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Three Link Thursday!

Hello John,

Before I get into the links, a quick reminder that COMING UP ON WEDNESDAY next week at noon Eastern, FIJA presents the second annual State of the American Jury System ([link removed]) webinar. Register here on or before 18 January 2022 to join us on Zoom ([link removed]) or simply go to the official FIJA Facebook page ([link removed]) at the appointed time where we will be livestreaming the Zoom session.

Now on to this week's links:

1

Jurors, Vaccination, and Excusal for Cause ([link removed])

"There are two main questions that surround the issue of all-vaccinated juries in the COVID-19 era. The first is can you seek to exclude non-vaccinated persons from the venire for cause. The second is do you want to."

Attorney James Beck details the current (albeit sparse) legal precedent with regard to exclusion of unvaccinated jurors. At the moment, the only significant case regarding COVID-19 vaccination specifically is Joffe v. King & Spalding LLP (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 10, 2021), but I would not be surprised to see more cases on this topic working their way through the legal system.

Despite there being rather well-known correlations between COVID-cautiousness, COVID vaccination status, and where folks land on the political spectrum, there does not seem to be a single court willing to seriously look into how the removal of either COVID-cautious or unvaccinated prospective jurors affects whether juries are drawn from a representative cross-section of the community as required. If you have seen a court that is seriously considering this, please forward me information about that.

2

On This Day in Jury History ([link removed])

On this day in 2009, Marine veteran Melroy Cort was found not guilty of two felony charges for carrying a firearm in Washington, D.C.

Despite having been advised by a public defender to take a plea bargain, Cort chose to plead not guilty and exercised his right to trial by jury. To have accepted a deal that put a felony on his record would have resulted in losing his military benefits.

After jurors twice reported to the judge that they could not reach a verdict and twice were told to keep trying, they found Cort guilty of a misdemeanor charge for ammunition but not guilty of the two felony charges related to possession of the firearm for which he had the ammunition and which was taken from him by police at the very same time.

Though this was not complete, this does seem likely to be a case of jury nullification in which the jury significantly limited the damage the government could do in the process of punishing him. Click through for FIJA ([link removed])

3

Punishment without Trial:
A Conversation with Professor Carissa Byrne Hessick ([link removed])

The right to trial by jury is guaranteed in both the body of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The idea that "everybody gets their day in court" is widely taught in schools and promoted in pop culture.

Yet in reality, the vast majority of people accused of a crime have their charges almost unilaterally adjudicated by prosecutors through the plea bargain process.  And as you've heard me saying over and over... without trial by jury, there is no jury nullification!

How have we come to this point where plea bargaining almost entirely undermined the protective role of the jury in the American legal system? Join us for:

Punishment without Trial: 
A Conversation with Professor Carissa Byrne Hessick
Wednesday, 9 February 2022 at
noon Eastern / 11:00 am Central
10:00 am Mountain / 9:00 am Pacific

Professor Carissa Byrne Hessick is Anne Shea Ransdell and William Garland "Buck" Ransdell, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law and author of Punishment without Trial: Why Plea Bargaining Is a Bad Deal. In this webinar with Professor Hessick, we will dig into the details of this bad deal.

Register here on or before 8 February ([link removed]) to join us on Zoom or simply visit the official FIJA Facebook page ([link removed]) at the appointed time where we will be livestreaming the webinar as well.

And with that, I will wrap up Three Link Thursday. I hope you all have a wonderful rest of the week!

For Liberty, Justice, and Peace in Our Lifetimes,

Executive Director
Fully Informed Jury Association





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

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