To view this email online, paste this link into your browser:
[link removed]





Three Link Thursday!

Hello John,

This week I'm delighted to announce a new project to expand FIJA's sphere of influence to educate even more people.

If you ever find yourself in the defendant's seat, the one person most guaranteed not to be on your jury is YOU. So it behooves us all to create more fully informed jurors to be there for us when we need them.

With that in mind, I am working hard on developing new ways to reach people who have not yet heard of jury nullification or FIJA, starting with link number...

...1

Fully Informed Substack ([link removed])

FIJA now has a Substack newsletter called Fully Informed. "But I don't want to sign up for another newsletter!" I can hear some of you thinking. Good news—you don't have to! Read on for details of how this will work.

This is the beginning of a systematic effort to reach people who on their own would not find our website by delivering to them already existing or in-development content reused from our website by getting it in front of them on other website that they already go to for other reasons.

Repackaging it is not a zero time or zero effort task, of course. But on Substack I can more or less copy and paste huge chunks of material I've written for our website, use it as is or modify it only slightly, and get it in front of a whole new set of eyeballs. The idea is that with a small amount of additional effort, we can create a large number of new fully informed jurors.

I have posted two articles so far on Fully Informed: 

a basic introduction to jury nullification ([link removed]), taken largely from our FAQ, since many Substack readers will not have heard of it before, and

the first in a series of articles I'll be sharing on the FIJA website of educational resources for voters and legislative and policy influencers—this one explains why FIJA educates instead of lobbies ([link removed])

I have several other articles planned for the new series that will be posted in a new section on the FIJA website (see link 2!) and cross-posted to Fully Informed. You can expect to see other topics interspersed with those as well.

Whenever I post to Fully Informed, I will include a link in these Three Link Thursday emails so you don't have to subscribe separately to get notified. You can also visit the Substack page for Fully Informed whenever you like without subscribing—all articles will be freely available to the public.

But if you DO subscribe, you can help broadcast our signal further. More subscribers; likes, comments, and shares on the post (look for the heart, word bubble, and share arrow at the bottom of each post); and sharing the emailed newsletters you receive all will help distribute this information more widely and reach new people! THANK YOU in advance for any help you can provide in spreading this content!

 

2

New on the FIJA Website:
Educational Resources for Legislative and Policy Influencers ([link removed])

This is a new section on the FIJA website where you will find the series of articles that I mentioned under link #1 will also be posted in the coming weeks on the Fully Informed Substack.

What inspired this series?

FIJA's mission is educational rather than legislative, as I discuss in the first (and only, for the moment) article you will find linked on this resource page.

However, my experience over the years has been that legislators, policymakers, lobbyists, activists, concerned citizens, etc. cannot make or influence good law and policy without accurate information about the right of jury nullification and how other elements of the legal system impact it.

When providing testimony or "expert" opinions to legislators or the public, judges and prosecutors usually spread misinformation and argue in favor of diminishing jury independence and jurors' right to consult their consciences and increasing their own power. In this section, we will aim to counter that by providing educational resources tailored for YOU and others who influence or make law or policy in these areas.

If you read in your local news, see on a legislative agenda for your state, or otherwise hear about possible law or policy change in your area with regard to one of the aspects of the legal system that will be covered on this page, you can simply visit the appropriate article to learn more about the topic. You are most welcome to use any of the talking points, references, data, etc. you find on that page if you choose to write a letter to the editor or an op-ed, submit a public comment on a proposed judicial policy change, testify with regard to proposed legislation, etc. 

I've got about a dozen different topics in mind to provide these educational briefings on in the coming weeks. If you have ideas for topics that would fit into this section, please feel free to send them my way!

3

Our right to a speedy trial stands, even during a pandemic ([link removed])

Finally, I want to share this article from a couple of days ago in the University of Southern California's Daily Trojan student newspaper. Junior Helen Nguyen writes a column called "Law and Disorder" covering law and social issues.  

I was so encouraged to see Ms. Nguyen's column reminding her university community and other readers that we don't just cancel rights whenever there is an emergency.

As I've said before, if we treat or accept an emergency as a valid reason for the government to commit mass rights violations, we can expect to live in a perpetual state of emergency where we have virtually no rights.

Ms. Nguyen gets into substantial detail in this column regarding what is at stake in criminal and civil trials, for those accused of committing crimes and those who have been victims of crime. She even touches briefly on victimless crimes. I found it an uplifting and quick read.

And with that, I'll quickly get this proofed and sent before I have to find a fourth link and make it a Four Link Friday email instead. ;-) 

For Liberty, Justice, and Peace in Our Lifetimes,

Executive Director
Fully Informed Jury Association





P.O. Box 5570 | Helena, MT 59858 US

This email was sent to [email protected].
To ensure that you continue receiving our emails,
please add us to your address book or safe list.

manage your preferences ([link removed])
opt out ([link removed]) using TrueRemove(r).

Got this as a forward? Sign up ([link removed]) to receive our future emails.