Another Reason Why We Need Fully Informed Juries

The article and videos below should be a RED FLAG to any peace loving American Citizen. It should also re-enforce why people should always demand a trial by jury and not take the prosecutor's plea bargain. Both cases below were nothing more than possession, a misdemeanor in Michigan.

Derek Copp, the Grand Valley student was under investigation because of this photo posted on the internet, on Derek's social networking site. I guess if you look close and know what you are looking at, there is a BLUE BONG (whatever that is) behind him. Enough evidence for police to show up at 9pm with a warrant and shoot him.

Now ask yourself one question. Why is it that these warrants are always served at night under cover of darkness. Couldn't the police have just as easily gone during the day and called Derek out of class and served the warrant?

How about the family in Missouri? You see that it's dark. Would your dog bark if someone broke down your door and entered your house screaming and yelling? Where is PITA on this one. They should be all over this event.

How about the children there. Will they ever get over the trauma of having the police, the very people that they are taught to trust, bust into their home, shoot their dog, and arrest their father. Where are the children now? Child protective custody? Wards of the state. And we wonder why our kids are so messed up today?

And all because they got a tip that the father bought some marijuana. He wasn't a drug dealer and more than the Grand Valley student.

I hear people every day say well, we need these laws to keep our children from using drugs. Well, making marijuana illegal isn't going to stop your kids from smoking it any more than it did you.

What this law will do is make your child a criminal, have a record that will follow them the rest of their life, put them into the criminal justice system that they may never be able to exit out of because of the greedy probation officers who need them for job security. And it could also get them shot like the Grand Valley student.

So what's safer, keeping POT illegal, or legalize the stuff and save lives and a whole lot of our tax dollars being spent on this type of enforcement?

One other thing I forgot to mention, by legalizing Marijuana, you will also get rid of the drug dealers who are dangerous people from your neighborhoods. More people will be able to grow their own and will put the dealers out of business.

It's your choice, but at least now you can see the reality of how this law is being enforced.


The jurors have the power to ignore the court's instructions and bring in a not guilty verdict contrary to the law and the facts. Horning v. District of Columbia, 254 U.S. 135, 138 (1920).