U.S. v. Heicklen: The Nullification of Free Speech

(Hat-Tip James W. for the forward. Thanks, James!)

Joe Luppino-Esposito

May 1, 2012 at 1:01 pm

Prosecution for exercising one’s free speech rights is becoming a trend in the current Administration and the Department of Justice (DOJ).

In April, the Legal Center highlighted the DOJ’s outrageous prosecution of Mary Susan Pine, a pro-life advocate. Thankfully, when the rubber hit the road, the DOJ lawyers had nowhere to go, and the suit was dropped. Pine is able to continue her ministry of standing near an abortion clinic to talk to women about abortion.

Julian P. Heicklen, an 80-year-old retired chemistry professor and advocate of jury nullification, found himself in a similar situation. Heicklen, as part of his activism, would stand in front of courthouses with a “Jury Info” sign, handing out pamphlets and explaining jury nullification to anyone who would approach him.

Advocates of jury nullification believe that jurors can use their de facto power to effectively change the law by refusing to convict a defendant under a law that the juror disagrees with. Heicklen specifically advocated against the enforcement of federal drug laws.

So what was the charge? Heicklen was accused of jury tampering, a federal criminal misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months imprisonment (which, ironically, means that the defendant is not entitled to a jury trial). The law, 18 U.S.C. 1504, prescribes the conviction of anyone who “attempts to influence the action or decision of any grand or petit juror of any court of the United States upon any issue or matter pending before such juror, or before the jury of which he is a member, or pertaining to his duties, by writing or sending to him any written communication, in relation to such issue or matter.” An FBI agent posing as a juror approached Heicklen, received a pamphlet, and asked Heicklen to explain what jury nullification was all about. Heicklen was indicted based on a recording of that conversation.

The case, United States v. Heicklen, resulted in a dismissal of the indictment. In a 27-page opinion, Judge Kimba Wood of the Southern District of New York dissected the construction of the law and also considered Heicklen’s constitutional claims. Wood determined that the language of the statute requires that the jury tampering be done with a specific case in mind. Although Heicklen, through his activism, wanted to influence the “duties” of a juror, he did not also intend to affect an “issue or matter” that came before the jurors.

The DOJ, on the other hand, encouraged the court to accept a broader definition of “issue or matter” that included speech to a juror on any subject that he might be considering. Judge Wood stated that such an expansive interpretation “would arguably chill protected speech” and “would at most render [the law] facially ambiguous.”

Clearly, Heicklen’s opinion on jury nullification is a viewpoint that the DOJ and other law enforcement officials do not want to be widely publicized. Even a man filming Heicklen, photographer Antonio Musumeci, was arrested for doing so. (Charges against Musumeci were dismissed, and his subsequent lawsuit against Homeland Security was also successful.) But as Professor Paul Butler notes, he and many others have been advocating for jury nullification and have been published extensively, so that any potential citizen/juror could have heard and been influenced by him. If Heicklen was found guilty of jury tampering, could the same be done to Musumeci and Butler for further publicizing Heicklen’s message?

No matter what your stance may be on the issues of drug decriminalization or jury nullification, the right to peaceably and reasonably discuss either matter in public should be allowed without question. To arrest someone for discussing a matter of public concern peaceably in a public place—that’s a crime against free speech.

Posted in Rule of Law

 

Source: http://blog.heritage.org/2012/05/01/u-s-v-heicklen-the-nullification-of-free-speech/

The Troubling Alliance Between Iran’s Ahmadinejad and Venezuala’s Chavez

[TWG Note: We know that Iran flew troops and nuclear materials into Venezuala and they've been coming up across our Southern border, unfettered by our wide open borders.  Venezuala...... just 1180 miles off our Nation's border. Chavez's intimate alliance with Iran is rather unsettling.

Dangerous pair, Ahmadinejad and Chavez

Iran’s Growing Presence in Latin America

A briefing by Ilan Berman
April 23, 2012

http://www.meforum.org/3249/iran-latin-america

Ilan Berman, an expert on regional security in the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Russian Federation, is the vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council and has consulted the CIA and the Department of Defense. He has authored several books, including Tehran Rising: Iran’s Challenge to the United States (2005) and Winning the Long War: Retaking the Offensive against Radical Islam (2009).

On April 23, 2012, Berman addressed the Middle East Forum via conference call.

Tehran’s October 2011 attempt to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington using a Mexican drug cartel has focused international attention on what had until then been a largely-overlooked political phenomenon: the Islamic Republic’s intrusion into the Western Hemisphere. But how deep is this penetration, and what does it seek to achieve?

In his conference call, Ilan Berman named four strategic objectives behind Tehran’s Latin American endeavor:

Loosening the international noose: Squeezed by economic sanctions and increasingly isolated, Tehran has reached out to sympathetic regimes in an attempt to weaken the U.S.-led international effort to prevent it from building nuclear weapons. Exploiting anti-American sentiments in Latin America, the Islamic Republic has steadily increased the number of embassies in the region and built strong ties with the Venezuelan and Bolivian regimes.

Obtaining vital resources for its nuclear project: Having all but exhausted the uranium stockpiles acquired by the Shah from South Africa in the 1970s, Tehran has turned to Latin America in search of strategic resource partnerships and is now mining at several locations throughout Venezuela and Bolivia, albeit to little effect given its highly limited resource extraction capabilities.

Creating informal networks for influence projection and sanctions evasion: Working through proxies in Latin America’s gray and black markets, Iran has sought out funding for its own protégés such as Hezbollah, which is said to be active at the crossroads of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina – also known as the Triple Frontier. In addition, Tehran has sought to leverage the fluid financial situation in the region as a means of circumventing crippling financial sanctions.

Establishing a terror infrastructure that could target the U.S. homeland: Iran’s growing penetration of Latin America has also been manifested in paramilitary activity. In its 2010 report to Congress, the Department of Defense noted that elements of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps were stationed in the Americas and engrained in “embassies, institutions, and charities to develop relationships and ties with a well-established Shiite diaspora in the region.” This has given Tehran the ability to destabilize unfriendly regimes and to target the U.S. homeland, as evidenced by the abortive 2011 terror attack.

According to Berman, the incident represents seismic shift in Tehran’s strategic calculations: once reluctant to extend its global reach, the Iranian leadership has proved its readiness to attack the U.S. on its own soil. And while Tehran’s Latin American effort remains a work in progress, so long as the administration fails to devise an adequate response to this challenge, the Iranian penetration – and the threats it poses to American interests and the U.S. homeland – will only continue to expand.

Summary written by Alex Berman.

Related Topics:  Iran  |  Ilan Berman

 
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SCAM ALERT: Attention Second Amendment Advocates – S 176

David Codrea

Gun Rights Examiner

A “Daily Sanity” email alert sent out this morning by Conservative-Daily.com warns gun owners “Concealed carry under attack in United States,” alerting them to the dangers of S. 176, a bill by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.,  that “strips away shall-issue provisions in every state.”

If this bill becomes law, the alert warns gun owners it will “Outlaw Vermont-style [permitless] carry…Establish a national minimum age of 21 for permits; Require that law enforcement be involved in the process (many states simply use NICS checks and county clerks);   Insist an applicant prove (to law enforcement satisfaction) that he or she has a “good cause” for requesting a carry permit…and,  Force applicants to get that same law enforcement officer to certify they are ‘worthy of the public trust to carry a concealed firearm in public.’”

“Insist Congress Stand Up for the Second Amendment,” the alert advises recipients, providing a link wherein they are encouraged to pay anywhere from $29.00 “to fax ALL 100 U.S. Senators” to $175.00, which is claimed has the “BIGGEST IMPACT—fax all 535 Senators and Congressmen, and help our nationwide MEDIA EFFORTS.” (Con’t)

CONTINUE READING: http://www.examiner.com/article/email-illustrates-need-for-gun-owners-to-check-out-solicitors?CID=examiner_alerts_article

Dallas Black Man Stabs Random White Target Shopper With Butcher Knife

[TWG Note: Police don't know the "motive"?  I'll bet it's initials are "T.M.R."]

 

A Dallas man took a butcher’s knife from its packaging and stabbed a random woman shopping at Target on Thursday.
WFAA reported:

Fri May 18 18:39:36 PDT 2012

Man accused of stabbing random Dallas shopper

“I felt something behind me,” said Martha Jones, a Dallas-based lawyer, from her bed at Parkland Memorial Hospital. “He stabbed me in the back and kept walking.” view full article

WFAA reported:

A Dallas man remains in jail after police say he randomly stabbed a shopper inside a Target store.

Police say Antowann Davis, 30, walked into the Target on Marsh Lane around 9:15 p.m. Thursday and took a butcher knife out of its packaging in the kitchen department.

Martha Jones, 29, said she was browsing inside the store when Davis walked past her and shoved the knife into her lower back.

“I felt something behind me,” said Jones, a Dallas-based lawyer, from her bed at Parkland Memorial Hospital. “He stabbed me in the back and kept walking.”

Jones remained in the hospital in good condition Friday.

She said Davis never spoke to her, or even tried to grab her purse. She said she had never seen him before.

Although court documents say Jones lost a lot of blood, she was able to call for help and provide security a good description of the suspect. Dallas police arrested Davis a block away.

 

Source (AND VIDEO): http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/05/dallas-man-stabs-random-target-shopper-video/

Laptop with India’s Nuclear Data Still Not Found…

[TWG Note: This is very alarming news... obama's caliphate is coming along at warp speed.]

 

Islamabad—An Indian nuclear scientist’s laptop with classified nuclear data was stolen from a passenger rail car and is still missing raising serious alarm all over India.

According to a report the Indian nuclear researcher raised an alarm when his laptop, reportedly filled with critical data, was stolen on March 15, 2012 and remained missing till date.

India Blooms News Service reported that the scientist, who is reportedly involved with the Kaiga atomic power plant in Karnataka, demanded that train officials find his laptop and other stolen personal effects that included identifying documents. It is believed that the laptop contained secret nuclear codes and possibly the blue-print of Kairga Atomic Plant.

The report added that Thiruvananthapuram-bound train was stopped and several passengers were searched and interviewed but the laptop could not be found. Rajdhani Express was forced to have emergency

halt at Ratnagiri Station (Maharashtra) when a nuclear scientist’s laptop containing vital information was stolen.

According to latest reports despite emergency search raids conducted on train it did not turn up any clues as to what happened to the stolen laptop.

Law enforcement officials have opened an investigation into the matter and began detaining potential perpetrators.

The scientist who was not named for secrecy and classified works told Police that he had also lost very important credential papers. Indian railway officials have confirmed that a report has been lodged but other senior police officials were trying to hide the scandal-like incident and advised journalists not to overplay the issue.
___
PPA

 

Source: http://pak1stanfirst.com/201203203914/news/latest-news/laptop-with-indias-nuclear-data-still-not-found.html

Hawaii Lawmakers Pass Bill to Create ‘Islam Day’

[TWG Note: This is completely INSANE.  Creating a day to "celebrate islam", a totalitarian political ideology beased on fear, murder, torture, racism, sexism, pedophilia, slavery and bigotry.   Honoring beasts who subjugate women, rape children and murder non-believers simply because they do not share their political ideologies.   What's next?  Celebrate Jeffrey Dahmer day?  Celebrate hitler day? How about a celebrate Pedophilia day?]
By Kelly Chernenkoff

Published May 06, 2009

AP

HONOLULU — Hawaii’s state Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill Wednesday to celebrate “Islam Day” — over the objections of a few lawmakers who said they didn’t want to honor a religion connected to Sept. 11, 2001.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/06/hawaii-lawmakers-pass-create-islam-day/#ixzz1vRoXYyaB

Representative Paul Ryan OWNS obama Grunt On The Issue Of Bain Capital

[TWG Note:   Watch this video as Representative Paul Ryan OWNS obama grunt on the issue of Bain Capital.]

 

Video: Rep. Paul Ryan Smacks Down Former Obama Adviser on Bain Capital Attack

May 20, 2012

By Lonely Conservative

This is great. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) was on Fox News Sunday this morning along with Austan Goolsbee, a former economic adviser to President Obama. Goolsbee repeated the worn out attack on Mitt Romney’s time at Bain Capital. If this was baseball it would have been a big, fat meatball for Ryan to hit out of the park. Via Gateway Pundit, here’s the transcript.

Austan Goolsbee: This was a case where they (Bain) cancelled the pensions they drove the company into the ground. But the investors from Bain actually profited a great deal.

Chris Wallace (host): Let me follow up with Congressman Ryan because the Obama campaign says the point of Romney economics is to make money for Bain, to make money for their investors, even if all the workers get wiped out. And, in this particular case, in the steel mill in Kansas City the workers, that plant went bankrupt. 750 workers were laid off and Bain did make millions of dollars in profits.

Paul Ryan: You know what’s ironic about this, Chris? Mitt Romney was running the Olympics during this time. (Zing) He wasn’t even running Bain during the time period in question. (Zing) I think the individual, if I’m not mistaken who was running Bain is a big Obama contributor. (Zing) But, more to the point Chris. What Bain did was they used “private” capital to help struggling businesses. What President Obama is doing, is he’s gambling with taxpayer money (Zing) and giving money to corporate contributors, campaign contributors like Solyndra (Zing) and he’s losing taxpayer money. (Zing) So what we have in the Obama administration is this crony capitalism (Zing) this corporate welfare (Zing) where President Obama thinks it’s right to take taxpayer dollars to give to private companies and take bets on these private companies. (Zing) That’s wrong. What is right is a private sector where you have risk to capital. You put capital in businesses where they’re struggling or not to try to grow those businesses. Some succeed. Some don’t. On the net when Mitt Romney ran Bain they were very successful. They created thousands of jobs. (Zing) Great success stories. (Zing) But more to the point. We don’t think that government should be in the position of picking winners and losers in the economy which is the result of the president’s economics. (Zing)

I love it. Watch:

For more on Bain Capital’s record when it comes to the steel industry be sure to read the latest from Kim Strassel in the WSJ.

 

Source: The Lonely Conservative – http://lonelyconservative.com/2012/05/video-rep-paul-ryan-smacks-down-former-obama-adviser-on-bain-capital-attack/

Woman gets 20 years for firing warning shot

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Marissa Alexander had never been arrested before she fired a bullet at a wall one day in 2010 to scare off her husband when she felt he was threatening her. Nobody got hurt, but this month a northeast Florida judge was bound by state law to sentence her to 20 years in prison.

Alexander, a 31-year-old mother of a toddler and 11-year-old twins, knew it was coming. She had claimed self-defense, tried to invoke Florida’s “stand your ground” law and rejected plea deals that could have gotten her a much shorter sentence. A jury found her guilty as charged: aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Because she fired a gun while committing a felony, Florida’s mandatory-minimum gun law dictated the 20-year sentence…(Con’t)

 

CONTINUE READING: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/19/woman-gets-20-years-firing-warning-shot/#.T7kl69aV5bQ.twitter

Suspects wielding hammers and batons attack diners at Tinley Park restaurant

[TWG Note: Too bad none of those diners had a gun with which to defend themselves from those goons.  Oh, wait.... it's CHICAGO.]

 

By Mike Nolan Sun-Times Media mnolan@suntimes.com May 19, 2012 3:20PM

 

Police investigate the scene at The Ashford House Restaurant, 7959 W. 159th Street, in Tinley Park, where a group of people entered and started assaulting patrons Saturday.

| Brett Roseman~Sun-Times Media

 

 

Updated: May 20, 2012 2:37AM

It was the middle of the lunch rush Saturday, and Mike Winston was working in the kitchen of his Tinley Park restaurant, the Ashford House, when a waitress screamed a fight had broken out in the dining room.

 

Police call the melee at the restaurant a targeted assault by a mob that Winston said wielded metal batons and hammers. Ten diners were hurt in the attack, and three of those were hospitalized.

 

Tinley Park police had five suspected assailants in custody, and Winston said 18 young men, all wearing hooded jackets and obscuring their faces with scarves and other coverings, stormed into the restaurant.

 

“They came running in the door single file,” said Winston, who owns Ashford House, 7959 W. 159th St., and the adjacent Winston’s Market.

 

Winston, and police, said the men knew who their targets were, and that the attack wasn’t a random act of violence. Winston said the mob “targeted” a group of 20 diners, all of whom were from out of state.

 

“Once they attacked the table, they went and started hitting random people,” Winston said.

 

Along with hammers, the men used what Winston described as “old-fashioned police batons” as well as metal batons.

 

“Four or five people got knocked over the head pretty good, enough to require stitches,” he said.

 

He chased after one of the attackers “and had him on the ground, then five guys got out of a car and started kicking the [crap] out of me,” Winston said.

 

Winston said he was kicked in the back of the head and suffered several bruises, but he was the only restaurant employee who was hurt.

 

“They did a whole lot of damage,” he said. “They flipped over tables, they broke half the dishes.”

 

Surveillance cameras inside the restaurant captured the attack, and footage was turned over to Tinley Park police, Winston said.

 

 Source: http://ht.ly/b1KRj

S. 2205 The “Second Amendment Sovereignty Act” Protection From UN Gun Grabbing Schemes

By now, every gun owner concerned about the future of our right to keep and bear arms is aware that the international gun eradication movement has been working for more than a decade to achieve a U.N. Arms Trade Treaty that would cover not only tanks, helicopters, and other heavy weapons, but also rifles, shotguns and handguns.

As called for by a resolution adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 2009, a conference will be held in July 2012, in New York City, to draft the treaty’s language. On a parallel track, the ridiculously named Preparatory Committee for the United Nations Conference to Review Progress Made in the Implementation of the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects–held its most recent Preparatory Conference in New York earlier this year.

NRA has tracked the Programme and the Arms Trade Treaty process since their inceptions, with NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action even acquiring “non-governmental organization” status to give it greater ability to monitor the progress and direction of these insidious efforts.

In March of this year, U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kans.) introduced legislation to prevent any arms treaty from infringing the right to keep and bear arms in the United States.  The “Second Amendment Sovereignty Act,” S. 2205, would prohibit the administration from using “the voice, vote, and influence of the United States, in connection with negotiations for a United Nations Arms Trade Treaty, to restrict in any way the rights of United States citizens under the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States, or to otherwise regulate domestic manufacture, assembly, possession, use, transfer, or purchase of firearms, ammunition, or related items, including  small arms, light weapons, or related materials.”

Last year, Sen. Moran and 57 other senators signed a letter to President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reminding them that the Senate has final say on treaties, and stating their unequivocal opposition to any treaty that would affect civilian ownership of firearms, challenge the authority of Congress to regulate firearms within the United States, or call for an international gun registry.

This week, Sen. Moran spoke to his colleagues in the Senate about S. 2205, saying:

“More than two centuries ago, our founding fathers wisely amended the United States Constitution to guarantee a Bill of Rights for its citizens. Since then, our democracy has stood strong as Americans have enjoyed liberties unparalleled in the world – including the fundamental right to keep and bear arms.”

“Today, our freedoms and our country’s sovereignty are in danger of being undermined by the United Nations. To ensure our liberties remain for our generation and future generations, I am offering legislation to protect the rights of American gun owners from the effects of a U.N. arms treaty.”

“Given where the process stands today, I am gravely concerned this treaty will infringe upon the Second Amendment rights of American gun owners. I am also concerned it will be used by other countries who do not share our freedoms, to wrongly place the burden of controlling international crime and terrorism on law-abiding American citizens.”

“Mr. President, I urge my colleagues in the Senate to adopt this commonsense legislation. On July 22 of last year, fifty-seven U.S. Senators joined me in reminding the Obama Administration that our firearm freedoms are not negotiable. We notified President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton of our intent to oppose ratification of a treaty that in any way restricts Americans’ Second Amendment rights. Our opposition is strong enough to block the treaty from passage, as treaties submitted to the U.S. Senate require two-thirds approval to be ratified.”

“As the treaty process continues, the Second Amendment Sovereignty Act seeks to further reinforce to the Administration that our country’s sovereignty and firearm freedoms must not be infringed upon by an international organization made up of many countries with little respect for gun rights. America leads the world in export standards to ensure arms are transferred for legitimate purposes and my bill will make certain that law-abiding Americans are not wrongfully punished.”

“In the days ahead, I will continue to work with my colleagues to ensure an Arms Trade Treaty that undermines the Constitutional rights of American gun owners is dead on arrival in the Senate.”

To listen to the full speech, please click here.

The purpose of the Programme’s most recent PrepCom was to lay the groundwork for a “Review Conference” scheduled to begin in August, by which time we should know what will have come out of the treaty drafting conference to be held in July.  In the meantime, please contact your U.S. Senators and urge them to sponsor and support Sen. Moran’s bill.

You can find contact information for your U.S. Senators by using the “Write Your Representatives” tool at www.NRAILA.org.  You may also contact your Senators by phone at (202) 224-3121.

Restriction on Funding U.N. Gun Ban Treaty

In a related and very significant development this week, U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg’s (R-Mont.) amendment to restrict the use of federal funds for advocating or lobbying for a United Nations Arms Trade Treaty passed the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations by a bi-partisan vote of 30 to 20.  This important amendment mandates that no taxpayer funds may be used to negotiate a United Nations Arms Trade Treaty that would restrict the Second Amendment rights of any United States citizen or regulate firearms or ammunition.

“Taxpayer funds should not be used to lobby against our constitutional rights.  Law-abiding Americans have the right to keep and bear arms.  The scope of the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty could drastically undermine this constitutional right.  The NRA firmly believes that the U.N. should never be allowed to be the arbiter of American freedom,” said NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris W. Cox.  “The NRA would like to thank Congressman Rehberg for his leadership and for offering this vital amendment in support of the Second Amendment.”

 

Source: NRAILA