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I called the Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA) headquarters on Friday
morning, may 1, to check in and see if they had anything cooking on the
King verdict/riots. They faxed me a press release that they had been
lashing together. I added page 2 and faxed it to our local (PA) media.
Irv Homer, a guy with the biggest talk show in Philly (50,000 watts of
power) jumped on it and I got to be his guest "Newsmaker" on Friday
afternoon at 4:05 (a regular feature of his). His producer called me and
I did a "phoner." I got to talk for about 10 minutes. I had no sooner
given my phone number for further FIJA info and hung up when I started
getting calls from people with car phones who wanted to know more. I got
14 calls in 2 hours. 2 people were due for jury duty within days. Others
wanted to spread the word. Most were amazed that this common law practice
was being discouraged by the current legal establishment. Anyway, I faxed
that list to FIJA national for them to send the current issue of the
FIJA Activist, a great newspaper, usually about 16 pages or so, with many
quotes and historical precedents. If you are in the Philly or South Jersey
or NorthEast PA area, check out Irv Homer, 2-6pm,m-f, WWDB, 96.5 FM.
He is doing libertarians a world of good. He booked Nancy Lord in a second
when we called him 2 months ago. Andre's been on. He mentions the LP just
about every day. Press Release we sent out follows:

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                                                FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
                                             Contact: Dan Doig 406-793-5550
                                      or in PA. Patrick Fallon 717-992-3800


NEWS  RELEASE

JURY TAMPERING IN THE RODNEY KING TRIAL?

There are indications that jurors in the trial of the Los Angeles policemen
accused of beating Rodney King were improperly instructed by the judge,
according to the national coordinator of the Fully Informed Jury
Association.

Dan Doig said instead of telling the jurors that they are the judges of the
law itself, which all jurors are, the judge told the jury that they must
follow the law as it was explained to them. This prevented the jury, some
of whom thought the policemen were in fact guilty, from voting according to
conscience.

The result has been murder, rioting, and looting in cities across the
country. The people know that injustice has been done, and they are
angry."We would not suggest that violence is a proper response to judicial
injustice, but this could all have been avoided had the judge fully
informed the jury of their responsibilities," Doig said.

The law in question specified that the jurors must put themselves in the
position of the police in excessive force cases, and if there are any
reasonable doubts about how much force was necessary to subdue the suspect,
then, according to the law, jurors "must" vote "not guilty." Furthermore,
what the jurors themselves believe to be reasonable force is not relevant;
only what the police thought was reasonable is relevant.

But in fact, Doig said, "Under the Constitution, and according to
traditional views of the role of the jury, jurors have not only a right,
but a responsibility to judge the law according to the dictates of their
consciences." "This power of the jury is the only effective enforcement
mechanism retained by the people to ensure that the Bill of Rights is not
trampled by government officials, including the police," according to Doig.

                         -MORE-

FIJA representative Patrick Fallon and two other members of The Pocono
Libertarians, George Wakefield and Al Smith, attracted attention to the
problem of improper judicial instructions on September 5th, 1991. On that
date the group handed out brochures in front of the Monroe County
Courthouse advocating the resumption of the practice of fully informing
juries of their right to vote their conscience, not "only the facts" as
directed by trial judges. They were confronted by the combined forces of
the Stroudsburg Sheriff's Department, the Monroe County District Attorney's
Office, and the Stroudsburg Police Department.

The libertarians were warned by Sheriff Forrest Sebring that they faced
arrest if they  handed out brochures to any jurors.  Monroe County Judge
Ronald E. Vican had warned the 220-member jury pool not to accept the
brochures, and told the jurors that, in his opinion, such and act is
illegal "if that happens."

Plainclothes members of the Stroudsburg Police Department wore juror
buttons outside the courthouse while the trio handed out hundreds of
brochures to the noon time crowd. One member of the Sheriff's Department
videotaped the activities.

FIJA activists had chosen September 5th as "Jury Rights Day" and  handed
out jury rights brochures at over 200 courthouses across the country.
Monroe County was the only reported case of attempted intimidation of jury
rights activists by the local authorities.

Fallon had warned of the dangers of growing contempt for the legal system
because jurors are not fully informed of their right to vote their
conscience when he appeared on "The People Speak" WVPO talk show on the
morning of September 5th, 1991,  and on subsequent appearances on the Irv
Homer show on WWDB in November of 1991 and most recently as a guest
"Newsmaker" on that popular Philadelphia talk show on Friday, May 1, 1992.
Additionally, his "Power to the Jury" talk has been well received by groups
in Freehold,N.J.; Sparta, N.J.; Philadelphia, PA; and in Brodheadsville,
PA.

"The Rodney King verdict is an indictment of a legal system that has hidden
from jurors their right to vote their conscience," Fallon said. He called
upon concerned citizens to get involved with the ongoing FIJA effort to get
judges to resume their former practice of fully informing juries of their
right to vote their conscience.

                              -30-
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Pat Fallon * The Computer Doctor / MCI ID: 519-2995
The Killer Grob