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Jury Rights Activists Campaign to End Victimless Crimes

Prosecutions in New York City in 2015
(New York, NY, December 22, 2014)Jury rights activists from New York City and surrounding
areas are converging on Manhattan this January with the goal of ending the prosecution of
victimless crimes in the city.
The campaign consists of phone kiosk advertising and jury nullification pamphleting in the area
around the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse at 500 Pearl Street in the Civic
Center area of Lower Manhattan. An online educational effort at the website www.JRP.io
complements the main campaign.
Jurors have the inherent right and unquestionable power to judge not just the facts of a case but
also the law the defendant is accused of violating. Jurors can vote Not Guilty when they
conscientiously believe a just verdict requires it, even if they believe the law has technically been
broken.
All jurors in the United States have this right still today, but many are completely unaware of it.
Jury nullification occurs when jurors vote to acquit even though they believe the defendant is
guilty. Jury nullification is an indisputable fact of American jurisprudence that is regularly, if
quietly, practiced today.
If you are selected for jury duty, the normal instinct is to find a way out of it, said project
facilitator James Babb. But jury duty gives you the incredible opportunity to stop wrongful
imprisonment and government tyranny.

Jurors are not required to check their consciences at the courthouse door, said Kirsten Tynan,
executive director of the Fully Informed Jury Association. But they wont hear this once they
are inside. In fact, a prospective juror who does not agree to abandon their conscience and
uphold laws they find unjust or unjustly applied will almost certainly be excluded from the jury.
In 2011, 86% of federal prisoners -- hundreds of thousands of mostly minority Americans -were in a cage due to victimless crimes, said George Donnelly of the Jury Rights Project. It is
the urgent call of our times to stop ruining good peoples lives over victimless crimes such as
drug offenses. And we can do it using the rights we already have, in the more than 800-year-old
institution of the jury box.
Many of us were inspired by former Penn State professor Dr. Julian Heicklen, who has travelled
the nation to inform potential jurors of their right to nullify bad laws. We want to build on his
work, said Babb. Court employees at 500 Pearl Street were particularly violent and cruel to Dr.
Heicklen. I am eager to return and make a difference in this hellish vacuum of justice.
Activists aim to run the campaign during at least the month of January and are seeking donors
and volunteers to assist in continuing the effort indefinitely via a crowdfunding campaign at
Indiegogo.com.
More Information
Main website: JuryRightsProject.com/NYC
Crowdfunding campaign: igg.me/at/NYCJuryRights2015
Online educational effort: www.JRP.io
Full Informed Jury Association: FIJA.org