Sarah Palin issued "a proclamation in support of "Jurors' Rights" day, an event sponsored by the Fully Informed Jury Association, which encourages the doctrine of jury nullification," according to Reason Online. http://www.reason.com/... A copy of that proclamation is here: http://volokh.com/...
Why is that news? Because "jury nullification" is often an important issue to far-right extremists, and this proclamation could be yet one more sign of her association with such groups.
What is "jury nullification"? In sum, it is the idea that an individual juror or jurors may refuse to enforce laws they believe to be in conflict with the laws of God or their own sense of right and wrong.
According to the Anti-Defamation League
[Jury nullification is] supported by a mix of libertarians, right-wing extremists and even a few legitimate scholars and theorists. The major organization promoting it is FIJA, the Fully Informed Jury Association. Jury nullification in practice, however, is not a libertarian legal theory, but a deliberate tactic used to monkey wrench trials involving anti-government extremists.
http://www.adl.org/...
At Orcinus, a blog that tracks developments on the far right, reporter David Neiwert describes jury nullification thus:
In essence, jury nullification -- by sitting in judgment not just of the facts of the case but of the laws themselves -- arrogates to itself not only the role of the judge but of the legislature, essentially overturning at whim those laws that have been passed through democratic processes. In this sense, jury nullification is a threat not only to the courts, but to the very systems of laws on which the nation rests.
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/...
Why does the far right like it? As Neiwert explains: "Not only could jury nullification solve problems related to tax cases, but juries could also potentially overturn charges ranging from malicious harassment to firearms violations and bomb building."
One of the most popular books at militia gatherings, according to Neiwert, is a book about jury nullification: the "Citizen's Rule Book." The Anti-Defamation League quotes the Citizen's Rule Book as saying that jury nullification allows "you, with your single vote of 'NOT GUILTY' [to] nullify every rule of 'law' that is not in accordance with the principles of natural, God-given, Common or Constitutional Law." http://www.adl.org/... Indeed, that underlines why right-wing extremists advocate for jury nullification -- it provides them with a potential excuse for not enforcing a law they believe to contravene their interpretation of God's law.
And what is the "Fully Infomed Jury Association"?
According to Neiwert in 2003, FIJA followers
present a relatively normative, broad-spectrum front, particularly since they have attracted a substantial audience among libertarians and drug-war critics (a small splinter group, also based in Montana, with a similar name in fact was overtly extremist in orientation and was closely associated with the Montana Freemen); this seeming variety on the political spectrum lets it pose as semi-mainstream."
But, "in reality, FIJA's origins and orientation are extremist[.]" http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/...
FIJA's website has posted a picture on its website of one of its activists posing with Palin. http://www.fija.org/...
What is a governor doing giving support to a notion that in practice makes it more difficult to prosecute anti-government extremists?