MEMBERSHIP IN THE FULLY INFORMED JURY ASSOCIATION
You are cordially invited to join FIJA. What's in membership for you? Most importantly, personal power by way of information--exciting and inspiring news, ideas, contacts, bibliography, opinions, etc., nicely packaged in our quarterly tabloid, the FIJActivist. Its pages are intended to empower you and everyone you share them with, and to inspire and coordinate a tremendously effective (and last-ditch) effort to rescue the Bill of Rights.
Here are some recent top stories:
The FDA was put on notice by a fully informed jury in June that police-state tactics and SWAT teams are not appropriate methods to use against vitamin and nutritional supplement salesmen. Rodger Sless of Albuquerque was acquitted of selling GH3, and the jury hung (11 to 1 for acquittal) on other charges related to using a false name and mail drops. Activists demonstrated and leafleted the courthouse on jury selection day.
Activists have taken to the streets in Atlanta, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Dallas, Seattle, Detroit, Wichita, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Tampa/St. Petersburg, Houston, Columbia, Boston, Philadelphia, Portland, Stroudsberg, Rapid City, San Antonio, Milwaukee, Anchorage, Fairbanks, Boise, Billings, Des Moines, Albuquerque, and many, many other cities and towns, re-establishing individual rights the government has suppressed and usurped, simply by informing jurors that they are judges of the law itself!
FIJA spokespersons have appeared on hundreds of radio and television talk shows, and FIJA programs and Public Service Announcements run on local radio and public access TV channels across the country. FIJA's 1-800-TEL-JURY information number has generated thousands of inquiries, to whom we mailed our "Jury Power Information Kit".
Hundreds of thousands of "True or False?" brochures and "Jury Power Information Kits" were produced and sent to activists by the national office in the last couple of years. State FIJA organizations and individual activists have also produced hundreds of thousands of additional FIJA brochures on their own.
FIJA continues to generate excellent press coverage. Over 1000 articles about FIJA have now been published, and the overwhelming majority have been balanced and fair, or frankly supportive. During 1993 and 1994, articles or editorials appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Nation, Case Western Reserve Law Review, the Military Law Review, the Chicago Reader, Atlanta's Creative Loafing, in Backwoods Home Magazine, Playboy, the Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journal (serving their respective legal communities), the Arizona Republic, the Phoenix Gazette, the Salt Lake Tribune, the Criminal Law Bulletin, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the St. Petersburg Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Washington Times, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Freeman, (Foundation for Economic Education), the Orange County Register, and many others. FIJA has been the subject of specials by CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and News Talk Television.
The Governors of Vermont, Kansas, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Delaware, Wisconsin, Montana, Utah, Texas, Indiana, Iowa, New Jersey, and Nebraska have issued "Jury Rights Day" proclamations in the years since 1991, as have the Mayor and City Council of Philadelphia, and the mayors of several smaller California cities.
FIJA legislation passed the Arizona Senate and the Oklahoma House in the last session. Activists in these states and in others believe we are close to seeing FIJA statutes or Amendments becoming law in the near future.
Major attention remains focused on FIJA as a result of "FIJA action" at the San Antonio trial of the surviving Branch Davidians. Some speculate that FIJA activities may have influenced the verdict, which was "not guilty" on the major charges. The forewoman, Sarah Bain, turned in her FIJA materials, so was not aware of the powers of the jury. Other jurors apparently read their FIJA literature. Sarah has since come forward and told the media that had the jury known what the sentences were to be, they would not have convicted on any charges. She has also said that she now knows that the jury had the power to judge the law, but were not told the truth by the judge.
Few opportunities exist to support organizations which deliver as much "bang for the buck" as FIJA does. By educating Americans in the full meaning and value of trial by jury, FIJA is returning "power to the people". We gladly accept any credit we deserve for the fact that conviction rates for crimes without victims have been falling, especially in places where FIJA has been active. And we confess that it's music to our ears when we hear the powers that be complaining that a "trend in jury nullification" is obliging them to turn their attention to crimes which have victims--to enforcing laws that the people want enforced!
Please consider FIJA membership an investment in the one high-momentum strategy for restoration and protection of individual rights in these United States that is simultaneously effective, peaceful, and orderly.
We are looking forward to counting you as a member. Basic membership is $25 per year (students/ low income, $20), and includes a subscription to the quarterly FIJActivist tabloid newsletter. A subscription to the (roughly) weekly FIJA FAX is $36. Our mailing address is FIJA, P.O. Box 59, Helmville, MT 59843. Thank you!
For liberty and justice by jury,
Don Doig