The term ‘common law’ refers exclusively to the ancient common law, code and customs, also known as "the law of the land, legem terræ" as inscribed into Magna Carta, the Great Charter Constitution (see Article 39 of Magna Carta, 1215 A.D.), wherein "the judgement of the pares" (or peers; Latin-derived term for social-equals), also known as Trial by Jury, is defined and prescribed. Trial by Jury is installed as the sole Justice System for all crimes (other than impeachable) in the U.S., U.K. and other Constitutions.

Common law which existed at the time of Magna Carta’s first of many enactments and ratifications, must be differentiated from that which modern government usurpation has corrupted by legislation, which is "common law" in name only.

Nota Bene: Common law does not include any statutes made by government, nor interpretations, rulings or precedents (stare decisis) made by judiciary. More can be read about this in LEGEM TERRÆ: THE PEOPLE AND THEIR COMMON LAW REIGN SUPREME; DEMOCRACY DEFINED Essay for Members EIS #9; see Campaign Material page for free download.

It is an unalterable principle of the common law Trial by Jury inscribed into the Constitution (which forms the Supreme Law by which the executive, legislature, judiciary and all citizens are legally bound) that there can be no crime without there having been mens rea, that is, guilt or malicious criminal intent.

Guilt is a personal attribute or quality of the actor. It might not be involved in the act itself but guilt depends on the intent or motive with which the act was committed. The jury must find a person acted from a premeditated malicious criminal motive, mens rea, in order to find him or her guilty. This is the issue the jury try: "guilt," or "not guilty".

Malice aforethought is the criterion by which common law defines guilt. Justice can only demand the finding of a guilty verdict and punishment where there has been malicious criminal intent. There is no moral justice nor political necessity (i.e. deterrent value) for punishing where there was no mens rea. (In the case of one person injuring another innocently or accidentally, the civil law suit and the Trial by Jury award appropriate compensation for damages.)

Guilt is an intrinsic attribute of actions and motives by which common law defines ‘crime’. Common law Trial by Jury makes malicious criminal intent or guilt a necessity preliminary to conviction.

‘Guilt’ cannot be imparted to an action simply by legislation. This mechanism of the common law Trial by Jury protects (is intended to protect) individuals from governments which have ulterior criminal ends and would seek to further them by making statutory ‘offences’ out of innocent acts which are not crimes.

The mechanism can be effective only where the law is not broken by courts and government, and where the Constitution is faithfully upheld: that is, where the Jurors’ rights, duties, powers and functions are fulfilled, and these latter are not illegally denied or interfered with by judges, or by politicians’ legislative contraventions.

The Jurors’ duties include the following:

to swear to convict the guilty and acquit the innocent;
to judge:
the law; and, according to conscience (that is, the sense of fairness, and right and wrong), to annul all unjust laws or prosecutions by finding the Not Guilty Verdict;
the facts;
on the admissibility of all the evidence (i.e. the evidence not being pre-selected by the judge and/or prosecutor);
the moral intent of the accused (whose actions require to have been committed with malice aforethought to find 'guilt'); and,
where guilt is unanimously found, mitigating circumstances, if any (provocation; temptation; incitation); and,
the suitability of the sentence (no mandatorily prescribed penalties).

As noted, in a criminal case the issue tried is the moral intent of the accused; whether "guilty," or "not guilty," by judging whether the accused acted with malice aforethought. Legislation cannot have anything to do with this issue.

Guilt cannot be fabricated by legislation. No tribunal or jury has any justification for declaring a person ‘guilty’ for an act that is intrinsically innocent. Such a ‘verdict’ is a lie and a fraud. A juror is not permitted to render such a perjury as a ‘verdict’ merely at the caprice of politicians’ legislation or the urging of a prosecutor, or the instructions of a judge.
NOTE. The jury’s decision, the word verdict, is correctly translated from the Latin veredictum, as "a thing truly said." The words "true verdict" in the modernised jurors’ oaths comprise a tautology; an inaccurate expression.

EVIDENCE.

To ascertain the truth, the jurors must see all the evidence and decide which evidence is relevant. Jurors cannot try an issue unless it is they who determine what evidence is admissible.

It is a most grave crime (of subreption and/or perjury) to exclude or withhold evidence from jurors that they would consider should be admitted were they to see it. It is inherently immoral and a criminal act to make a juror pronounce a person ‘guilty’, or to declare that one person owed money to another, on such partial evidence. If decisions on the evidence are taken by someone other than the jury, then the process cannot be called Trial BY JURY; and it is a mistrial.

Where before jurors swore simply and justly "to convict the guilty and acquit the innocent," government has inserted the words, "according to the evidence," into jurors’ oaths. This violates Common Law, Magna Carta, and honesty, because this wording duplicitously means "only that evidence which the government [i.e. the judge] allows the jury to receive."

If the government can dictate the evidence, and the jury is required to find the verdict according to that evidence, then government can dictate the verdict which the jury must reach. In that case, the trial is really a pretence, not a "trial" at all. It is also a rigmarole of a pretended "trial" by the government, not by a jury. This sums up the corrupt process which takes place today. It is a shameful calumnious criminal subterfuge.

Today, to ensure the enforcement of the money-motivated criminogenic War on Drugs ‘laws’, judges exclude evidence which exonerates defendants from all these unfounded, inequitable and hence illegal Prohibitions. This unlawfully excluded expert evidence includes documentary, legal, academic, economic, scientific, medical, technical, philosophical, and that which is based on grounds of equity. Today, judges tell jurors to consider only that evidence which he or she allows !
See THE REPORT ISBN 9781902848167.

This abject behaviour by the judiciary exemplifies why the Trial by Jury was constitutionally installed in preference to "trial-by-the-judge." However, judges and their political masters have now managed to ruin the Constitution. Hence, the raison d’être for The DEMOCRACY DEFINED RESTORATION Campaign. Consider the prophetic warning of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of Independence; co-Founder of the Democratic Party:

"The germ of the destruction of our nation is in the power of the judiciary, an irresponsible body -- working like gravity, by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall render powerless the checks of one branch over the other, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated."

THE VERDICT.

From the aforegoing we see that to arrive at a verdict, the jury must try the whole case: the facts and evidence; the moral intent and motive of the accused (whether innocent or malicious); the law and the fitness of a sentence, if any, the sentence itself comprising part of the judgement of the peers, i.e. the jury of indiscriminately chosen social-equals of the accused (not employees of the government). Whenever the judge prevents any of the aforegoing jurors’ duties, the defendant is not receiving a fair Trial by Jury. The process is a mistrial and jurors must find the Not Guilty Verdict to prevent injustice occurring.

The Trial by Jury (as opposed to trial-by-the-judge) was emplaced constitutionally for the purposes of:

A.) not only ascertaining guilt or innocence of the accused and where necessary for apportioning retribution, but also

B.) of paramount importance, as a barrier to protect the vast mass of innocent citizenry from arbitrary government, i.e. unjust laws, tyranny; and from the prejudices and incompetence of fallible justices (judges). Genuine Trial by Jury enables the people to judge authoritatively what their liberties and laws are, so that the people retain all the liberties which they wish to enjoy. This crucial facet of Jury Trials contributes to the establishment and defining of Democracy (see this website’s Campaign Philosophy pages).

In Constitutional Common Law Trial by Jury, it is the citizen-juror’s Duty to nullify prosecutions of bad laws by dismissing charges against the accused by finding the Not Guilty verdict. Today, as throughout history, whenever this Jury Nullification Duty is suppressed by courts or despots, it is to serve a criminal, and frequently venal*, motive of government and others implicated.
* Definition. Venal: corruptly mercenary; (able to be) bought over; open to bribery.

As campaigners, we at The DEMOCRACY DEFINED CAMPAIGN hear all the time from the horse’s mouth as it were, from trial transcripts, also from reportage and personal accounts. All state and government appointed judges, U.S., U.K. and European appeal courts, the European Court of Human Rights notwithstanding, enforce all the money-motivated laws they are called on by their political masters to enforce, regardless of their crime-engendering and hence inherently-illegal character, their unfounded nature, their inequity and injustice. Were they not to do so they would not remain judges.

The proof of this is witnessed in the continued enforcement of ex parte, iniquitous unfounded financially-motivated laws which the U.S., European and U.K. appeal courts have increasingly entrenched as their unlawful response to appeals. In an outrageous act of perjury, on spurious grounds and sometimes on no grounds whatever, they imperiously rule out the exonerative facts.

There is nothing new here. The Trial by Jury of ordinary citizens was created and introduced to counter government tyranny executed upon the People in particular by government judges. The Trial by Jury Justice System was itself the inspired response to the infamous behaviour of the judge down the ages: one-sided, perjurious, felonious, unconscionable and cruel.

‘PROHIBITION’.

Let us consider the ‘prohibition’ legislation on the trade and use of substances, the War on Drugs:

Political Prohibition law creates the Black Market and exponentially augments the "street price" of even the most mundane commodities, drugs, etc., by 3000% plus, over the equivalent already profitably prescribed by the physician. Trade in contraband (smuggling, dealing, etc.) is the most profitable activity in the world.

This prohibition-incremented value in the proscribed commodities makes money-motivated activities with them inevitable. The Prohibition enforcement itself engenders the very crime it is purportedly emplaced to deter.

THE ULTERIOR MONEY-MOTIVE
BEHIND THE ‘WAR ON DRUGS’.

People are indoctrinated to forget that the control on substances with therapeutic applications, i.e. prohibition, is emplaced to effect monopoly, to protect the immense revenues, literally trillions in duty and taxes taken by governments (of all political persuasions); and the company Owners’ vast pharmaceutical corporate profits, further trillions, yielded from the drugs’ trade.

Regarding cannabis (marijuana) prohibition in particular, this is also motivated by government and corporations’ desire to maintain rigid control of the supply of fuel-energy for hegemony and money-motive. This latter phenomenon is producing cataclysmic results to individual, society and the ecosphere.
Ref. THE CANNABIS BIOMASS ENERGY EQUATION; see webpage on THE REPORT ISBN 9781902848167. THE REPORT is endorsed by a Nobel laureate Econonics’ Adviser to the U.S. government professor emeritus of the University of Chicago; by a Professor of Physiology Fellow of the Royal Society; by an Official Adviser to the U.K. government on the Environment; by academics, doctors (of a variety of disciplines) and judges (U.S. & U.K.).

As the PROGENITOR of not less than 75% of all CRIME (official statistics), the money-motivated legislation of Prohibitions is unlawful, disgraceful and unforgivable.

Legislation which progenerates crime is inherently illegal.

The monumental crime and brutality which characterise the Prohibitionist-led society are the product of the culpable politicians who maintain the legislation and the judiciary who enforce it.

As pointed out by THE REPORT, it is a fundamental moral and legal principle that "to cause crime to occur is to be responsible (accountable) for the crime." The implicated individual politicians and judiciary are judicably accountable.

COMPLETE RELEGALISATION ACHIEVES
THE LARGESCALE ELIMINATION OF CRIME.

At a stroke, Relegalisation eradicates this undue increased value in prohibited or rationed commodities. Overnight, Relegalisation eliminates the Black Market and all associated crime. Consider the improvement to our modern world by the large-scale elimination of crime which only comes from complete RELEGALISATION.

Politicians are fully aware of the illegality and adverse consequences of their unfounded Prohibitions, and of the moral and legal imperative of Relegalisation: but they are remorselessly controlled and driven by criminal money-motive. Thus, Nullification and obtaining expunction of the illegal Prohibition legislation of the War on Drugs is the absolutely mandatory Duty of all citizens, including Jurors.

Support for RESTORATION of Trial by Jury is the Duty of all citizens who deprecate crime. Jury Nullification is the peaceable means by which society can be put to rights, and be rid of these criminally-motivated, crime-producing political ‘Prohibitions’.

Jury Nullification is the method by which
U.S. Alcohol Prohibition was terminated.

In the last four years of the crime-producing Alcohol Prohibition, Not Guilty verdicts or hung juries were returned by citizens in approximately half of all prosecutions, this being the principal cause of the repeal of the legislation.

Jury Nullification of all drug-Prohibition prosecutions is the moral obligation of Jurors and the constitutionally correct way to achieve the enormous 75% reduction in crime... all of which crime is caused by and the result of the money-motivated politicians’ ‘War on Drugs’ criminal subterfuge.

However, politicians intend their ulterior (i.e. concealed; illegal) revenue and profit-protection racket to succeed. Consequently, they see it as essential for government to perpetrate the unlawful suppression of the proper functioning of the Trial by Jury; and especially to destroy its central tenet: the Nullification by Juries of the prosecutions of bad, unjust laws by finding the Not Guilty verdict.

The Money-Motivated Prohibitionists’ Criminal Program:
Complete Suppression of The Constitutional Rule of Law.

Suppression of Jury Nullification, the Constitution and Trial by Jury, is a criminal Prohibitionists’ program. It is crucial to their financial interests for, otherwise, Juries would certainly come to annul the crooked government-corporate revenue and profit protection racket disguised as the ‘War on Drugs’.

Trial by Jury is correctly perceived by the Owners and politicians as the only real threat to their continuing receipt of the undeserved trillions. This explains why the governments’ beholden employees, the judges, suppress the Jurors’ Nullification Duty, by misinstructing juries that they may not judge the justice, or rather the injustice, of law; and why government wherever possible denies the accused his or her right to a fair Trial by a Jury of equal fellow citizens.

By common law (and common sense), cultivation, production, trade, sale, import-export, supply, smoking (whatever), eating, drinking, possession and use are all legal. That is, these acts described are innocent in themselves. Under the law, legislation cannot impute ‘malice aforethought’ (i.e. ‘guilt’), to the act itself. However, today, politicians and judiciary driven by the ulterior (concealed; illegal) money-motive, criminally infract the Constitutions and common law by which they are bound, and on a routine basis fabricate ‘offences’ out of things which are not and never will be ‘crimes’.

In an act as outrageously and blatantly criminal as that of the common gangster or violent robber, at the behest of multi-national corporations whose financial investments and influence interweave through every facet of the socio-economic complex, criminal politicians are destroying the very foundations and fabric of Western democratic civilisation.

Enforcement of the unfounded, perjurious ‘legislation’ by wayward judges, results in fines, incarceration and other abuses of innumerable harmless innocent citizens whose acts are without guilt and of no criminal intent. This results in the West’s largest prison population of all time, consisting principally of citizens innocent of any crime; while the real crimes go unsolved and largely unchallenged.

The accountable Progenitors of Crime, that is, the unseen plutocrats who ‘finance and run’ the parties; the politicians and their state bureaucrat servitors; the judiciary and lawyers who enforce and prosecute the execrable subterfuge masquerading as ‘legislation’; and the hardened dangerous real criminals, go scot free...
See: PROHIBITION: THE PROGENITOR OF CRIME; Part Six of THE REPORT ISBN 9781902848167.

The Common Law Trial by Jury was emplaced by Constitutional laws precisely for the purpose of the elimination and retribution of acts which are the product of mens rea (i.e. criminal intent; malice aforethought), such as these false War on Drugs laws made and maintained by corrupted politicians. It is now the duty of all citizens to take positive steps to bring the criminogenic illegal War on Drugs to an abrupt end; and to bring before the public (juries) those responsible for perpetrating this society-wrecking criminal subterfuge.

The DEMOCRACY DEFINED RESTORATION Campaign and Program to counter the government crime and restore Trial by Jury are endorsed by honest citizens, eminent academics, doctors (of a variety of disciplines) and judges (U.S. & U.K.) and are central to THE REPORT. Cannabis: The Facts, Human Rights and the Law ISBN 9781902848167.
See The RESTORATION Program in THE REPORT. Also see The DEMOCRACY DEFINED Campaign Philosophy webpages on this site.

The corruption of the modern judiciary is self-evident in judges’ upholding the criminally arbitrary authority of government, by judges actively procuring conviction of individuals for acts innocent in themselves, and the commission of which therefore indicates no criminal intent—but which are ‘forbidden’ by illegal ‘statute’.

In flagrant breach of morality and common law, judges routinely abet persecution of innocent people by permitting and participating in prosecutions of these false ‘laws’, simply because not to do so would lose them their job. In all these cases, the citizens involved are due Amnesty and Restitution (as for other Wrongful Penalisation).
See the Amicus Curiæ page for defendants, accessed from the bottom of the Synopsis on THE REPORT page; and the Exonerative Clinical Findings of Fact page, accessed from below the Reviews and Endorsements of THE REPORT, which are above the Synopsis.

The power of government consists merely of the physical force which it brings to its support—of moral force, it has none. Western governments have decomposed into despotisms of the most primitive type. The proof of this derives from the fact that within the annual avalanche of legislation, there is hardly a single new law, regulation or amendment to law which would be welcomed by the whole populace and uniformly enforced by juries judging thereon.

Control of all governments by the overriding judgements and arbitration of citizen-jurors is as much needed today as for any of the corrupt absolute dictators and monarchs of history whose inhumanity it was that produced the People’s response embodied in the very creation and installment of the Trial by Jury Justice System.

To a degree achieved by no other system of justice, the proper Common Law Trial by Jury with full Juror’s Rights and Duty to nullify injustices and bad laws, responds to Mankind’s unceasing need: to enforce just laws; to uphold the innocent; to protect minorities; to nullify arbitrary government; and to reject injustice.

As stated by THE REPORT, "To consent to any measure is to share responsibility for its results." It is incumbent on all responsible citizens who deprecate crime to take appropriate and decisive actions, not allowing the money-motivated (or duped) Prohibitionists to delay or foil the utter demolition of the socially catastrophic criminogenic Prohibitions.

Remember our duty to the hundreds of thousands, no millions, of fellow citizens and their families who have suffered, or who are now suffering under this modern tyranny; and to those innumerable others who will also suffer in future if we do not peacefully eliminate despotism and political corruption by re-establishing the Constitution’s Justice System: the Trial by Jury.

History will recall that the Mission of THE DEMOCRACY DEFINED CAMPAIGN today is the single most important political activity in the civilised world. The well-being, prosperity, protection and happiness of all people depend upon its successful outcome.

Join The DEMOCRACY DEFINED RESTORATION CAMPAIGN today for free ! Click on the Membership button above.

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~

Carol Taylor, WOMANPARTY Canada PARTIFEMME. Pro-cannabis and anti-prohibition activist. Leader of the Womanparty dedicated to the advancement of women in Canada.