Monday, June 15, 2015

Jury Duty ?

(With thanks to Mark David Ledbetter for the jury history and quotes.)

Yes, YOU
Perhaps, on this precise 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta1 (15 June 1215), it is time again to resurrect “We the People.”

Time to remember how fundamental the Magna Carta was to the Founding Fathers of America.

Time to rescue the neglected, vertical2 “checks and balances” that those Fathers enshrined because they feared the horizontal “checks and balances” would prove insufficient;
American school children are educated that the Constitution provides checks and balances among the three branches of the federal government. A diagram of the system typically shows three circles representing the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary branches connected by three lines. But that diagram is overly simplistic and the education incomplete. Checks and balances were intended to be an intricate web with (in the words of constitutional historian William J. Watkins Jr.) both vertical and horizontal components. The three connected circles represent only the horizontal. The national and state governments were to provide vertical checks on each other. And the individual was to provide vertical checks on both levels through suffrage (the right to vote) and jury nullification.3
Time to reconsider the warning of Thomas Jefferson:4
I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.

[And] if the question relate to any point of public liberty, or if it be one of those in which the judges may be suspected of bias, the jury undertake to decide both law and fact.
Time to reclaim the power—the clout—of JURY NULLIFICATION5 that has been suppressed, denied, and abandoned for far too long.
Jury Nullification is a principle often suppressed and denied by the legal profession but one with a long and splendid history. It says that We The People have the power to judge not only questions of guilt and innocence but the law itself. We The People, sitting as a jury, are competent to nullify laws we consider unjust or unconstitutional.6

[T]he long history of Jury Nullification is mirrored by the long history of judges denying or hiding the right and power of juries to nullify.7

Intense pressure by corporations and their high-powered lawyerly clients moved the Supreme Court to declare in 1895 that judges and courts no longer had to inform juries of their rights of nullification. So naturally they did not and Jury Nullification slipped quietly into the mists of forgotten history. / In the 20th century, it became more and more the norm for judges to incorrectly instruct juries that they must consider only the facts of the case and whether the defendant was guilty of breaking a law – not judge the law itself.8
Perhaps in this age of overreach and omnibus, it is time to curtail our sodas and circuses9 and prep for extended and critical-care Jury Duty! Uncle Sam needs US!

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* Uncle Sam illustration from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Uncle_Sam_(pointing_finger).jpg (Public Domain).
1. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta
“Magna Carta (Latin for "the Great Charter"), also called Magna Carta Libertatum (Latin for "the Great Charter of the Liberties"), is a charter agreed by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury to make peace between the unpopular King and a group of rebel barons, it promised the protection of church rights, protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to swift justice, and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown, to be implemented through a council of 25 barons. Neither side stood behind their commitments, and the charter was annulled by Pope Innocent III, leading to the First Barons' War. [It was subsequently amended and reissued in 1217, 1225, and 1297, being confirmed as part of England's statute law.] …

At the end of the 16th century there was an upsurge in interest in Magna Carta. Lawyers and historians at the time believed that there was an ancient English constitution, going back to the days of the Anglo-Saxons, that protected individual English freedoms. They argued that the Norman invasion of 1066 had overthrown these rights, and that Magna Carta had been a popular attempt to restore them, making the charter an essential foundation for the contemporary powers of Parliament and legal principles such as habeas corpus.…

The political myth of Magna Carta and its protection of ancient personal liberties persisted after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 until well into the 19th century. It influenced the early American colonists in the Thirteen Colonies and the formation of the American Constitution in 1789, which became the supreme law of the land in the new republic of the United States. Research by Victorian historians showed that the original 1215 charter had concerned the medieval relationship between the monarch and the barons, rather than the rights of ordinary people, but the charter remained a powerful, iconic document, even after almost all of its content was repealed from the statute books in the 19th and 20th centuries. Magna Carta still forms an important symbol of liberty today, often cited by politicians and campaigners, and is held in great respect by the British and American legal communities, Lord Denning describing it as "the greatest constitutional document of all times – the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot." (Bold emphasis added.)
2. [The Founders] “wrote a constitution that provided not only an intricate system of vertical and horizontal checks and balances but a gauntlet of tests that laws must pass. Laws are subject to veto by the House of Representatives, by the Senate, by the Executive, by courts, and by juries. All but the jury power is dominated by the modern intellectual establishment so naturally only the jury power is denied by that establishment.” [Mark David Ledbetter’s America's Forgotten History, Part 1: Foundations (Kindle Edition: 2010-04-12; Kindle Locations: 5015-5018)].
“But, just as horizontal checks and balances have been weakened by the strengthening of executive power, so have vertical checks and balances.” [Ledbetter, (Kindle Locations: 3446-3447)].
3. Ledbetter, (Kindle Locations: 3420-3425).
4. Thomas Jefferson as quoted in Ledbetter, (Kindle Locations: 5021-5027);(bold emphasis added here).
5. See history of Jury Nullification at Ledbetter, Kindle Locations: 4996-5397); and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
“The common understanding and common language of the Enlightenment political philosophers who established the American system was this: juries were to judge both law and fact. / We will see in subsequent volumes how Jury Nullification, so important in establishing freedom in both England and America, would continue to protect rights even when the law did not.” [Ledbetter, (Kindle Locations: 5035-5040)].
6. Ledbetter, (Kindle Locations: 4992-4994).
7. Ledbetter, (Kindle Locations: 5004-5005).
8. Ledbetter, (Kindle Locations: 5042-5047).
9. http://www.dejavu-times.blogspot.ca/2015/02/soda-and-circuses.html

Saturday, June 6, 2015

Talk about Déjà Vu !!!


Yes, America, God still speaks through prophets1 in these latter-days. Here is one called Jonathan Cahn—telling it like it WAS, IS, and WILL BE (unless we give heed).


Jonathan Cahn's warning on Capitol Hill at The Washington Man of Prayer event April 29, 2015 at YouTube URL:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncNTKr_4J3c  (Time~8:59 min.)

So, what is going to be our response? Is that too going to be another déjà vu?

If you don’t know how the prophets of old were treated, perhaps it is time to review history and scripture—hopefully, before it is too late.

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And here is a prior Rabbi Cahn warning from January 21, 2013: Message to America: Full Version: Jonathan Cahn Addresses The Presidential Inaugural Prayer Breakfast (Time~39:29 min.) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9xMxkNROto

And here is an explanation of how it came to be: Jonathan Cahn: How the Presidential Inaugural Prayer Breakfast 2013 came true (Time~15:42 min.) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gvu5vKrEQ9s

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Other video sources for the speech at Capitol Hill, April 29, 2015:
» Warning from 'America's Prophet' goes global: http://www.wnd.com/2015/05/warning-from-americas-prophet-goes-global/
» Jonathan Cahn on Capital Hill:  https://vimeo.com/126693596

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CAUTION: As with all who manifest prophetic, anointed gifts,[1] one must exercise perpetual discretion and discernment. The adversary-of-all-good2 takes immediate notice of truth-speakers and will use every available temptation to destroy or compromise them—wealth, fame, and pride in “their insights / ideas” being three of the most common avenues of loss. How déjà vu is the “fall from grace.”
And we know that justification through the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is just and true; And we know also, that sanctification through the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is just and true, to all those who love and serve God with all their mights, minds, and strength. But there is a possibility that man may fall from grace and depart from the living God; Therefore let the church [and anointed ones] take heed and pray always, lest they fall into temptation; Yea, and even let those who are sanctified take heed also. (Doctrine and Covenants | Section 20:30-34)
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1. Old Testament | Joel 2:28-29 ~ And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.
2. Book of Mormon | Moroni 7:12-19 ~ Wherefore, all things which are good cometh of God; and that which is evil cometh of the devil; for the devil is an enemy unto God, and fighteth against him continually, and inviteth and enticeth to sin, and to do that which is evil continually. But behold, that which is of God inviteth and enticeth to do good continually; wherefore, every thing which inviteth and enticeth to do good, and to love God, and to serve him, is inspired of God. Wherefore, take heed, my beloved brethren, that ye do not judge that which is evil to be of God, or that which is good and of God to be of the devil. For behold, my brethren, it is given unto you to judge, that ye may know good from evil; and the way to judge is as plain, that ye may know with a perfect knowledge, as the daylight is from the dark night. For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God. But whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do evil, and believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not God, then ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of the devil; for after this manner doth the devil work, for he persuadeth no man to do good, no, not one; neither do his angels; neither do they who subject themselves unto him. And now, my brethren, seeing that ye know the light by which ye may judge, which light is the light of Christ, see that ye do not judge wrongfully; for with that same judgment which ye judge ye shall also be judged. Wherefore, I beseech of you, brethren, that ye should search diligently in the light of Christ that ye may know good from evil; and if ye will lay hold upon every good thing, and condemn it not, ye certainly will be a child of Christ.

 
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