Fully Informed Jury Association - Activism

Activism

FIJA has lobbied state legislatures to enact legislation that would explicitly elevate the jury's formerly unspoken power to nullify to an openly acknowledged right. On June 18, 2012, New Hampshire passed a law explicitly allowing defense attorneys to inform juries about Jury Nullification. FIJA has also proposed abolishing the juror's oath. FIJA has also launched a "Challenge for Churches" program of jury seminars, focusing on "serving justice through conscience." FIJA has also launched a "Lunch Break for Liberty" program to encourage people to use their lunch break to hand out FIJA pamphlets.

FIJA activists have demonstrated outside courthouses and handed out literature to potential jurors in hundreds of cases. They have generally not been arrested for doing so. FIJA speculates that this may be because "prosecutors have reasoned (correctly) that if they arrest fully informed jury leafleters, the leaflets will have to be given to the leafleter's own jury as evidence." FIJA and its activists have been involved in litigation over these matters. Another argument is that since FIJA literature is generic, making no reference to any cases potential jurors may be called upon to serve on, its distribution is not jury tampering.

In dismissing an activist's lawsuit for false arrest for disorderly conduct, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit stated, "Although advocacy of jury nullification could no more be flatly forbidden than advocacy of Marxism, nudism, or Satanism, we cannot think of a more reasonable regulation of the time, place, and manner of speech than to forbid its advocacy in a courthouse."