What is ZENGER magazine and where can I get info on it? If memory serves me correctly, ZENGER is Ben Masel's paper; it's mainly oriented towards hemp activists (and users), but also covers other civil-liberties issues.
Peter Zenger was a publisher in New York during colonial times. He was arrested for publishing Bad Things about the King, which was illegal. His trial was helped reinforce important legal precedents for preserving our freedoms - the facts weren't particularly in dispute (he had published the pamphlets, and they did say things the King didn't like), but the jury found him innocent because they thought the law was bad, and juries under the common law have always had the right to judge the law as well as the facts, no matter what the judge says. For more information about this, write to The Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA), Box 59, Helmville, Montana 59843; this may be an old address, since Larry Dodge has moved to Texas, but there may be mail forwarding. Bill Stewart
Bill Stewart writes:
Peter Zenger was a publisher in New York during colonial times. He was arrested for publishing Bad Things about the King, which was illegal. His trial was helped reinforce important legal precedents for preserving our freedoms - the facts weren't particularly in dispute (he had published the pamphlets, and they did say things the King didn't like), but the jury found him innocent because they thought the law was bad, and juries under the common law have always had the right to judge the law as well as the facts, no matter what the judge says.
John Peter Zenger, actually. And it was comments about the colonial governor, not about the king. The Zenger case is commonly taken to be a precedent both for press freedom and for jury nullification. --Mike
Bill_Stewart(HOY002)1305 says:
Peter Zenger was a publisher in New York during colonial times. He was arrested for publishing Bad Things about the King, which was illegal.
Bill is normally excruciatingly accurate, but in this case he is slightly off -- he was charged with slandering the Royal Governor in his newspaper. His defense was that his statements were true -- which was not a defense under the law in question. The jury decided it was sufficient, however. The rest of what Bill said was substantially accurate. Perry
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Mike Godwin -
Perry E. Metzger -
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