In wrapping up the year, I looked over some my old files and found some news articles from April of 1991 about a New Jersey Superior Court judge who successfully stepped on a juror's right to judge for herself whether New Jersey's drug laws were fair and proportionate. I thought this 20-year old bit of history would be interest, so I put these articles on the internet.

I remember this case well, as I visited the juror several times and recall hand-typing her May 17, 1991 letter into a text file - in the days before scanners and OCR--so that I could distribute it more easily (the text file is also at the above link). I also remember the case well because I traveled more than once to the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton to visit the man who was sentenced to life imprisonment because of the juror's forced verdict. Anyway, here's the story.

On December 28th, Gary Johnson held a news conference in Santa Fe, NM announcing his switch from the Republican to the Libertarian Party.

Following Gary's announcement, National LP Chair Mark Hinkle welcomed Gary back to the Libertarian Party.

Local government agencies and authorities are required to audit their books annually, and one might think that these audits are sufficient to ensure that everything is on the up and up. But the audits merely point out financial reporting deficiencies - sometimes the same deficiencies year after year--and the agency or authority that paid for the audit may elect to take no corrective action.

A case in point is the Borough of Dunellen's (Middlesex County) Parking Authority. While reviewing the the auditor's August 30, 2010 cover letter that accompanied the Authority's 2008 and 2009 audits, I was struck by the following sentence: "Because of the inadequacy of accounting system and records for the year ended December 31, 2008, we are unable to form an opinion regarding the amounts at which accounts receivable, accounts payable and deferred parking permit revenues are recorded/not recorded on the balance sheet or accompanying financial statements. The respective amounts are unknown." I felt that this sentence was significant because it said, in essence, that the Parking Authority, which reported $631,305 in net assets and had $124,798 in cash and equivalents on hand as of December 31, 2009, didn't properly record and account for its income during 2008.

I’m saddened to learn this morning that Siobhan Reynolds died over the weekend in a plane crash.

I met Reynolds several years ago when I attended a forum on Capitol Hill on the under-treatment of pain. Her story about her husband’s chronic pain was so heartbreaking it moved me to take an interest in the issue. I eventually commissioned and edited a paper on the DEA and pain treatment while I was working for Cato.

Reynolds was fierce and tireless. She ran her advocacy group the Pain Relief Network on a thin budget, and often used her own money to travel to towns and cities where she felt prosecutors were unfairly targeting a doctor. And then she’d fight back. And sometimes she’d win. And the DEA and the  federal prosecutors she fought weren’t really accustomed to that.

Read the full story at The Agitator.

The Texas Harris County Libertarians hosted a debate among three of the potential Libertarian Party Presidential nominees. Present was Roger Gary, R. J. Harris, and  R. Lee Wrights.

Gary Johnson will quit the Republican primaries and seek the Libertarian Party nomination instead, POLITICO has learned.

The former two-term New Mexico governor, whose campaign for the GOP nomination never caught fire, will make the announcement at a press conference in Santa Fe on Dec. 28. Johnson state directors will be informed of his plans on a campaign conference call Tuesday night, a Johnson campaign source told POLITICO.

The move has been expected for weeks -- Johnson had run a New Hampshire-centric effort that never got him past a blip in the polls. He appeared at only two nationally televised debates, and only one in which other major candidates took part.

Johnson expressed deep disillusionment with the process as his libertarian message failed to catch fire and he received almost no attention for his bid. He soon began flirting with the Libertarians when it became clear that he was gaining no traction in GOP primaries.

"I'm still in the race," Johnson told POLITICO last month. "I'm registered in New Hampshire and the intention would be, hope against hope that I would be able to be heard. But there is not much hope."

Read the full story...

WASHINGTON - Today, December 15, libertarians celebrate Bill of Rights Day.

On December 15, 1791 the Bill of Rights was ratified, creating the first Ten Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

The Libertarian Party platform expressly supports the Bill of Rights and calls for restoring our freedoms lost as a result of laws passed in violation of the Constitution by Democratic and Republican politicians.

The Bill of Rights guarantees important individual freedoms and restrains the powers of the federal government. Among them, our rights to free speech, self-defense and justice. These restraints were later extended to the states with the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

Democrats and Republicans regularly violate the Bill of Rights, especially the Tenth Amendment which states that the powers of the federal government are strictly limited to those enumerated in Article 1, section 8 of the Constitution - a short list which stands in stark contrast to the incalculably long list of functions comprised by today's Big Government.

NJ Libertarian Party member and former Libertarian candidate for NJ State Assembly is currently facing a charge of jury tampering for distributing  Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA) literature near the U.S. District Court in Manhattan. He is facing a hearing on December 12th in front of Judge Kimba Wood. So far the courts have denied his request for a jury trial.

The U. S. Constitution is quite clear on this issue in two places. In Article III, Sec. 2, it states: “The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury.” In Amendment VI, it states: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed,...”
                   - Julian Heicklen in a letter to Judge Wood

Julian's story was the subject of last nights Free Talk Live show.

Cato @ Liberty also covered it here. The New York Times has a story on it here.

Julian is currently out of jail on a bond while his conviction and sentence for leafleting in Florida is under appeal.

On May 23, 2011, the New Jersey Libertarian Party's Police Accountability Project filed an Internal Affairs complaint against an Egg Harbor Township (Atlantic County) police officer who conducted a warrantless search of a motor vehicle. The complaint was filed after two-judge Appellate Division panel found that Officer Michael Bordanaro's search of a vehicle, which resulted in him finding a loaded 9 mm handgun, was illegal because there were no "exigent circumstances" excusing him from first getting a search warrant.

A new lawsuit was filed yesterday in Camden County Superior Court that seeks answers to the following questions:

1. How promptly must a public body publicly disclose the nonexempt portions of its nonpublic (i.e. "closed or executive") meeting minutes?
2. Can a public body validly claim that it must first "approve" its nonpublic meeting minutes prior to publicly disclosing even redacted versions of them?

On September 29, 2011, Clinton attorney Walter M. Luers filed a lawsuit on my behalf against two Atlantic County municipalities and their police officials seeking disclosure of records pertaining to a curious traffic stop during the early morning hours of February 17, 2011. A copy of that lawsuit is on-line here. A November 10, 2011 Press of Atlantic City article was written about it.

Records I requested reveal that at 2:04 a.m., Northfield City Police observed a black Mercedes sitting at a traffic light while the light went through multiple rotations. Police initially reported that they had difficulty waking the driver and getting him to "open up" the car's door. There were also recorded conversations indicating that the driver was "A.O.B." (which, in police-speak, means "alcohol on breath.")

From our friends at Downsize DC:

E-Verify is "an Internet-based system operated by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in partnership with the Social Security Administration (SSA). E-Verify is currently free to employers and is available in all 50 states. E-Verify provides an automated link to federal databases to help employers determine employment eligibility of new hires and the validity of their Social Security numbers."

It is currently a voluntary system. House bill H.R. 2885, however, would make it mandatory for all employers. The result is an even more intrusive National ID System than the REAL ID, against which DownsizeDC.org has successfully fought.

The nominal intent of the bill is to crack down on illegal immigration, even though America has a shortage of unskilled labor and would be better served by broadening immigration law.

On November 8th there is one lone ballot question:

Shall the amendment to Article IV, Section VII, paragraph 2 of the Constitution of the state of New Jersey, agreed to by the Legislature, providing that it shall be lawful for the Legislature to authorize by law wagering at casinos or gambling houses in Atlantic City and at current and former running and harness horse racetracks on the results of professional, certain college, or amateur sport or athletic events, be approved?

If approved by the voters this bill will potentially place New Jersey law at odds with federal law. In 1993 the federal government banned sports betting nationwide with an exception for four states (Nevada, Oregon, Delaware, and Montana) because at the time those states had recognized legal betting.

On this date in 1886, the Statue of Liberty was first unveiled in New York Harbor.

You're probably aware that the Statue wasn't built in America. It was built with money voluntarily raised from the people of France — and then erected in New York Harbor with money voluntarily raised from the people of the United States.

Then & Now

Today, 117 years later, that America doesn't exist anymore — even though politicians love to talk about "our freedoms."

In 1886 America had an open hand to the rest of the world. America didn't fear anyone and no one feared America. Today Americans live in a state of siege.

The idea of invading the Philippines or bombing the Sudan or intervening in Nicaragua or overturning a government in the Dominican Republic or starting a war with Iraq would have seemed ludicrous to the American people in 1886. As John Quincy Adams put it, America didn't go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. Today America has troops in over a hundred foreign countries.

Last May, New Jersey’s Supreme Court delivered the 21st Abbott vs. Burke decision, appropriating $500 million more from the state treasury for Abbott school districts. However, New Jersey’s history of court-ordered taxation to fund education originated with the Gross Income Tax Act of 1976. Advertised as a means to lower property taxes and limit the growth of public spending, the income tax was forced on residents by the court in order to improve student performance in economically disadvantaged districts by increasing per-pupil spending to the level of the wealthier districts.