A jury nullification activist who was thrown behind bars for handing out pamphlets outside of a courthouse is ready to take his case to the Michigan supreme court and then even the federal Supreme Court if necessary in order to protect freedom of speech against a hostile precedent.
Keith Wood was convicted of misdemeanor jury tampering in 2015 for handing out jury nullification fliers outside of a Mecosta County courthouse. A case was underway pertaining to Andy Yoder, an Amish man accused of illegally filling in a wetland by the state of Michigan. Wood hoped to reach these individuals entering the courthouse with a message in favor of jury nullification, a well-established right of jurors to judge the morality of the law that an individual is being accused by the state of breaking during a particular case.
“He wasn’t out there with a megaphone screaming, ‘Free Mr. Yoder!’ The pamphlet talks about voting your conscience, things like that,” Wood’s attorney David Kallman said. “And it’s not like people are walking up to the courthouse with a neon sign saying, ‘I’m a juror.’”
He was even not in the courthouse while handing out these pamphlets, but was charged with obstruction of justice and jury tampering nonetheless with his bond set to $150,000. He had to charge $15,000 to his credit card just to make bail and be able to spend Thanksgiving with his family. During the case, the defense was forced by the court to omit a crucial fact to the jury that no jurors given pamphlets by Wood were under oath when he did so.
“It’s not enough to hand out a general informational brochure… I understand they don’t like it, but you know what, in our country again we can still speak freely. At least I think we can, and people can have differences of opinion,” Kallman said in defense of his client during the initial trial.
In a bizarre and telling instance of judicial corruption, after Kallman said “speak freely” the prosecutor said, “Judge!” and the judge said to Kallman, in what very well may have been a veiled threat, to “be careful.”
“I guess you better not be on public sidewalks, and better not be handing out information to anybody, because you could get prosecuted,” Kallman said after the ruling.
The conspiracy to destroy the basic rights of the people goes much further than just one rogue judge. It is the entire system that desires to suppress the truth of jury nullification. A District Judge upheld the case, and then the Michigan Court of Appeals upheld the conviction a separate time. This Soviet-style miscarriage of justice is on its way to being rubber-stamped by the entire Michigan judiciary.
“Essentially our defenses got cut out from under us,” Kallman said. “We were not able to argue to the jury anything about our client’s First Amendment rights.”
Wood and his attorneys are ready to take this to the Michigan Supreme Court.
“We’ve recently filed our brief, on appeal, to the Michigan Supreme Court,” Wood said in an exclusive comment given to Liberty Conservative News. “The prosecution has a month or so to reply to our brief and then we have opportunity to answer them. [We are] not sure the exact time-frame when the court will have all the briefs in order to decide if they’ll hear my case.”
If the Michigan Supreme Court isn’t willing to rectify this madness, the case is likely to be heard by the federal Supreme Court. Hopefully, if it goes to that level, the Justices will take into account the words of the first ever United States Supreme Court Justice, John Jay. While issuing the opinion for Georgia v. Brailsford (1794), Jay wrote, “It is the province of the jury… to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy.” The truth is clear, but will our courts acknowledge these facts? That remains to be seen, and our rights quite literally hang in the balance.