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Three Link Thursday!

Hello John,

If your life is occupied with the holidays and you're about to skip this email—I DON'T BLAME YOU! Just want to slip in a quick holiday greeting before you hit delete or next. Have a wonderful holiday season, and I hope you get a chance to read it later or catch up with us next week!

For those of you still reading, THANK YOU so much for creating more fully informed jurors! I want to personally thank recent donors Roberto Leibman, Timothy Elmer, Robert Bell, Vernon Zigler, Marel Bates, and others who would prefer we not share their names publicly. I am so grateful for all of your support.

Now on to this week's links:

1

Jury Trials Are Canceled in New Hampshire
Until AT LEAST February 2022 ([link removed])

Jury trials have been put on hold AGAIN in New Hampshire for more than a five-week stretch, stalling approximately 40-50 jury trials that were to have taken place.

Never fear! The New Hampshire Superior Court assures us that everything will be back to normal in February. I hope those of you who have been reading my updates throughout the pandemic will excuse me if I snort a bit when I bust out laughing. 

According to the data I see today, New Hampshire is the state with the12th highest percentage of adults fully vaccinated against COVID-19. COVID-19 vaccines remain available to anyone who wants them with no out-of-pocket charge to the recipient. Additionally, this week the FDA added to the approved treatments for those who have COVID-19 an anti-viral pill for use at home.

If the government does not consider this state of affairs sufficient to restore "the old normal" as far as jury trials are concerned, WHAT WOULD BE? Chief Judge Tina Nadeau gave us an indication that the answer is probably "nothing—the government likes this new found ability to flip a switch and turn our rights off" when she reportedly spoke of this delay resulting in plea bargains supposed as an up side.

2

No Real End In Sight to Indefinite Detention in Alaska ([link removed])

Alaska is supposed to return to an "on again" state for jury trials in January, but as in New Hampshire, that is looking kind of questionable since the government now conveniently has the omicron variant to use to justify more delays.

Even if the courts stay on track for resuming in January, though, public defender Matthew DiTullio points out that, compared to just before the start of the pandemic, there are dramatic increases in open criminal cases and presumptively innocent people incarcerated pretrial and in pretrial supervision. With Alaska's 120-day speedy trial clock on hold, innocent people have been languishing in pretrial detention for nearly 2 years. 

Click through to hear how DiTullio puts this in perspective for those of us not directly affected.

3

An Extreme Case of the Trial Penalty in Colorado ([link removed])

The term "trial penalty" or "trial tax" refers to the additional penalty—usually months to years in prison—someone pays when they exercise their right to trial by jury and lose after turning down a plea bargain. Often, the penalty simply for asserting one's right to trial by jury is far longer than the penalty the government thought was fair for the alleged offense(s). It is one of the dirty secrets of our American jury system that we are punishing people more harshly for not forfeiting their Constitutional rights than for doing something that is actually wrong.

I've got an extreme case of the trial penalty on my radar (and on my heart) this week. When the truck Rogel Aguilera-Mederos was driving experience an explosive break failure and crashed on I-70 in Colorado, four people were killed and many more injured. Aguilera-Mederos had no criminal history, he was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs, the prosecution agreed that the deaths and injuries did not result from malice, and he has shown a great deal of remorse.

But he turned down a plea deal—one for which Reason columnist Billy Binion says the prosecutor's office declined to disclose details of the punishment offered (i.e. what the government thought was fair). Binion points out, though, that the 110-year sentence that was imposed is SURELY FAR BEYOND what would have been offered in the plea deal.

One juror who has spoken out anonymously after the sentence was imposed said he cried his eyes out when he found out how egregiously the accused would be overpunished. The juror said the sentence was 100 times harsher ([link removed]) (<<< bonus link!) than it should have been. Click through for many more details on how this happened and unwitting jurors will be misled again and again into being complicit in unjust punishments until reforms are made.

And with that, I will wrap up Three Link Thursday and get back to the calendar mailing. For those eagerly awaiting theirs, the calendars started going out in the mail this week in batches as they were stamped, labeled, and sealed. I still have more to go, but if you donated to FIJA in 2020 or 2021, yours should be on its way to you very soon if not already!

For Liberty, Justice, and Peace in Our Lifetimes,

Executive Director
Fully Informed Jury Association

P.S. I'm often asked how someone can buy a calendar. We don't sell the calendars. These are educational outreach items we share with donors and use for other outreach purposes. If you would like a calendar and did not make a donation in either 2020 or 2021, you can still click the orange button below to make your donation.

After I send out calendars to everyone already on the list, I will also be sending them as long as they are available to more recent donors who have not already received a calendar. THANK YOU for helping get FIJA off to a good start in 2022 with your contribution!

Donate Now ([link removed])





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

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