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Yes. Words have meanings. And the sovereign citizens movement abuses those meanings to push an agenda.
Civil disobedience, not nullification, is the act citizens make against laws they believe are wrong. And civil disobedience is not just the act of breaking the law. It is breaking the law, and demanding that government enforce the law, in order to focus public attention on why the law is wrong, unjust, unfair.
A lot of sovereign citizens don't like certain laws, and break the laws because they don't like the laws, but they don't want the government to enforce the law against them. They don't want to go to jail, or pay fines, or suffer the penalties of breaking the law. Their acts aren't a true form of protest. They are just the acts of people who don't like the laws, and who like to talk about it, and who offer up weak rationalizations for what is, in the end, their selfish desire to be immune from the law.
They choose to live in the United States, and such choices involve responsibilities. Sovereign citizens are all about avoiding those responsibilities, not living up to responsibilities.
With all due respect, you are full of crap. In the first place there is no sovereign citizen movement except possibly in your own warped mind.
Nullification and Civil Disobedience is not the same thing, although they are related.
The act of nullification is the recognition that a law has no legal or moral standing.
Civil Disobedience is an act of protest in which as you say you are forcing the government to enforce the law in order to test that law in court.
When people consumed alcohol during prohibition, they were not performing a act of civil disobedience because you would be stretching the truth to say any of them wanted to be arrested.
They were however nullifying the law by not obeying it and by the sheer numbers of people who refused to obey it, the government was forced to repeal it.
The same is happening today as people who refused to recognize the legitimacy of marijuana laws continued to use it and to lobby for its legalization. Now several States are ether legalizing or in the process of legalizing it in defiance of Federal Laws.
Jury nullification is another area in which a single citizen or a group of citizens may nullify a law by finding a person not guilty of a crime despite breaking the law because they do not agree justice is being served by enforcing law.
Citizens are deluged with so many laws at present it is impossible for anyone to be in compliance with the law at any period of time. The government knows this, but instead of repealing these laws they add more and more laws to already too many we are already burdened by. It is therefore the responsibility of the people to nullify these laws by refusing to recognize the legitimacy of the laws they can find legitimate Constitutional and moral objections with.
In order to understand the restrictions placed on the federal government what you need to read is the Constitution and case law, article 3 exists for a reason.
While the founding father's letter are important in giving us insight into their thought process much of the Constitution including some of the more important parts like the 14th amendment were written after they were all dead.
Maybe you should have first discussed the Constitutional meaning of "nullification". Where can I find the Article or the amendment in the US Constitution which affirms the right to "nullification"?
Nullification really has nothing at all to do with the Constitution. The right and obligation for nullification is from a higher authority. It's a moral right and obligation.
As a human, it's my obligation to oppose certain laws. The most obvious example was slavery, but there are many others that are less prominent.
But apparently not important enough to put in the Constitution?
I guess that means you can find them in the Federalist Papers.
OK, I guess it is time for a little history lesson.
You see when the government was constructed, it was done so with a separation of powers.
The problem is that not 1 in 1000 people today understand what that separation of power really is.
You see the politicians in Congress may be able to write law, and the judges on the Supreme Court may be able to interpret those laws, but the power to judge the Constitutionality of those laws rests with the people who sit in the jury box, the citizens.
It only takes one out of 12 jurors to decide a law is unconstitutional and to set any accused person free.
That one juror is empowered to do that despite the decisions of the other 11 jurors. His decision is final and cannot be overturned by the other jurors, the judge, the Governor of the State, or the President of the United States. His decision is law. That is the power of nullification, and it is the power each and every citizen possesses.
“It is not only his right, but his duty... to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court".
John Adams
“Trust in the jury is, after all, one of the cornerstones of our entire criminal jurisprudence, and if that trust is without foundation we must re examine a great deal more than just the nullification doctrine.”
Judge David L. Bazelon, Dis
sent in United States v. Dougherty, 473 F.2d 1113, 1142 (D.C. Cir. 1972).
The jury has an “unreviewable and irreversible power... to acquit in disregard of the instructions on the law given by the trial judge... The pages of history shine on instances of the jury’s exercise of its prerogative to disregard uncontradicted
evidence and instructions of the judge; for example, acquittals under the fugitive slave law.
U.S. v. Dougherty, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, 1972, 473 F.2d at 1130 and 1132.
“If the jury feels the law is unjust, we recognize the undisputed power of the jury to acquit, even if its verdict is contrary to the law as given by a judge, and contrary to the evidence... If the jury feels that the law under which the defendant is accused is unjust, or that exigent circumstances justified the actions of the accused, or for any reason which appeals to their logic or passion, the jury has the power to acquit, and the courts must abide by that decision.”
United States v. Moylan, 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, 1969, 417 F.2d at 1006.
The most quoted instruction empowering a jury to judge the law comes from a civil case.
OK, I guess it is time for a little history lesson.
You see when the government was constructed, it was done so with a separation of powers.
The problem is that not 1 in 1000 people today understand what that separation of power really is.
You see the politicians in Congress may be able to write law, and the judges on the Supreme Court may be able to interpret those laws, but the power to judge the Constitutionality of those laws rests with the people who sit in the jury box, the citizens.
It only takes one out of 12 jurors to decide a law is unconstitutional and to set any accused person free.
That one juror is empowered to do that despite the decisions of the other 11 jurors. His decision is final and cannot be overturned by the other jurors, the judge, the Governor of the State, or the President of the United States. His decision is law. That is the power of nullification, and it is the power each and every citizen possesses.
“It is not only his right, but his duty... to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court".
John Adams
“Trust in the jury is, after all, one of the cornerstones of our entire criminal jurisprudence, and if that trust is without foundation we must re examine a great deal more than just the nullification doctrine.â€
Judge David L. Bazelon, Dis
sent in United States v. Dougherty, 473 F.2d 1113, 1142 (D.C. Cir. 1972).
The jury has an “unreviewable and irreversible power... to acquit in disregard of the instructions on the law given by the trial judge... The pages of history shine on instances of the jury’s exercise of its prerogative to disregard uncontradicted
evidence and instructions of the judge; for example, acquittals under the fugitive slave law.
U.S. v. Dougherty, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, 1972, 473 F.2d at 1130 and 1132.
“If the jury feels the law is unjust, we recognize the undisputed power of the jury to acquit, even if its verdict is contrary to the law as given by a judge, and contrary to the evidence... If the jury feels that the law under which the defendant is accused is unjust, or that exigent circumstances justified the actions of the accused, or for any reason which appeals to their logic or passion, the jury has the power to acquit, and the courts must abide by that decision.â€
United States v. Moylan, 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, 1969, 417 F.2d at 1006.
The most quoted instruction empowering a jury to judge the law comes from a civil case.
Not sure what that has to do with the nullification of the law itself.
Say a person is accused of murdering a rather hated, bullying figure in some locality. The jury, in spite of a wealth of evidence, based upon their feeling that the victim essentially had it coming, refuses to convict the accused. Now this is not nullification of the law against homicide itself. The jury's ruling is no precedent to that effect. It only nullifies the prosecution's evidence against the accused and nothing more. Juries may set some de facto standard of how the law is enforced--if enough of them decide similar cases focusing on the same law(s) the same way-- (two examples: how all-white Southern juries in the past would either automatically convict black suspects and automatically let off whites accused of harming black victims in spite of the evidence; and how some juries during the late 60s early 70s refused to convict people guilty of breaking the law in protesting the Vietnam War). But juries don't actually change the law. If in 1940s Mississippi, juries would refuse to convict a white person for killing a black person, killing people was still against the law. And if in that same time and place a jury would automatically convict a black person accused of doing anything to a white person, reasonable doubt was still supposed to prevail.
Not sure what that has to do with the nullification of the law itself.
Say a person is accused of murdering a rather hated, bullying figure in some locality. The jury, in spite of a wealth of evidence, based upon their feeling that the victim essentially had it coming, refuses to convict the accused. Now this is not nullification of the law against homicide itself. The jury's ruling is no precedent to that effect. It only nullifies the prosecution's evidence against the accused and nothing more. Juries may set some de facto standard of how the law is enforced--if enough of them decide similar cases focusing on the same law(s) the same way-- (two examples: how all-white Southern juries in the past would either automatically convict black suspects and automatically let off whites accused of harming black victims in spite of the evidence; and how some juries during the late 60s early 70s refused to convict people guilty of breaking the law in protesting the Vietnam War). But juries don't actually change the law. If in 1940s Mississippi, juries would refuse to convict a white person for killing a black person, killing people was still against the law. And if in that same time and place a jury would automatically convict a black person accused of doing anything to a white person, reasonable doubt was still supposed to prevail.
Prohibition and the fugitive slave acts are 2 examples of laws which were changed because the government could not enforce them due to jury nullification. The government loses valuable credibility when it has laws on the books that are in-enforceable. This same process could work today to nullify unconstitutional laws concerning things like drugs, IRS offenses and other so called victimless crimes.
Politicians, judges, lobbyists, bankers . . . all kinds of people.
Most have "law" degrees.
That reminds me of the Obama.
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