MONTROSE RESIDENT SHARES THOUGHTS ON JURY SERVICE

The government cannot deprive anyone of "liberty" without your
consent. If you feel the statute involved in any criminal case being
tried before you is unfair, or that it infringes on the defendant's
God-given inalienable or Constitutional rights, you can affirm that
the offending statute is really no law at all and that the violation
of it is no crime; for no man is bound to obey an unjust command.

In other words, if the defendant has disobeyed some man-made criminal
statute, and the statute is unjust, the defendant has in substance,
committed no crime. Jurors, having ruled then on the justice of the
law involved and finding it opposed in whole or in part to their own
natural concept of what is basically right, are bound to hold for the
acquittal of said defendant.

It is your responsibility to insist that your vote of not guilty be
respected by all other members of the jury. For you are not there as
a fool, merely to agree with the majority, but as a qualified judge
in your right to see that justice is done.

Regardless of the pressures or abuse that may be applied to you by
any or all members of the jury with whom you may in good conscience
disagree, you can await the reading of the verdict secure in the
knowledge you have voted your conscience and convictions, not those
of someone else.

So you see, as a juror, you are one of a panel of 12 judges with the
responsibility of protecting all innocent Americans from unjust laws.
It was the jury, not the lawmakers, that changed alcohol prohibition.

Melody Boatner,

Montrose