Rick Naya, NH Hempfest Organizer and State Rep Joe Lachance
The Attorney General’s office in New Hampshire has released a report regarding their investigation of claims that former state representative Kyle Tasker had sold cannabis at the NH state house in Concord, to other state representatives. Several liberty-oriented state reps including Amanda Bouldin, Joe Lachance, Pam Tucker, Ted Wright, and the late Shem Kellogg were all investigated by the AG’s office but none will be charged.
The report details the investigations of each state rep and though they believed they had a case for “dry conspiracy” charges against both former-cop-turned-LEAP speaker Lachance and Tasker, they used their discretion and decided not to charge them. The report specifically cites jury nullification when giving their explanation as to why they aren’t charging Lachance – that’s great news for activists who’ve been doing jury nullification outreach here in the Shire for years.
Jury nullification is the long-held right of jurors to vote their conscience, regardless of what the law says and the facts in the case are. Though Lachance clearly broke the law, each juror has the right to acquit simply because they believe the law is bad. It’s a powerful right and courts around the country as well as the federal courts will do everything they can to keep jurors from knowing about it. However, here in New Hampshire is established court precedent that not only can jury nullification information be given to jurors outside the court, but even defendants and attorneys can explain nullification during trial!
NH Jury Rights
The NH attorney general doesn’t like jury nullification, as it’s a threat to their power. They appear however to have realized that the changing political tides regarding cannabis legalization plus jurors’ awareness of nullification would likely mean they were wasting their time prosecuting Lachance. They also say in the report that a jury would likely reject “dry conspiracy” charges for Tasker as well (who is facing various felonies for other victimless crimes) and say his other charges will suffice to, “hold him accountable for his drug crimes”. Of course, there are no victims in those “drug crimes” which include possession and sale of cannabis, MDMA, and mushrooms and so Tasker should also not be charged with them, and neither should anyone else.
That’s really the question here – if the NH AG acknowledges that cannabis charges are likely to not pass a jury due to nullification, then why don’t they treat every person caught with cannabis the same way they did the state reps? The reason is they know most people will quietly take a plea deal and further, if they don’t take the deal, they can drop the charge to a class B misdemeanor which means the defendant can’t get a jury trial, virtually guaranteeing a guilty verdict and hundreds of dollars (per victim) flowing to the state’s coffers. Cannabis prohibition means big money for the state gang, so they’ll keep charging the little people until the law is changed. Hopefully that will happen in 2017 if the new governor doesn’t stand in the way, whoever it ends up being.
As was reported previously here, Free Keene blogger Darryl W Perry was recently elected as chairman of the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire. A member of the LP’s “radical caucus”, Darryl holds a supposedly “radical” belief: he does not support or advocate the use of the initiation of force to achieve political or social goals.
That belief, which is still the statement one must sign to join the national libertarian party, has made Darryl into an enemy of many within the national LP. There’s a whole group of so-called “libertarians” who disagree with this “Non-Aggression Principle” and have called for the party to eliminate it from the membership requirements.
Darryl was recently blamed by these party-over-principle people for the Seacoast LP’s resolution to ask their representative on the Libertarian National Committee “to remove Gary Johnson and Bill Weld as the LP candidates for President and Vice President”. However, Darryl was not attending the Seacoast meeting. The motion was made by Rodger Paxton, who was recently elected to vice-chairman of the LP of NH along with Darryl being elected chair.
A couple of days ago, Darryl announced he is reviving his libertarian campaign for president, this time as a write-in candidate. He says people frustrated with the LP’s embarrassing presidential and VP picks of former republican governors of New Mexico and Massachusetts Gary Johnson and Bill Weld had contacted him asking him to run again to give true libertarians a choice. Johnson and Weld’s public statements since their nomination have frequently been unlibertarian and at odds with the party’s own platform. Weld has even appeared to endorse Hillary Clinton rather than his own running mate!
The sad, unprincipled Libertarian Party
Now, rather than do the principled thing and follow the Seacoast LP’s request of officially withdrawing Johnson and Weld as their candidates, the LP’s National Committee has issued press release attacking Darryl by calling him a “rogue” and saying further that they are, “committed to fully supporting the nominee of the delegates at convention and will continue to do so with all available resources.”
No one should be surprised to see the national LP double down on their unprincipled hack candidates. It’s the lowest point for the party in more than a decade of falling away from their principles. In 2008 I publicly resigned my life membership in the national Libertarian Party out of frustration with their lack of principle – then they nominated Bob Barr (another republican who has since re-joined the republicans) as their presidential candidate.
The LP of New Hampshire, long in a membership and activist slump, recently received an injection of much-needed new blood in the form of Darryl W Perry and Rodger Paxton’s elections to chairman and vice-chairman, respectively. This is the first real exciting news to come out of the LP of NH in the last decade I’ve been here.
Hopefully we’ll see the LP of NH separate eventually from the ridiculous national LP. Goddess bless those who have tried to save the national Libertarian Party, but the patient’s been dead for years. If you’re a real, principled libertarian, just give up on the national LP, move to New Hampshire and get active to help us achieve liberty in our lifetime. With the thousands of libertarians moving here for the Free State Project and Shire Society, you won’t want to miss the fun!
With the banning, I became the latest inducted in the elite club of people like Christopher Cantwell and Zack Bass who have been similarly politically excised from the FSP organization.
It was a good run, but all things come to an end. I’m grateful for my more than a decade of helping to promote the Free State Project, and look forward to 20,000+ liberty-loving people coming here to New Hampshire and working toward freedom.
I know people have said they won’t be attending Porcfest this year due to the FSP’s decision, and I appreciate their sentiment, but to anyone who doesn’t feel as strongly, you should still attend the Porcupine Freedom Festival this June. (more…)
Once again, the liberty community is divided, this time over the issues about age of consent that have been raised by the recent arrest of state representative Kyle Tasker for allegedly soliciting a 14-year-old teen for sex.
Purported libertarians are on the warpath against those of us who believe teens are humans who can make decisions. The opinions that people in the community seem to hold are one or more of the following:
People under some arbitrary, government-selected age are just children, and cannot consent. Anyone who is attracted to teenagers is a pedophile and deserves to die, go to prison, or be severely beaten.
Kyle, like any accused, deserves the presumption of innocence. Reactionary libertarians should know better than to believe the police.
If the allegations against Kyle are true, what he did was inappropriate, but he did not create a victim and does not belong in jail.
The first group is driven by emotion and fear and have dropped all pretense of being principled libertarians in favor of piling-on against Kyle and anyone else who doesn’t jump on their violent bandwagon. Their belief that teens are children is insulting to young people everywhere who are mature enough to make decisions for themselves. Further, they equate attraction to teens with pedophilia, which is just plain wrong. It’s an emotional, ignorant viewpoint. Here’s more on the difference between ephebophilia, hebephilia, and pedophilia.
We discussed the issues of age of consent and relationships with people under the legal age of consent on Friday night’s episode of Free Talk Live. It got real when Rich Paul revealed his first relationship was at age 13 with a 23-year-old woman. Not only did he consent but he pursued having the relationship in the first place, something that the ageists do not believe is possible. They would tell Rich that he was a victim and that his partner belonged in prison or worse. Calling teens children is a true insult that disempowers young people who just want to be respected as equals.
Here’s the full archive from Friday night’s show if you want to hear a rational, calm discussion on these matters. This link will jump you to the beginning of the second hour of the show where we began the discussion in earnest, though the first hour covers some ideas of independence for young people:
Keene Native Jared Goodell on WFEA, Weekday Mornings
This morning I was on the radio with WFEA’s Jared Goodell on his Manchester morning talk show to discuss the arrest of state representative Kyle Tasker.
If you haven’t been following, Kyle was arrested this week for allegedly soliciting an undercover cop posing as a teenage female on facebook for sex and later hit with drug dealing charges for drugs found by police in his home.
While most libertarians would defend Kyle on the drug charges, the sex “crime” has divided the liberty community between those who are rational enough to realize that cops lie and someone should be considered innocent until proven guilty and those who throw their supposed principles to the curb when underage sex is the issue. It’s sad. Here’s the interview from this morning’s Jared Goodell show:
As I reminded Jared and his audience, it’s too early to be coming to conclusions. All we know is what the police are claiming. There’s no evidence that has been presented besides an unsigned affidavit with alleged quotes taken out of context. Tasker has yet to have the chance to present any defense from inside his jail cell on $150,000 bail.
Unfortunately, many people lose all sense of rationality when sex with teenagers is the issue. Kyle may as well already be guilty in their eyes, merely because the police have accused him. This rush to judgement is contrary to the founding principles of this country and even if it turns out he did what he’s accused of doing, Kyle STILL did not create a victim at any point.
The horrible bill (HB 1525) that would enact a prohibition on female toplessness went down in flames 18-0 this week in the NH house criminal justice committee. It was a decisive move by the committee and came after a long public hearing where an overwhelming amount of people opposed the bill in verbal and written form.
