[headband 707]

NJ “Weedman” Found Not Guilty in Jury Nullification Victory
October 19, 2012
Print Version
By J.G. Vibes


With few options left for people to protect themselves from the ever growing police state, an old and long forgotten aspect of constitutional law is making a huge comeback, and becoming very popular in cases where people are facing jail time for nonviolent offenses.
This reemerging defense is the act of jury nullification, which is basically the right for any juror to not only judge the facts of the case, but to also actually judge the validity of the law itself.
This means that if a jury feels that a defendant is facing an unjust charge they actually have the right to rule in their favor even if they are technically guilty.
Ed Forchion is a medical cannabis user and cancer patient known as the “NJ weedman”.
Ed claims dual residency in Pemberton Township, New Jersey and Los Angeles, California. Due to his residency in California he has a prescription for Cannabis and is legally allowed to grow and consume the plant in that state.
However, he is not legally allowed to possess the plant in the state of New Jersey and unfortunately while in New Jersey on April 1, 2012 Forchion was stopped by police and found with a pound of cannabis and $2,000, enough to get slapped with a distribution charge.
At an earlier trial last spring, he was convicted of possession, but that jury could not reach a unanimous decision on the more serious distribution charge, leading to this week’s retrial.
With the distribution charge he was facing 10 years, and it is likely that the jury couldn’t send him away with a clear conscience.
Ed’s primary strategy throughout his whole ordeal has been jury nullification, much to the dismay of Superior Court Judge Charles Delehey, who presided over both trials.
Forchion was passionate in his closing arguments, wearing a shirt that said “Marijuana … It’s OK. It’s Just Illegal” and telling the jury that he had been munching on pot cookies throughout the whole trial.
Then at one point he was nearly held in contempt of court for trying to advance his jury nullification argument.
Considering the fact that most of the nonviolent offenses on the books today are extremely unpopular for a variety of reasons, you would think that jury nullification would be household knowledge, or taught in schools even.
However, this is a very well guarded secrets, with many judges actually preventing the defense from informing juries of their right to nullify laws that they feel are unjust.
When Forcion started to talk about nullification, Delehey quickly stopped him, reminding him that he wasn’t allowed to go there, but Forchion fought back with intelligence and intensity.
Frustrated, the judge ordered the jury out of the room and told him he would be held in contempt if he continued to speak the truth.
According to Phillyblurbs the judge told him “If you want to make a martyr of yourself, the court will deal with you. You’ve done everything you can to disrupt this trial.”
There has been a constant tug of war between the defendant and the judge for the past year.
During last May’s trial, Forchion and his supporter’s placed pamphlets about jury nullification on cars parked in the jury parking lot and were very vocal about the illegitimacy of the law and the juries right to decide the validity of the law.
In pretrial motions, which were subsequently barred from being argued before the jury, Forchion challenged the constitutionality of the state’s criminal code now that New Jersey has a Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana law that recognizes the benefits of cannabis.
He said Thursday he looks forward to the state Appellate Division reviewing that motion when he appeals the possession conviction, which he still faces sentencing on.
Oddly enough, it will be the same judge who decides his sentence, but he will still have the ability to appeal, which can possibly lead to another acquittal.

[idiit]

an old and long forgotten aspect of constitutional law is making a huge comeback, and becoming very popular in cases where people are facing jail time for nonviolent offenses.

there is an entire movement in america to go back to constitutional law. common law is basically no harm, no foul. the fed gubmint's way out of control.
below is a site by a militia guy named drake that is all about bringing back "government by the people, for the people".

drake says that we are to witness big progress in this regard imminently (next couple o' days) and "big deal" is an understatement.

https://americannationalmilitia.com/

[headband 707]

[quote=idiit;5377676]there is an entire movement in america to go back to constitutional law. common law is basically no harm, no foul. the fed gubmint's way out of control.
below is a site by a militia guy named drake that is all about bringing back "government by the people, for the people".

drake says that we are to witness big progress in this regard imminently (next couple o' days) and "big deal" is an understatement.




A jury found Ed “NJWeedman” Forchion not guilty Thursday in the Rastafarian activist’s marijuana distribution case.

The decision came after Forchion was nearly held in contempt of court in the morning as he delivered his closing argument.



Forchion, formerly of Pemberton Township, tried to introduce his jury nullification argument into the closing, but was quickly stopped by Superior Court Judge Charles Delehey, who had barred any discussion of it.


By JG Vibes
theintelhub.com
October 20, 2012

Yesterday I wrote about “NJ Weedman” Ed Forchion and his jury nullification victory, where he was acquitted on a distribution charge that carried a 10 year sentence.

A jury of 12 decided that the law he had broken was illegitimate, and they ruled not guilty.

Despite the fact that jury nullification is constitutional law, and applies in every state, courts do everything in their power to keep this knowledge from the public.

Inside the courtroom Forchion was threatened with a contempt charge when he started discussing the rights of the jury.

Outside the courthouse, on the night before the final arguments, Fernando Antonio Salguero and five others were handing out pamphlets from the Fully Informed Jury Association, spreading awareness about jury nullification.

Police arrived and arrested Salguero, forcing the other supporters away from the courthouse.

An oped news article explains how the encounter transpired:

The group members were approached by a handful of county sheriff’s officers as they distributed the fliers, which highlighted jurors’ rights and jury nullification, an argument Forchion was barred from presenting at his criminal trial.

“They accused us of jury tampering. We were not targeting jurors. We were giving out pamphlets to everyone, the same way we have done a few times over the past two weeks, without incident,” Salguero said.

[redbudduckfoot]

how the fuck can a judge stop him from informing the jury about jury nullification?

rbdf

[HUGE]

Originally Posted by redbudduckfoot

how the fuck can a judge stop him from informing the jury about jury nullification?

rbdf

Same way the feds tell a cancer patient they can't use the word medical marijuana in court. They wave a magic wand and things don't exist

Great find, hb! Now, in doing some of my own Googling I found this little tidbit. Seems the weedman is running for a congressional district seat.

https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/...174828951.html