Trial of First Amendment Rights: Days 3 & 4

Day 3:
As it turns out, there was not much else to report besides what was mentioned here.

Day 4:
Today, it was the Defendant's turn to bring forth her witnesses and evidence. The questioning was straightforward, primarily going to the Defendant's state of mind regarding the court order that led her to this situation. The cross-examination by the Prosecution, however, was a little bit messy.

It seems the Prosecution has decided that ad hominem attacks are the best course of action in this case, as for each witness that they could manage it, they found pieces of writing done by the witnesses, and attempted to use those to damage the witnesses' credibility.

For example, they found this blog, and accused the author of encouraging jurors to lie during jury selection (see Day 1). The author, of course, said she would never encourage anyone to lie, and later clarified that, while such writing was perhaps rash, she has, like her family, been rather frustrated by this whole situation. Regardless, she meant no harm, and only hoped for truth and justice.

Perhaps even more interestingly, though, the Prosecution also mentioned the fact that the author desired assistance from the Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA) in informing the jury regarding their right to make their verdict based on the lawfulness and/or constitutionality of a law or order, and could disregard a court's instruction if they so chose. So, seeing as FIJA was unfortunately unable to distribute literature describing such rights, it was in fact serendipitous that the Prosecution questioned the author regarding that post, as it gave her the opportunity to explain it to the jury herself in open court, on the record.

Next came the questioning of the Defendant by her assisting counsel, which was a bit bumpy due to some interrupting objections and evidentiary disagreements, but ultimately allowed the Defendant to explain herself in her own words to the jury regarding all aspects of the case. This appeared effective, and we shall see what the Prosecution asks tomorrow.

Finally, the jury left, and so began the hashing out of Jury Instructions. The Defendant and the Prosecution agreed on many points, but unfortunately, despite extremely reasonable and well-made arguments on the part of the Defendant regarding such crucial topics as the lawfulness of the given order and the willfulness element in a case of contempt, for example, the judge ruled in the Prosecution's favor in each case. Considering the comparitively weak arguments made by the Prosecution, the author can only conclude that there is bias involved, but hopes that the jury is able to overcome such evils, and bring justice to this case.

VERDICT