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Judge, No Jury
The Sixth Amendment of the U. S. Constitution guarantees defendants a right to a jury of their peers to decide guilt. In a perjury trial, there are two issues: Materiality, and False Statement. Materiality deals with the pertinence of a false statement. Consider the following scenario: A witness said the accused wore a purple top. Another witness said the accused wore a violet top. However, both testified they saw the accused commit the crime in question. Then Sherwin Williams proved the shade violet, not purple, by the "International Color Scheme Association of America." The jury would determine if "violet" or "purple" proved relevant to whether the accused committed the crime. If irrelevant, a jury would not care about the color of her top, or if she had been topless.
In Pat’s case, when asked if he used the word "narcotics" in his conversations with LeChasney and Mullaney, he responded that, to the best of his memory, he used the word "drugs." In reviewing the sting tapes, "narcotics" had been used. To Pat as well as the average lay person in the field of illegal drugs, narcotics, etc. the words were interchangeably one and the same.
The jury then had the burden of determining the relevance of the terms. The case pertained to money laundering whatever the source, chemical substances or otherwise.
Judge Freeman then advised the jury (in violation of Pat’s 6th amendment right) he already determined its relevance. Later, they provided a verdict on a decision Freeman had already established, snaring Swindall by Freeman’s decision, not theirs.
This is where the Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA http://www.FIJA.org ) comes in. FIJA is an association which informs juries they have not only a right, but also a duty, to meet the constitutional requirements of determining cases. Juries even have the right to challenge the very law the defendant is charged of violating. A jury could, in essence, say, "technically the defendant is guilty of violating that law. However, that law, in this case, should have been violated. We would have acted in the same way for the same reasons." Then find the defendant, "not guilty." The purpose of the jury is to deprive a judge of the very power Freeman exercised.
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