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Five Link Friday!

Hello John,

A special thank you to those of you who took a minute to respond to last week's poll. As a result of that, this week we have a Five Link Friday—three of which are links to register for training. If you join us for one of these live sessions, we will send you a free t-shirt! Now let's get to it...

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Register for Volunteer Training for Community Outreach

Tuesday, 17 May 2022, 8:30 PM EDT/5:30 PM PDT ([link removed])

Saturday, 21 May 2022, 3:00 PM EDT/11:00 AM PDT ([link removed])

Sunday, 22 May 2022 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT ([link removed])

Getting ready to kick off a general educational courthouse campaign with FIJA brochures? Thinking of tabling at a local festival, farmers market, gun show, or other event? Want to craft a multi-faceted campaign in your community to ensure everyone knows about jurors' right of jury nullification?

Join us for one of the training sessions listed above. Simply click on the link for the session most convenient for you to register. Be sure to register in advance because if we don't have anyone register for a particular session, I will cancel it. 

If you join us live for this or one of our other VTCO sessions, we'll send you a free FIJA t-shirt. If you can't make one of the sessions, don't worry! I will be making a new video after these sessions to replace the current volunteer training we have on our YouTube channel with the updated training.

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Retroactive Relief for Non-unanimous Jury Convictions ([link removed])

In its 2020 ruling in Ramos v. Louisiana regarding criminal convictions by juries with some members voting not guilty, the United States Supreme Court ruled that a verdict taken from just eleven jurors was no verdict at all. Then in 2021, it backpedaled on that in Edwards v. Vannoy, refusing to retroactively apply its previous ruling to cases that had exhausted their direct appeals. This left thousands of improperly convicted people in prison, with their only hope that their local government would do the right thing. The struggle continues to play out in Louisiana, with two bills to address this continued unconstitutional situation in this year's legislative session.

HB 744, developed without consultation with key non-government stakeholders, would create an intricate scheme by which government would appoint three former judges, a former prosecutor, and a former public defender to a special parole board. The board would consider at least eight different factors in each of some 1500 cases to decide whether or not a miscarriage of justice occurred. Maybe it's just me, but government appointing 4 government agents and 1 public defender to do this sounds a bit like 4 wolves and a hen deciding what's for dinner.

I can imagine this government-packed board might throw a token bone to the most obvious cases of wrongful conviction. But it's a pretty safe bet that if they find any such convictions by split juries likely to be due to holdout jurors exercising their right of jury nullification, those cases will get no relief. Likewise, I hold no hope for cases where wrongful conviction is not completely obvious.

And what token relief awaits the "lucky" person who, at the end of this whole process, was found to have suffered the grave miscarriage of having years of their life wrongly stolen from them? Their conviction would not be overturned. All such a person would get is parole. They would then be left to continue suffering the miscarriage of justice for the rest of their life with their record harming their ability to secure housing, employment, education, and other things many of us take for granted.

The other bill (sort of) in play is HB 271. It would retroactively apply the requirement of jury unanimity, thereby ensuring that EVERY person incarcerated due to conviction by a jury would have been convicted properly.

Guess which one recently made it out of the House Judiciary Committee and which one has not even been heard yet?  

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Improper Grand Jury Indictments Under Review ([link removed])

Grand jury indictments are under review in 164 cases (so far) in 3 Kentucky counties after it was discovered that a prosecutor allowed too many jurors to participate on grand juries. It's not a done deal yet, but to my surprise and delight, the government seems headed in the direction of doing the right thing by canceling the improper indictments and starting over.

Why is this important? The Kentucky state constitution allows only 12 jurors on a grand jury and requires at least 9 of them to agree for an indictment. It is, by design, supposed to be difficult for the government to punish the people. But each additional juror added to a grand jury makes it easier for the government to get an indictment. 

Since the number of jurors required to indict is fixed at 9 rather than a percentage of the jurors, adding more jurors makes it more likely that number can be reached. This not only makes it more likely that a factually innocent person will be indicted, but it also makes it harder for a minority of jurors to successfully exercise grand jury nullification in defense of those who have broken the law. 

I will continue to keep this story on my radar with hopes that perhaps government will do the right thing in these cases.

And on that encouraging note, I will conclude Five Link Friday. Have a great weekend!

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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