Dear John,
It's a relief, really, to share some good news with you for a change. And this is BIG NEWS!
Nearly five years ago, Keith Wood was arrested and falsely charged with two so-called "crimes" for sharing the Fully Informed Jury Association's educational literature on the public sidewalk outside the Mecosta County Courthouse. One charge was dropped, but the state hounded him on the other charge all the way through a show trial, into jail, through the Court of Appeals, right up to the Michigan Supreme Court where...
KEITH HAS WON HIS CASE!!!
In a nutshell, the appeals process focused on two main areas of contention:
- Did the term "juror" as used in the jury tampering statute include those who were summoned for jury duty but were not seated on a jury in an actual trial?
- Constitutional issues regarding free speech and jury nullification.
The Court's decision to overturn Keith's false conviction was based solely on the statutory issue and did not address the Constitutional issues. Nonetheless, this was another critical victory in FIJA's ongoing battles to continue to do educational outreach at courthouses.
It is sad, though, that the courts refused to settle this before wasting years of people's time, who knows how much of Keith's and his supporters' money, not to mention taxpayer dollars, and unjustly imprisoning Keith for 3 of the 8 weekends he was sentenced to for activities the Michigan Supreme Court says very clearly were NOT criminal.
The thought really struck me the other day that if you or I kidnapped someone, we would go to jail. If you or I falsely imprisoned someone, we would go to jail. But not the judge. Not the prosecutor. They are getting paid for their criminal acts out of taxpayers' pocketbooks.
