Jury Nullification

The Last Peaceful Stand Against Tyranny

Mike Shaner
January 31, 2023

It is said individuals have three boxes available to defend liberty: the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box. Is it any wonder that all three are under constant attack?

“From the first I saw no chance of bettering the condition of the freedman, until he should cease to be merely a freedman, and should become a citizen. I insisted that there was no safety for him, nor for anybody else in America, outside the American Government: that to guard, protect, and maintain his liberty, the freedman should have the ballot; that the liberties of the American people were dependent upon the Ballot-box, the Jury-box, and the Cartridge-box, that without these no class of people could live and flourish in this country; and this was now the word for the hour with me, and the word to which the people of the North willingly listened when I spoke. Hence, regarding as I did, the elective franchise as the one great power by which all civil rights are obtained, enjoyed, and maintained under our form of government, and the one without which freedom to any class is delusive if not impossible, I set myself to work with whatever force and energy I possessed to secure this power for the recently emancipated millions.”
-Frederick Douglass

The ballot box is understood. The jury box is under utilized. The cartridge box is under provocative scrutiny. For the purposes of this writing we can ignore whatever disagreements we may have regarding the (mis)virtues of the ballot box, and we can assume the cartridge box is self evident, so we will focus on the last peaceful protection available to individuals against tyrannical governments: jury nullification.

                                    What is jury nullification:

Jury nullification, simply put, is when a jury judges an ordinance that has been violated as opposed to the guilt or innocence of the accused by returning a verdict of "Not Guilty" despite its belief that the defendant is guilty of the violation. Some examples of jury nullification happened in the early 1800s, when  northern juries refused to convict individuals accused of harboring slaves in violation of the Fugitive Slave Laws. Many juries nullified prohibition by refusing to convict defendants accused of violating alcohol control laws.

               How Does Jury Nullification Work?

Jury nullification is simple,  jurors must ask themselves “does this law deserve to exist?” If the answer is “no,” then they simply vote not guilty regardless of the evidence.

  When enough juries refuse to help the state punish individuals for unjust crimes, the state will cease to enforce unjust laws. Could city streets be safer if available resources were used to protect the person, property, and liberty of its citizens as opposed to harassing and extorting them as a means to raise revenue?


                                     Is Jury Nullification Legal?

The honest answer… who cares? State henchmen and enforcers, (prosecutors and cops),who make a living off of shaking down Joe Public would like you to believe jury nullification is illegal. As of this writing I am unaware of any law criminalizing jury nullification, but even if there is one or one were to be written, it would be toothless, impossible to prove, and likely nullified by a jury. Once a verdict of “not guilty” is delivered, it cannot be overturned; this grants juries the power to nullify unjust laws, legality be damned.

         How Governments Violate Individual Rights

Government is not  going to spend much time fighting a losing battle. So, instead of trying to make an unenforceable law, they often prefer to pretend the concept doesn’t exist. They will never explain to a jury about the right of nullification, they will expressly prohibit defense attorneys from using nullification as a tactical defense, they will arrest members of the public for trespassing on public property for passing out educational materials on the subject, and in a far too common practice, municipalities will flagrantly violate the 6th amendment of the United States constitution by simply refusing to offer jury trials as an option to defendants. In many states, town or city councils will scheme up a kangaroo court to prosecute (usually the poorest) citizens for so called crimes that can result in the defendant serving up to, but no more than, 12 months in jail!

    All governments are corporations that exist to make a profit. The main “service” offered and the chief (often sole) form of revenue, like every mafia of all time, is the protection racket. They collect their dues (taxation) in advance with the promise of keeping the individual safe from other forms of plunder.

Over time, governments have learned to diversify, and create multiple income streams, mainly fines imposed on individuals who haven’t hurt anyone, but have violated some arbitrary town ordinance.  Most often, these will be things like traffic citations, parking tickets, public intoxication, and the like. Sometimes, it can go far beyond that, like the case of two women found guilty of feeding feral cats by a municipal judge in Wetumpka, Al.

In Valley, Alabama, the courts and cops recently decided the town needed to be protected against an elderly cancer patient who had forgotten to pay her trash bill. In fact, dozens of people have been arrested, convicted, and sentenced for not paying their trash bill in Valley. These sound like obscure and extreme cases, and the ludicrosity may be, but the end is sadly an every day occurrence.

These victims of the state are not afforded the right to a jury trial, either. In order for defendants in these municipalities to exercise their right to a jury they must spend at least one day, and sometimes many days, postponed and delayed over months, and plead their case before an unelected “judge,” who was appointed by the town council to raise revenue for the city.

This so called judge is usually a practicing defense attorney in a neighboring town, who moonlights on a commission basis, to find the poor victims guilty and impose a fine, (collected under the threat of a jail sentence) on the poor souls.

Once the town judge finds these people guilty, (which is his near exclusive opinion) they will finally be allowed to appeal to a higher court, after posting a monetary appeal bond, and argue their case before a jury. Let this sink in, before they can ever face a jury of their peers, they must first lose the presumption of innocence!

  If a well educated individual with disposable income ever appears before these pirates disguised as civil servants, it is either because the affluent person was participating in such an egregious act that his guilt is beyond question, or it was an accident. No, these predators prey on the weak and vulnerable, which is why when people argue the justice system is racist, they miss the mark. The only color these mobsters see is green. They target people who look as though they can’t afford to hire an attorney or miss a day of work.

This system is designed to feed on the fringes. Keep the fat happy and the middle blissfully unaware. If questionable circumstances arise, they coat it with the paint of racism and let polite society distract themselves with debate. Smiling as they watch them line up on opposing sides, while the real villain, government, slyly escapes to persecute another victim on another day. How is this legal? It isn’t. Why hasn’t anyone stopped it? Most people don’t know it even happens.

This has been the small town justice system for nearly a century.  Governments will make a living by victimizing the impoverished. They will terrorize the trailer parks and ghettos with perfect indiscretion.

The only way this system will change is when enough light is shined on it to make the pressure unbearable, or the weak become strong through education. We break this system by refusing to plead guilty of violating unjust laws and by teaching others to do the same, by making it too time consuming and expensive for municipalities to keep operating this way. Poor people are often blackmailed and extorted into taking plea deals with the promise of payment plans and the threat of a jail cell.

Laws change when society forces them to change. Societies change when the culture changes. Cultures change for the better when individuals become educated. We must teach people to stop feeding governments by taking bad plea “bargains” that net municipalities fat cash.  We must educate suburbia on these awful practices, and encourage good people to try to get on juries instead of trying to get out of jury duty.

We can tell a man all day long to plead not guilty, but when he is faced with a stack of bills he can’t pay,  weeks and weeks of having to take time off of work just to return to one pointless court postponement after another, ending with him possibly locked in a cage as his family gets evicted or goes hungry, he’s not going to listen. No one would or should. However, if we start nullifying unjust crimes in the jury box, that word will spread. Pretty soon everyone will know not to plead guilty and that system will die.

If we want to end systemic persecution of the poor, we have only one choice, serve on the jury and vote not guilty. If we want to defund the IRS, we have only one choice. The same lonesome choice, sit on the juries and vote not guilty.  Want to end the drug war, eliminate victimless crime laws, starve the state and force them to focus on their legitimate duties? Serve on juries and vote not guilty.

Furthermore, share this article and video. You know how passionate you get about whatever the federal government is doing this week? How angry you get when they pass big spending bills? How you can preach to your friends and family about how an election was stolen or wasn’t stolen? How much you love or hate the former president and can’t wait to campaign for the next one? Please, take that energy and channel it here. Use all of that passion to convince or annoy or debate your friends, family, and strangers at the bar to become active at home and use the last peaceful stand liberty has available to it: Jury Nullification