Jim Davies
Write-in Libertarian for Governor

It's been well said that "Where there is no justice, there is no peace"; and I hope you believe that too, for we all should want to live in a New Hampshire that is peaceful as well as prosperous. But right now, what the government has monopolized is a TRAVESTY of justice.

As you'll see from the whole of my platform, I plan to carry out a whole slew of major reforms if you will elect me to the "corner office". But none are more vital, more urgently needed or with larger implications for the future of our society than this: justice cries out desperately for reform in every sinew!

The closer you get to the government's "justice system" the more you see how truly abysmal it is. If I could, I would scrap the entire mess and start over. It's that bad! But as Governor I could not quite do that, so (as elsewhere) I will just do everything I can do; and, as you'll see, that's rather a lot.

I could write a whole book on the extent of the problem, which of course we have to understand at least somewhat before even looking for a solution. Let me name just a few of the worst aspects:

First, Government acts as judge over its own case. That's the most fundamental flaw of all! Instead of having investigators and prosecutors and courts and enforcers operating for fees in a free market, the whole thing is centralized and paid for out of taxes. Therefore, this Alice-in-Wonderland system pretends to dispense a service of righting wrongs, while being 100% based upon massive theft! What we have here is Socialized Justice, and Socialism doesn't work for justice any more than it works anywhere else.

Worse: suppose you were accused of some crime - wrongly, I hope. It happens! You would be tracked down by a government sleuth, arrested by an armed government agent, held in a government jail, and taken to a goverment court. A government "judge" would oversee the procedure, a government prosecutor would argue the case and a government-licensed defense attorney would argue in your behalf. You would NOT be allowed to select your own; you could choose only an attorney who is literally licensed by the very people who are accusing you!

Worse yet: while in theory the verdict will come from an impartial jury of your peers, in practice the government now has down to a fine art the business of selecting jurors who are likely to find in its favor - and against you. That deliberately-engineered partiality of the jury is formidably expensive; your attorney can do it too, but only if you mortgage your firstborn.

Worse even yet: not only is the jury selected with a deliberate bias, it is expressly told by the judge that it must consider only questions of fact (did you break the law?) and not questions of law (is the law fair and just as it applies to this case?) That almost universal instruction is a flat-out LIE. It is absolutely and totally false and has resulted in many an innocent party going to jail after the jurors who found him guilty confess tearfully that he did not deserve the penalty but they thought "they had no choice" according to the judge's stern directive. W-R-O-N-G!!

With corruption like that, where can an honest Governor start?!

Here's what I shall do. It won't solve all of the above, but it will take a big chunk out of the injustice; it will become less gross. The key to all I'll do is, I SHALL MAKE EXTENSIVE USE OF THE GOVERNOR'S PARDON POWER.

Article 52 of the NH Constitution says that that power can only be used "by and with" the agreement of the Executive Council; but don't worry. Those people are all politicians. When they see me, an unknown radical reformer, swept into power on this very explicit platform by popular demand, they will get the message in a heartbeat: if they want to get re-elected, they WILL go along! And even if they don't, you'll know exactly whom to blame, and where they live, and how to intimidate them there without breaking any law. To have one's house surrounded 24 hours a day by an angry but silent crowd would melt the resolve of even the most arrogant tyrant. I doubt these wimps would last a week.

I'll use that Pardon Power in two circumstances:

1. Crimes without victims

When someone has been convicted of breaking some law but there is no actual person who was harmed by the criminal act, either in person or property, I will grant a virtually automatic pardon and apologize to the accused that he had to go through the hassle and expense of defending himself.

2. All other cases

Even when there IS a victim who has been harmed, I will almost always grant the convicted party a pardon IF I am shown that the presiding judge failed to instruct the jury that, if they wished, they could disregard anything and everything he told them, even about the Law, and vote on the basis of their conscience alone.

This vital reform is discussed at greater length under "Jury Power".

The effect of these two actions will be dramatic and immediate.

First, prosecutors will quickly get the message that victimless-crime laws are a dead letter; that it's a waste of their time bringing them to court. They will therefore have that much more resource to apply to cases where real harm has been done to real people. And real people, meanwhile, will be able to enjoy a new lease on freedom, in the knowledge that their personal behavior, as long as it harms nobody but themselves, is once again their own business alone.

Second, the "stacking" of juries, described above, will stop dead. Once again, every single juror will be told about the awesome power that he or she truly possesses; all trials will be "by jury" again, as the Constitution requires. There will only be one or two cases (I predict) in which I let a convicted serial rapist back out on the streets, for the judiciary to get the message: shape up and do it right, or else violent criminals will go free.

None of this, of course, implies that crime will pay. On the contrary, the sheer waste involved in arranging to punish people who have harmed nobody but themselves will release vast resources for the apprehension and handling of real criminals - the kind that DO have victims. So that sort of crime - the real sort - will very likely be reduced, not increased.

One other vastly important result will follow: State government revenues will fall like a rock, because failure to pay taxes is of course a totally victimless crime. After a few months, the only taxes paid will be those the citizens want to pay - which they feel proper, reasonable and worthwhile. Accordingly, most of government will be starved into near-extinction; the residue will be the small amount of government, if any, that people actually want - in the sense of being freely willing to fund.

For Further Reading