Prosecutors seeking to jail Vernon Hershberger for distributing his farm’s food privately to members of a food club betrayed their nervousness yesterday when they filed motions intended to limit the evidence the Wisconsin farmer can present to a jury.
The lawyers for the Wisconsin Attorney General filed a series of “Motions in Limine“, which are designed to shield a jury from hearing information that could be prejudicial to one side or the other. Most commonly, such motions are used by defendants in serious criminal trials who want to prevent the prosecution from presenting incriminating medical or financial information.
Ironically, in this case, the prosecution made such a request, seeking to prevent Hershberger from relying on the U.S. or Wisconsin constitutions, his religious beliefs, jury nullification, and anything that might arouse “sympathy.” The idea, of course, is to keep the jury focused only on the narrow technical matters of whether Hershberger distributed food without a retail license, operated a dairy farm as a milk producer without a license, operated a dairy plant without a license and violated a holding order by cutting the tapes shuttering his coolers by the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP).
For example, the prosecutors asked that the judge “prohibit legal arguments such as the defendant’s claims regarding the court’s jurisdiction, his freedom of religion, and the 1st and 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which should all be decided by the court, not the jury.”
The prosecutors also asked the judge to “prohibit the defense from presenting ‘jury nullification’ arguments to the jury through opening statements, examination of witnesses or closing arguments.” Jury nullification allows juries to acquit criminal defendants who may be technically guilty, but who, the jury decides, do not deserve punishment.
And they asked that that the judge “prohibit any comment on the effect of a conviction for these offenses or the penalties for these offenses…as their only purpose is to appeal to a jury’s sympathy.” Thus, the jury can’t learn that throwing Hershberger into jail could cause him to lose the farm.
The prosecution’s motions were argued yesterday in a hearing in Baraboo, attended by about 80 supporters of Hershberger. The supporters had demonstrated outside the courthouse before the hearing. Hershberger has thus far avoided engaging a lawyer, and thus represented himself. The judge repeatedly encouraged Hershberger to engage a lawyer.
At the two-hour hearing before Judge Guy Reynolds, Hershberger argued that he should be allowed to argue, for example, that the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment rights of free association might be interpreted to allow for private distribution via a buying club.
Nothing doing, said Judge Reynolds. He granted all the state’s motions. Thus, the jury at the trial scheduled for September 25 won’t be allowed to hear key arguments central to Hershberger’s case. Will Hershberger be able to convince a jury in the face of such restrictions? The jury is out.
(Thanks to Rosanne Lindsay for the photos.)
It is time to get the national media involved and to hell with any notional idea of religous shyness, humbleness, societal compliance or showing humility. I know this breaks all the Amish-Mennonite rules….but the courts are about to break all of humanities rules.
We must educate the jury…that means that every time the jury comes to the court house, people…lots of people must be standing arround with signs and chanting the facts….Vernon to lose his farm, My kids lives saved by raw milk!! Vernon is a human rights prisoner. Vernon is an American Hero!! Jury being denied the facts…by Land of Snakes Processors…Tell the jury all the facts…free Vernon!! Liberate the consumer from dead food!!
Lets all remember that the prosecutors are vicious and ask for the “hangmans noose” if they can. When the FDA asked the federal courts in CA to mandate that all legal raw milk in CA stores only be sold after a sworn statement was signed by each customer at the check out stand….the judge would have laughed if he was not so pissed. The FDA instead got a spanking and got nothing.
This is the first round. Vernon needs a team…his team needs to work in the court house beside him and outside the courthouse educating the media and the jurors. Vernon needs a great lawyer. He is making a mistake to go this alone. The emotional toll is too great and the sneaky snakes will bite him.
This is war!! Treat it like one and stop screwing arround. Land-of-Snakes ( processors and Land-Of-Lakes IDFA etc ) treats it like a war….lets go “Guerilla Raw Milk” on them…
This is grass roots.
Show them some dirt.
Mark
They are a hybrid of banker and processor. I can think of no other entity so ethically and morally empty or sinfully ugly or so motivated by greed. They loan you money and then take the money from you so you can not repay. Words do not describe the tears shed by the families “smitten and then bitten” by this Ultra Venomous Snake. First they charm you with money as an advance on your ‘PMO Pittance”… then they suck you dry… then they eat you alive as you cry out in pain. Truly sick!! The truly deeply immoral thing is that they play a big part in keeping the prices low with their intimate dealings at the CME ( Chicago Merchantile Exchange….the private whorehouse for setting national milk prices ).
God has a place in hell for these demons. I have heard so many of the stories. I will say what all the farmers that have contracts with Land O Snakes can not say….for fear of loss of their PMO Pittance…
Land-Of-Snakes is corrupt and ugly to the core. But…they are very little different than all the other processors. The entire dead milk system sucks the life out of slaved farmers and out of consumers bodies and lives.
Shana, I am with Mark on the publicity blitz as well. As for Vernon Hershberger engaging a lawyer, that is a decision he and his family need to make together.
Calling Gary Cox or Pete Kennedy would be one of my first calls.
However, I have seen time and time again that the sacred religious effort to be humble and let god work his grace….does not work so much on this earth. It may work for earning great karma points in the ever- after….but not so much in this life.
An indian proverb saids…”when you pray move your feet”. Those that act get their prayers answered. We need to help god to help us. Surrender is not helpful to god or anyone. Not suggesting Vernon is surrendering, but he has not amassed the best and strongest effort and that is defacto… a pseudo-surrender.
I hope and pray that the Amish and Mennonite brethren can see that they hold-up the “moral high ground for the best of America”. They should engage those arround them to do what they feel morally inhibited from doing.
There are so many that love them.These friends can connect to FB and call the Media. Carry the signs… arrange the lawyers. Raw Milk is a “TEAM” and “WE” proposition. No one successfully fights for raw milk alone. Martyrs have a limited roll in this battle. Most Martyrs are praised and appreciated at their funerals ( literally or figueratively ). When raw milk was attached in CA in 2007, hundreds of people showed up repeatedly. hearings were held and the TEAM prevailed politically. Although in the end the CA Governor shot us down…we won the political battle and that changed the regulatory climate 100%.
Raw Milk Climate change is what we need!! The rest and the clear wins will come later.
Flooding the region is exactly what immediately came to me upon reading David’s article here!
“This is the first round. Vernon needs a team…his team needs to work in the court house beside him and outside the courthouse educating the media and the jurors.” I agree!
Re: “Lawyer”, Vernon has one now! I’m in the process of gaining contact and possibly volunteering some support.
This case certainly can be viewed as a “war”. The “war” that I intend to wage is one that is primarily against ignorance. “Jury nullification” alone could possibly win in this instance! Check this out: September 5th is Jury Rights Day!: http://fija.org/
That court house can be the perfect ‘venue” for the biggest “Jury Rights Day!” anywhere! That could very well attract the media desired! Along with the full acknowledgement of “Jury Rights” can come the farm Rights and all the related food Rights as well. This would be an event that Vernon’s “team” could take on.
http://fija.org/document-library/videos/ Are we in the twilight zone or what? I am surprised that they did not try to suppress his plea of innocence! What kind of kangaroo court is this?
It seems like a clear case of treason on the part of the State. Too bad the only effective tools we have to battle things like this go BOOM. Can I state the obvious and say that our legal system is beyond redemption and needs thrown out and recreated from scratch?
“In Support Of The Truth Re: WI vs. Vernon Hershberger”:
http://curezone.com/blogs/fm.asp?i=1960169
which includes ‘Hale v. Henkel”.
All that is needed is for Vernon to know the truth of who he is, to stand on that truth no matter what and without any attorney representing him in the court, otherwise with an attorney he is considered “Non Compos Mentis”, not mentally competent. In any case he needs to know that he not only has rights but that he is a sovereign man who is not under the jurisdiction of the government as he is not working/living on any government-owned property and he is not dong anything for or under the government. The State of Wisconsin only has exclusive legislative jurisdiction over what it owns and it doesn’t own Vernon!
shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.”1 The people who make up the movements that we are concerned with consistently speak out to say that our government today does not listen, it no longer serves the American people, it exists to
serve its own ends.
The merits of that argument are not within the purview of this guide.
The Anti-Government Movement Guidebook – The National Center for State Courts 1999, National Center for State Courts. page vii