FIJA conducts its campaign solely through educational outreach programs and materials, and works to achieve its goals through means appropriate to its 501(c)(3) status. It does not advocate violence or willful disobedience to the law, and does not associate itself with any anti-government movement or organization.
A Brief History of FIJA
The issue of restoration of our heritage of jury nullification—the right of the jury to judge the validity and morality of the law as well as the facts under which a defendant is being tried—was raised as early as the 1979 Montana Libertarian Party convention.
In the interests of personal liberty, Larry Dodge, former Chair of the Montana Libertarian party, decided to educate the American people of this available but unused right. He also conceived of the Fully Informed Jury Association/Act/Amendment (FIJA). After assessing interest in the concept during the summer of 1989, Dodge led discussions about FIJA at the National Libertarian Party convention in Philadelphia in 1989. Forty-four people attended. Later that summer, Larry Dodge and Don Doig organized FIJA National.
The appearance of FIJA quickly stimulated independent, state-level associations. FIJA National has remained the educational and promotional arm of the movement and has served as an informational clearinghouse and publisher. FIJA National offers only educational services while state-level FIJA organizations may, among other activities, conduct lobbying and ballot initiative campaigns. Individuals may be members of a state FIJA organization, FIJA National, or both. The only direct relationship between state-level FIJA organizations and FIJA National is the exchange of information and the recognition of state organizations, their work, and their coordinators and activists, in FIJA national publications.
FIJA received its 501(c)(3) status retroactive to January 1992 and held its first official FIJA Board of Directors meeting in June 1992. In attendance were Larry Dodge, Don Doig, Iloilo Jones, Gary Dusseljee, Larry Pratt, and Honey Dodge. Between 1990 and 2001, the FIJA budget rose from less than $10,000 to $100,000. The 2004 FIJA National proposed budget, including projects that require outside funding support, is $145,000.
The majority of FIJA income is received from individual donors, foundations, and membership dues, and goes to support educational activities and publications. FIJA policy has been to ensure that the educational message is spread as widely as possible, then recoup costs whenever possible from donors and through the sale of materials to state-level organizations, activists, and interested citizens.
FIJA Progress to Date
Since the inception of the Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA) in 1989, the move to educate American citizens about their rights as jurors and to reinstate jury nullification to its former legally recognized status has swept the nation. In twelve years, forty-eight independent, state-level organizations have been organized. FIJA National and the states provide a nationwide network of activists and scholars to educate the public of the power inherent in the jury’s ability to serve as the community check on bad laws through the useof jury nullification.
FIJA initially targeted grassroots organizations concerned with American freedom, liberty, and individual rights. But the goal is so American, so practical, and so pertinent that FIJA has attracted members and supporters from the widest range of political thought and lifestyle. The American Bar Association (ABA) wrote that FIJA drew its support from “a wide and unusual spectrum of political thought—from the National Rifle Association to gun control advocates, from abortion rights supporters to their opponents, and from backers of marijuana legislation to law-and-order types.” The appeal of FIJA crosses the full spectrum of American lifestyle and ideology because the FIJA goals reflect the goals of those who are alert to the fragile liberties of Americans. FIJA is probably the most broad-based not-for profit, educational coalition in existence.
The degree of consciousness-raising educational success attributed to FIJA is reflected in part in media events and publications. FIJA National was recently featured on CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News, and jury nullification and FIJA have been topics of discussion—or integral to story plots—on television and radio shows, including “Reasonable Doubts,” “Night Line,” “Deegan, M.D.,” and “Rumpole of the Bailey.” FIJA is also a regular topic on radio talk shows, ranging from small, rural stations to the nation’s largest broadcasters. FIJA spokesmen and women have been guests on national radio talk shows such as the “Tom Valentine Show,” and the “Chuck Harder Show,” “On Point” on NPR, as well as numerous smaller, state-level programs. The strong push in South Dakota to pass Amendment A, dubbed the “nullification Amendment,” has added another chapter to the chronicle of FIJA press exposure.
More than 2,000 articles in national and local publications of every political affiliation have discussed the issue of a fully informed jury and FIJA National. Articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Inquiry, Reason, the ABA’s Journal, Student Lawyer and Litigation News, The Freeman (FEE), the American Rifleman, and the Ron Paul Political Report. FIJA articles have been widely reproduced on the World Wide Web, often copied from FIJA’s own web site at www.FIJA.org.
In the past few years, at least fifty law review or scholarly articles that discuss the concept of jury power and jury nullification have been published. The Case Western Reserve Law Review, the Washington and Lee University Law Review, Military Law Review, the American Criminal Law Review, and others have carried these articles, more than half of which discuss FIJA as well as academic aspects of nullification.
Constitutions of Maryland, Indiana, Oregon and Georgia currently have provisions guaranteeing the right of jurors to “judge” or “determine” the law in “all criminal cases”.
Article 23 of Maryland’s Constitution states:
In the trial of all criminal cases, the Jury shall be the Judges of Law, as well as of fact, except that the Court may pass upon the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain a conviction. The right of trial by Jury of all issues of fact in civil proceedings in the several Courts of Law in this State, where the amount in controversy exceeds the sum of five thousand dollars, shall be inviolably preserved.
Art. I, Sec. 19, of Indiana’s Constitution says:
In all criminal cases whatever, the jury shall have the right to determine the law and the facts.
Art.I, Sec. 16 of Oregon’s Constitution says:
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed. Cruel and unusual punishment shall not be inflicted, but all penalties shall be proportioned to the offense. In all criminal cases whatever, the jury shall have the right to determine the law, and the facts under the direction of the Court as to the law, and the right of new trial, as in civil cases.
Art. I, Sec. 1 of Georgia’s Constitution says:
The right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate, except that the court shall render judgment without the verdict of a jury in all civil cases where no issuable defense is filed and where a jury is not demanded in writing by either party. In criminal cases, the defendant shall have a public and speedy trial by an impartial jury; and the jury shall be judges of the law and the facts.
Twenty other states currently include jury nullification provisions in their constitutions in the free speech sections, in regard to libel cases. Typical language: “ ...in all indictments for libel, the jury shall have the right to determine the law and the facts under the direction of the court.” New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, Utah and Wisconsin omit the phrase “under the direction of the court.” Delaware, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, North Dakota, and Texas add the phrase “as in other criminal cases”. Tennessee adds the phrase “as in other criminal cases.”
South Carolina states:
In all indictments or prosecutions for libel, the truth of the alleged libel may be given in evidence, and the jury shall be the judges of the law and facts.
Summary:
Alabama (Article I, Sec. 12); Colorado (Article II, Sec. 10);Connecticut (Article First, Sec. 6); Delaware (Article I, Sec. 5); Kentucky (Bill of Rights, Sec. 9); Maine (Article I, Sec. 4); Mississippi (Article 3, Sec. 13); Missouri (Article I, Sec. 8); Montana (Article II, Sec. 7); New Jersey (Article I, Sec. 6); New York (Article I, Sec. 8); North Dakota (Article I, Sec. 4); Pennsylvania (Article I, Sec. 7); South Carolina (Article I, Sec. 16); South Dakota (Article VI, Sec. 5); Tennessee (Article I, Sec. 19); Texas (Article I, Sec. 8); Utah(Article I, Sec. 15); Wisconsin (Article I, Sec. 20); Wyoming (Article I, Sec. 20).
The phrase “under the direction of the court”, where it appears, means that the judge is to explain to the jury what the law says, but the jury may or may not choose to follow these directions.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Governors of thirteen states have signed “Jury Rights Day” Proclamations at the request of local activists, as have the Mayor and City Council of Philadelphia and several smaller towns and cities. And more and more prominent organizations and individuals are endorsing FIJA: the Libertarian Party; the Congress on Racial Equality; the Republican Liberty Caucus; the Republican parties of Nevada, Iowa, and Montana; the South Carolina NAACP; and Gun Owners of America. Editorial boards of the Phoenix Gazette, the Arizona Republic, and the Las Vegas Review Journal have formally endorsed FIJA. So have prominent individuals including former Washington State Supreme Court Justice William C. Goodloe and retired Arkansas Supreme Court Justice John I. Purtle.
More significantly, FIJA bills have been introduced to state legislatures in Arizona, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Utah. Each year, a number of proposed bills before the legislatures get closer to passing fully informed jury legislation.
