

The Bar is not saying you do not have a right to decide fact and law, but they are saying that you would be violating your “oath” if you “disregard the trial judge's instructions”.

The first question you might ask could be “If I did not take an oath, do I still have my rights?”

Do you even have to take an oath to be on the jury?

You might wonder how should such an oath be worded?

But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

I pointed out to the judge in the first letter -- and court administrator in subsequent letters -- that John Adams and Chief Justice Jay are not just “some people”, as suggested in the Handbook.

While I went on to state that “Chief Justice Stone, Justices Gray, Justice Holmes all believed in and praised the right and even duty of jury nullification”, I did not mention Article 1, Sec. 16. of the Oregon Constitution which states that “... the jury shall have the right to determine the law, and the facts.”

I wanted to give them a chance to answer the simple question What changed?

• “Is it the nature of the oath or the nature of the court or a combination of both?
• Can this contradiction be explained in any other way?”

When the judge responded, he did not give me an answer, nor did he say that he did not know the answer. What he said was that he could not tell me the answer.

The answer, of course, is both the nature of the oath and the nature of the courts have changed. There had been drastic changes brought about by the people changing their own status through acts of sloth and covetousness. Of course, taking these oaths are a critical part of this change, but also reconstruction of local courts early in the 1900's, along with the continued “Reform of the Federal Judiciary in 1937 [which] was an attempt to make democracy king in America.”

We will give you an opportunity to understand this more, but here from the Handbook alone we should see clearly that we waive a right given us by God when we take these oaths.

On page two of the letter I point out that the Oregon Bar is telling us in their Handbook this view that a jury has a right to decide fact and law “is legally incorrect” because “jurors who disregard the trial judge's instructions have violated their oath”, not because they did not once have that right.

But what of the nature of the courts? How do we know they have changed simply by reading what the Oregon Bar stated? Go back to the first quote from the Handbook. What does it say about Jury Nullification as a “view” being “legally incorrect”? It states clearly that it “severely prejudices the administration of justice”.

The key word here is administration. These are administrative courts, not common law courts. This is also why the judge told me he could not tell the answer to my question but referred me to the “Office of State Court Administrator”.

I escalated my responses to the point where the Special Counsel at the Office of State Court Administrator was backed into a corner and finally advised me to consult the “internet” to get the answer she would not provide.

I did write the local Trial Court Administrator and asked, “From what I understand an oath is called for before voir dire of the jury selection process and also another oath is called for before a juror is seated and a trial begins. Will you please send me a copy of these two oaths.”

But there was fruit from the exchange, because in the final letter to her I asked the questions:

“Is one of the oaths asked of the jury evidence of an agreement to waive the “right” of the jury to determine the law? What are the oaths that jurors are asked to take? Can you send me a copy of them?”

I have never received written copies of those oaths. Her answer amazed me. There evidently is no oath dictated by law. It appears there is no requirement for the exact same oath to be taken by potential jurors.

According to Special Counsel Cross, each court's oath may differ. So are they just making them up as they go along?

So what is going on?

Dare we mention the word conspiracy, or is this the natural course of events amongst a people who fail to learn from history or fail to learn about the nature of their duty to God and their fellow man in attending to what Jesus calls the weightier matters?

An oath by its nature has been considered a “religious act”, and it is defined as a “sacred or solemn voluntary promise usually involving the penalty of divine retribution for intentional falsity and often used in legal procedures” with “its origins in religious customs.”

Even John Bouvier's Law Dictionary, adapted to the Constitution and the Laws of the United States, defines an oath as “a religious act by which the party invokes God”.

A question may now arise on the examination of an oath -- which god are we invoking by the oath since according to Paul “there be gods many”? But before we answer that question, we may need to understand the history of the changing relationship between God, man, and governments.

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If we have been individually endowed the right to decide "fact and law" by the God of creation and mandated by Jesus to attend to the "weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith" then if we waive that natural right (thereby granting our God-given right, the power of judgment, to a man to be a "ruling judge") are we making men gods?

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In America's beginning, men struggled to establish that “The jury has the Right to judge both the law and the facts.” But modern Americans do not cherish the inalienable gifts of God, and they no longer tend to the weightier matters of law, but they waive their right to decide the law by swearing oaths, in opposition to the words of Christ, the apostles and the early Church.

The United States Government, in establishing its own legal system through “An Act to Establish the Judicial Courts of the United States” was forced by custom and reason “that suits in equity shall not be sustained in either of the courts of the United States, in any case where plain, adequate, and complete remedy may be had at law.”

James Madison wrote concerning this bill, in a letter to Edward Pendleton, stating that he viewed the Judiciary act “as defective both in its general structure, and many of its particular regulations.” He expressed his hope that the “system may speedily undergo a reconsideration under the auspices of the Judges who alone will be able perhaps to set it to rights.”

From this architectonic act and since before the Magna Carta, we see, “all cases, the right of a common law remedy, where the common law is competent to give it.” and in “SEC. 34. And be it further enacted, That the laws of the several states, except where the constitution, treaties or statutes of the United States shall otherwise require or provide, shall be regarded as rules of decision in trials at common law in the courts of the United States in cases where they apply.”

The common law includes trial by jury, so I continued to write letters to the Office of State Court Administrator who responded with non-answer replies to my questions. First she quoted a case that sounded on the surface to say there was no power of Jury Nullification in Oregon. Fortunately, I was not only familiar with that case, but I knew the parties personally. It had nothing to do with Jury Nullification and her quote of the case was completely out of context.

If “John Adams stated unequivocally that a juror should ignore a judge’s instruction on the law if it violates fundamental principles” according to his best understanding, judgment and conscience then it is the Juror that is the “Ruling Judge” within the courts when it comes to law, judgment, and at least mercy if not also faith. But if the juror takes certain oaths that bind his conscience and better judgment to the opinion of the judge and legislature, at least according to the Oregon Bar Association Handbook, he no longer has access to that right.

There are two kinds of juries: those that are bound by righteousness to decide fact and law according to their good conscience and better judgment, or those juries who bind their conscience and better judgment under the power of others by swearing, and then they can only decide the facts. These may both be juries, but their power and exercisable rights are worlds apart.

What does all this mean?

It means if you were a righteous people, then you, as twelve jurors, have more power than the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government. You could be the ruling judges of the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith like Christ said to do, but if you allow your conscience to be bound by oaths as Christ said not to do, then others may become the ruling judges of what used to be the people's courts and therefore they become the ruling judges of the people.

There is much more to this story, but remember the point here is to set a foundation for the examination of a more important word which also has to do with ruling judges. For now, it is enough to know that jury trials at common law are dependent upon “large numbers of freemen” who can decide both fact and law as ruling judges, which should be distinguished from the subject jurors of the United States that we often see today, who have waived their natural rights by neglecting their natural responsibilities, and by the taking of oaths.

Today’s jurors, as U.S. Citizens, are subject to the administration of government. While they are almost always sworn to abide by the decrees of the legislature and executive branches and the rulings of the judges of the courts, their rights have been severely diminished or curtailed long before they even enter the courtroom. These jurors are no longer ruling judges of the weightier matters of law, but they have become subjects under the laws of other men. How we have become subjects to the administration of government is not so much the government's fault as it is ours.

I know that may not be what people want to hear, but if they are going to be able to do something about a problem, they need to know the whole truth and provide for it. Christ did not come to tickle your ears. You do not need more of those pastors who have become brutes nor the ones who transgress the law but those who seek to bring knowledge and understanding so that the captive may be set free. The last thing the people need is more of those false teachers who through covetousness and feigned words tell you it is okay to take oaths and swear. These oaths and covetousness make you human resource and merchandise and bar your rights to tend to the weightier matters of Christ.

This topic of your subjectivity under the administration of law is covered in the book The Covenants of the gods, but to save you some time, you can focus on the chapter concerning Citizens.

The Living Network is a non denominational free assembly of men and women dedicated to knowing the whole truth and providing for it.

We seek to understand and strive to pursue those activities taught by the ancients that set nations free by implementing practices that maintain society in a free state.

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Citizen | Equity | The Ten Laws | Law of the Maat |
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Perfect law of liberty | Power to change | Covet | Rights |
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Deciding fact and law.
Letters between Bro. Gregory and a judge about jury nullification. http://www.hisholychurch.org/kkvv/x5%20folder/140309thl06naturallaw.mp3

Being a juror who can decide fact and law is the power to attend to the Weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith which include caring for the needs of our neighbors and the widows and orphans of our society through Pure Religion in matters of health, education, and welfare. We are NOT to provide for the needy of society through the Covetous Practices and the men who call themselves benefactors but who exercise authority one over the other like the socialists do.

The Way of Christ was like neither the way of the world of Rome nor the governments of the gentiles who depend on those fathers of the earth through force, fear and fealty who deliver the people back in bondage again like they were in Egypt. Christ's ministers and true Christians do not depend upon systems of social welfare that force the contributions of the people like the corban of the Pharisees which made the word of God to none effect. Many people have been deceived to go the way of Balaam and the Nicolaitan and out of The Way of Christ and have become workers of iniquity.

The Christian conflict with Rome in the first century Church appointed by Christ was because they would not apply to the fathers of the earth for their free bread but instead relied upon a voluntary network providing a daily ministration to the needy of society through Faith, Hope, and Charity by way of freewill offerings of the people, for the people, and by the people through the perfect law of liberty in Free Assemblies according to the ancient pattern of Tuns or Tens as He commanded.

The modern Christians are in need of repentance.

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"Follow me!" —Jesus the Christ.

• One of the most important things to do is to become involved in a network of Charitable Practices. Everyone should want to join a Living Network of Love and Charity.

• If you think you have a calling to be a Minister of God or you might want to dedicate your life to Christ as an Ordained Minister of His Holy Church, contact us to start the process of discipleship and become the benefactors who exercise only love, NOT authority.

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Listen to audio broadcasts associated with That Word Part 1.

http://www.hisholychurch.net/kkvv/8thbatch/13-05-25-Christian-7religare.mp3

http://www.hisholychurch.net/kkvv/8thbatch/13-06-01-Christian-8threskia.mp3

http://www.hisholychurch.net/kkvv/8thbatch/13-06-01-Christian-9threskia.mp3

http://www.hisholychurch.net/kkvv/8thbatch/13-06-01-Christian-xfalsereligion.mp3

Deciding fact and law.
Letters between Bro. Gregory and a judge about jury nullification. http://www.hisholychurch.org/kkvv/x5%20folder/140309thl06naturallaw.mp3

Third hour in Cleft in the_Rock series. Forming a grassroots network.... like the first century church... Grand jury rules; Forming a grand jury fallacy; What's in your treasury, nothing but debt notes. Abraham, Moses & Jesus taught an alternative system based on free will choice. Einkorn wheat, Monsanto. Join us. http://www.hisholychurch.net/kkvv/020/141018cliftintherock03fr.mp3 [edit]Gospel

http://www.hisholychurch.net/kkvv/x3folder/140104-THL-05rulers.mp3

http://www.hisholychurch.net/kkvv/x3folder/140130wordjudge01.mp3

That Word You Use- Part 1- Religion
What did the word Religion mean when it was written in the constitution?
http://www.hisholychurch.org/news/articles/ThatWordnwv.php

That Word You Use - Part 2 - Faith
What did the word Faith mean before it became just what people think?
http://www.hisholychurch.org/news/articles/ThatWord2nwv.php

That Word You Use - Part 3 - Jury
What is a jury and are their different kinds of juries?
http://www.hisholychurch.org/news/articles/ThatWord3nwv.php

Religion, NN Video Series:9-10 4:27
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMxTbD3s3s8

The Opiate of Religion
http://www.hisholychurch.org/sermon/opiate.php

The Corban of the Pharisees
It made the word of God to none effect.
Is our Corban making the word of God to none effect today?
http://www.hisholychurch.org/sermon/corban.php

The Nicolaitan who God hates?
Because they covet their neighbor's goods
http://www.hisholychurch.org/sermon/nicolaity.php

Baptism, the Ritual and the Jurisdiction
Are Christians repenting and getting baptized or are they just all wet?
http://www.hisholychurch.org/sermon/baptismjura.php

Not so Secure Socialism
Same old promise, Same old lie!
http://www.hisholychurch.org/news/articles/notsecuress.php
Appeared first on NewsWithViews 8-1-10

That Word You Use- Part 1- Religion
What did the word Religion mean when it was written in the constitution?
http://www.hisholychurch.org/news/articles/ThatWordnwv.php

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