some ideas

A few thoughts for today:

If you are ever called to jury duty:

1)      Go. It isn’t worth the trouble for not showing up

2)      Remember that by getting on a jury you might be able to help someone

a.       There are quite a few people (likely tens of thousands of people) ever year that get charged with crimes they did not commit. Don’t let the State railroad them.

b.      You also have the opportunity to spoil convictions on victimless crimes and crimes against the state (think drug possession charges, and protesters who “resisted arrest”). It’s called “Jury Nullification”  and it is a Constitutional right that you hold as a member of a jury.

3)      If you happen to be one of the few people who are ever empanelled for a capital case, do not under any circumstances admit that you would be incapable of applying the death penalty. If you live in a state without the death penalty (and most of you don’t), then consider the implications of placing a person in a cage for the rest of their natural life, which is nearly as terrifying.

a.       If you admit that you are morally oppose to the death penalty under any circumstance—even the precious laws of the state—you will be dismissed from the jury selection almost immediately.

b.      This practice is not only common, but has been repeatedly approved by the Supreme Court. Thus it becomes one’s moral duty to, in my opinion, to get on such a jury if the opportunity arises and prevent a death sentence.

Also, the march to war against Iran continues apace, as any cursory glance at corporate media (and its faithful “dissenting” voices) will tell you. Truly a monstrous crime against humanity approaches should we be unable to avert this conflict. Prospects for avoiding it do not look good, I think.

One more thing; if you are serving jail time and the police take you out of your cell, “ask” to interview you in a locked room with two armed officers in the middle of the night and you fear for your safety if you decline to be questioned, the Supreme Court does not think you were “in custody” enough to have rights. 

Yes, just yesterday, in Howes v. Fields, the eminent scholars of the court ruled unanimously on a patently false technicality and then rejected the idea that there is no obligation to read Miranda warnings to a prisoner taken from his cell and subjected to intense interrogation about a completely separate alleged offense for “5 to 7” hours in the middle of the night. Rights-shmights I will cover this case in more detail later, once I finish reading the 6^th Circuit opinion the Court reversed. Aren’t police states just wonderful?