The absence of a jury in each and every case of a native Briton being sentenced for his alleged part in the recent riots that were engineered across England means that this is a question that needs to be asked.
This latest Rogue Cast is dedicated to the memory of my mother, Jean, who passed away at the age of 86 on Tuesday evening, the 20th of August, 2024.
She is the one who instilled in me the maxims that resonated with me as a boy and under which I continue to stand:
“Life is what you make it”
and,
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
God bless you, Mum and thank you for all you taught me.
To return to the subject in hand: the absence of a jury of one’s peers is a telling fact in each of the recent court cases against the alleged rioters who have been sentenced to jail time across England. For, in each and every case, not one of those sent down has had the opportunity to present his defence to his fellow members of society. Why might that be the case?
I would posit that, far from each of the imprisoned belonging to some mythical ‘far right’ organisation, which is the mantra of each and every mainstream media outlet, were the accused permitted, as is their right under Constitutional Law, then it would become clear that their evident concerns would be ones which are shared by the individuals who comprise the jury.
Such an occurrence is not to be allowed under the terms of Keir Starmer’s dictatorship, for the entirety of his fallacious claim that the riots were a consequence of each imprisoned individual being active members of a far right organisation which is a threat to the mythical ‘democracy’ under which we supposedly living, would inevitably collapse into a heap of its own hubris.
Footnotes:
“For more than six hundred years– that is, since Magna Carta, in 1215–there has been no clearer principle of English or American constitutional law, than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the right and duty of juries to judge what are the facts, what is the law, and what was the moral intent of the accused; but that it is also their right, and their primary and paramount duty, to judge the justice of the law, and to hold all laws invalid, that are, in their opinion, unjust or oppressive, and all persons guiltless in violating, or resisting the execution of, such law.”
—Lysander Spooner, The Right of Juries
“In November of 1734, a printer named John Peter Zenger was arrested for seditious libel against his Majesty’s government.
“Zenger admitted publishing the offending articles, but argued that the truth of the facts stated justified their publication. The judge instructed the jury that truth is not justification for libel. Rather, truth makes the libel more vicious, for public unrest is more likely to follow true, rather than false claims of bad governance. And since the defendant had admitted to the “fact” of publication, only a question of “law” remained.
“Then, as now, the judge said the “issue of law” was for the court to determine, and he instructed the jury to find the defendant guilty. It took only ten minutes for the jury to disregard the judge’s instructions on the law and find Zenger NOT GUILTY.”
“When a jury acquits a defendant even though he or she clearly appears to be guilty, the acquittal conveys significant information about community attitudes and provides a guideline for future prosecutorial discretion…Because of the high acquittal rate in prohibition cases in the 1920s and early 1930s, prohibition laws could not be enforced. The repeal of these laws is traceable to the refusal of juries to convict those accused of alcohol traffic. — Sheflin and Van Dyke, Law and Contemporary Problems, 43, No. 4, 1980”
“If the jury feels the law is unjust, we recognize the undisputed power of the jury to acquit, even if its verdict is contrary to the law as given by a judge, and contrary to the evidence. — 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, US v Moylan, 1969”
“Every jury in the land is tampered with and falsely instructed by the judge when it is told that it must accept as the law that which has been given to them, or that they can decide only the facts of the case. — Lord Denham, O’Connell v Rex (1884)“
“The jury has the power to bring in a verdict in the teeth of both the law and the facts. — Justice Holmes, Homing v District of Columbia, 138 (1920)”
Each RogueCast posted at RM has an accompanying article with links and sources to the material and, of course, there is also a large collection of writings on a variety of subjects, including the Great British Mortgage Swindle, a coruscating documentary co-produced by Michael O’Bernicia and yours truly.
A huge thank you to all who have taken the time to comment and who subscribe to Rogue Male and an especial thanks to those who made donations via the Buy Me A Coffee button and my dear friend David R for his sponsorship of my work.