Garry Reed's Blog: Good Reed's Goodreads - Posts Tagged "jury-nullification"

Synopsis of my important new book:

From age 77 until he turned 80 veteran rights activist Julian Heicklen was confronted, harassed, attacked, arrested and jailed by the very law enforcers and justice officials charged with protecting his rights. On more than one occasion he was injected with dangerous antipsychotic drugs, all because he refused to be complicit in his own illegal arrests.

His "crime" was giving jury rights pamphlets to fellow American citizens who voluntarily chose to accept them while both were standing peacefully on public sidewalks in front of America's public courthouses.

Over the years he was joined by a thousand-strong group of supporters who came to be known as Tyranny Fighters, freedom-loving men and women who assisted him in whatever capacity they could; helping distribute brochures, video recording, photographing, witnessing, reporting, publicizing, interviewing, advocating and aiding in his legal battles.

Many of these Tyranny Fighters themselves became victims of the establishment's confrontations, threats, harassments, attacks, arrests and prosecutions.

In my own role as a Tyranny Fighter I served as a reporter, writer, opinionizer, publicist and advocate with my online column The Libertarian News Examiner. From the beginning of Julian's activism and the rise of the Tyranny Fighters I wrote and posted some 70 news and commentary articles in their support.

Now I've collected it all in a single volume under the title Tyranny Fighters: The Julian Heicklen Chronicles. All of the original articles are here, amplified with additional introductory notes and by never before published background material from activist emails, and further supplemented with reader comments, social media commentaries and mainstream news sources.

The book tells the story as it happened, from beginning to end, article by article, dateline by dateline, blow by blow, the setbacks and successes and even the infighting, the coming together of the libertarian community in overwhelming support of the jailed activists with demonstrations and protests and marches and call floods and freedom pages on social media sites.

More than just a riveting chronicle of real world conflict and confrontation in the name of freedom this book celebrates the courage and inspiration of Julian Heicklen and applauds the contributions of all those who proudly took up the mantle of Tyranny Fighter.
Tyranny Fighters: The Julian Heicklen Chronicles
Garry Reed

If you're not familiar with Julian Heicklen, the original "Tyranny Fighter," I've posted one of his earliest known video interviews on the Tyranny Fighters Blogspot. This was recorded by a supporter called "bile" on September 11, 2009 during Julian's fourth trip to the federal courthouse in Manhattan where he was once again illegally prevented from distributing Fully Informed Jury Association pamphlets to citizens on public property.

Find out more about Julian, the Tyranny Fighters, and the book that chronicles their story in over 70 "as-it-happened" news articles as their stories unfolded.

http://tyrannyfighters.blogspot.com/2...

Tyranny Fighters: The Julian Heicklen Chronicles

Garry Reed

In June 2010 I posted excerpts of Julian's Jailhouse Journal in Libertarian News Examiner after Julian was released from Rikers Island and made it available to all of his Tyranny Fighters. Here is that article:

Julian's Jailhouse Journal: Police State USA
June 17, 2010
10:43 AM MST

News from the liberterrain…

Seventy-eight year old veteran libertarian, Fully Informed Jury Association activist and indefatigable freedom campaigner Julian Heicklen released his jailhouse journal to his fellow Tyranny Fighters on Tuesday.

Heicklen was arrested on May 25 for committing the crime of standing on public property in front of the US District Courthouse in Manhattan while peacefully giving jury rights information to individuals, sent to jail for 18 Days in New York City's notorious Rikers Island, and then released "in the interest of justice."

Following are just a few outtakes from his journal. Anyone who finds these entries disturbing, disgusting, outrageous and inexcusable should read his entire journal.

"The handcuffs were removed. A number of capillaries had been broken in my wrists. My hands turned blue."

"I was physically and verbally abused during these drags. My upper arms were crushed in their hands, and blood vessels broken. This was painful. My upper arms turned blue. My sneakers had no shoelaces, so my toes kept smashing into the front of the sneakers breaking blood vessels in my toes. This was unpleasant to say the least. My toes turned blue, and did not return to normal for two weeks."

"The nurses and doctors pounded on my chest and pinched my fingers, which was quite painful, but I would not utter a sound. Then they sodomized me by shoving a needle up my rectum. Presumably they were looking for drugs (or bombs)."

"I objected vociferously, but the attendants pinned me to the floor while the doctor gave me an injection in my buttocks. Presumably this was a thorazine shot. I passed out."

"The toilet had overflowed, so there was urine and feces on the floor. I got very little sleep in these pens, because I did not have room to lie down and my old body would ache in the sitting position."

"The toilet did not flush, so feces and urine accumulated in the toilet."

"However the NY City police officer who had to drag me up and down stairs in the courthouse was more articulate. Every few minutes, he would say: 'You worthless piece of sh*t," apparently directed at me.

Heicklen, blessedly, is not without a sense of humor:

"On Sunday at 6:00 am some guy got a razor and cut up my face pretty severely. That guy was me. It was my first shave since I left home the previous Tuesday morning."

Now everyone can read JULIAN'S JAILHOUSE JOURNAL in Tyranny Fighters: The Julian Heicklen Chronicles where it's published in its entirety as a Special Bonus Chapter.
Tyranny Fighters: The Julian Heicklen Chronicles
Garry Reed