You are among the first to hear about some new things on the FIJA website!
Ever continuing to advance toward FIJA's goal of ensuring fully informed juries are available to all who need them, I am pleased to introduce you to some new additions to the website for you to read and share around.
First, you will find two new additions to the Historic Works section of the Library. As these are works in progress, only one is currently linked to the index page of that section, but here are direct links for you to follow until that is squared away:
The Fugitive Slave Law
This is the text of Frederick Douglass' 11 August 1852 speech to delivered to the National Free Soil Convention at Pittsburgh. In it, he notes that at the time, livestock were more protected than were black men by trial by jury as it was then being applied. This speech was contemporaneous with Spooner's An Essay on the Trial by Jury.
For the first time ever, you will be able to read Spooner's foundational work on jury nullification, An Essay on the Trial by Jury, on FIJA's very own website along with his other jury-related works such as Illegality of the Trial of John W. Webster and Vices Are Not Crimes. So far I just have the first section of the first chapter up, but more pages (about 20 total) will be added in the coming weeks until you have the entire Essay conveniently at your fingertips.
Second, we are trying out a new way for you to support FIJA's work of creating more fully informed jurors.
In recent years, I've done a Facebook fundraiser for FIJA around my birthday as many folks on Facebook are apt to do. But many of you are not on Facebook, and some of you who are have had trouble using Facebook's tools. So this year as an experiment, you will find a birthday fundraiser on the FIJA website instead.
If this goes well, in 2023 you will be able to have your own birthday fundraiser page on the FIJA website to share around on Facebook, Twitter, other social media, email, or wherever else you like. For now, take a look, and if you typically support birthday fundraisers and would like to contribute to this one, I invite you to do so!
Kirsten's 50th Birthday Fundraiser
For those of you who don't know, my 50th birthday is coming up this week. Most likely I will be spending my birthday stuffing calendars in envelopes and adding address labels to get them out to you as fast as possible, but I have no complaint about that! I am grateful that you have made it possible for me to do this educational work that I believe in so much.
For my 50th birthday, I have set my goal at raising 1/50th of FIJA's approximate annual budget, which has been around $50,000 in recent years—so $1000. A big THANK YOU to Heather Wiegand for joining me in making the first contributions to kick things off!
Can you help get the total rest of the way to my goal? If you would like to help me celebrate my 50th birthday this year by supporting the Fully Informed Jury Association, please feel free to make your donation by clicking here. THANK YOU!
