Update! — 2 peace-liberty organizations use logos with a similar theme — a natural? See their sources in the link above.
In the herd Life experience shows that bureaucracies don’t care about wasting time. So I came 45 minutes after my assigned 8:30am jury summons and joined 200 others waiting for the proceedings to begin.
A quarter hour later a clerk told us to listen carefully to all instructions. She repeated this five times and then had us view a promotional video for the American Judicial System.
The film told how it’s supposed to work: a jury of one’s peers making sure justice is delivered. One woman laughed aloud; but most viewers seemed unfazed by propaganda for a US legal system that jails a greater percentage of its citizens than any other country – even including totalitarian China.
After the film, the clerk read names of half of the people in the room, and told them to cluster in a group. The rest of us sat idly as a judge talked to the chosen group.
First he expressed appreciation for the jury system and those who serve. Then the judge warned about the difficulty of being excused from serving, how he would need to hear very good reasons to excuse anyone.
I thought about 200 people called away from jobs, children, and personal needs, stuck for hours in inefficient selection. At last the judge described the trial his jury would hear: a business contract dispute. Important, but enough to inconvenience 200 people for a case that could be settled by arbitration instead of in court?
I’d brought information from the Fully Informed Jury Association, fija.com explaining the history and most important job of juries: to safeguard against unjust laws. If a jurist thinks a law invalid, that jurist has the right (and moral obligation) to refuse to convict, even if instructed by a judge that conviction is required under the law.
Jury nullification is one of the most important rights citizens possess. Each of us has the power to protect our fellow citizens by nullifying tyrannical and victimless laws by refusing to convict. 
Today’s jury selection was for an ordinary civil dispute; those not selected scurried thankfully back to family, work, lives. But next time we’re summoned back for jury duty, maybe a defendant will be accused under a law that violates individual rights.
Then we’ll need a jury of honest and courageous citizens who can look a judge in the eye and say “No conviction.”
When it’s your turn to serve, be sure you go prepared; bring extra copies of the Jurist Handbook from the Fully Informed Jury Association, so you can inform fellow jurors about the power to help restore justice to the legal system through nullification of unjust laws.
