Man Arrested, Charged with Multiple Felonies for Telling Jurors About Their Rights

By Carey Wedler

Last week, a Denver man was arrested and charged with multiple felonies, but not for stealing, committing fraud, or engaging in violent crime. He was targeted for attempting to educate jurors about their rights in the courtroom.

Mark Ianicelli, 56, set up a table outside of Lindsay-Flanigan Courthouse in Denver in order to educate jurors about jury nullification. Jury nullification is the process by which members of juries can nullify unjust laws by finding defendants charged with them not guilty.

Ianicelli is charged with tampering with a jury, a felony in Colorado that carries a minimum bond of $5,000. He was charged by the Denver District Attorney for seven counts of tampering, and has since bailed out of jail. Ianicelli was in the second day of a planned three-day outreach to educate jurors entering the courtroom about the power of jury nullification. He was handing out fliers when he was arrested. His goal was to inform potential jurors about a vital, centuries-old function of juries.

The practice was first used in America in 1735 to exonerate a man of libel charges after he printed unflattering statements about the Governor of New York (a British colony at the time). Though he had undoubtedly printed them, the jury found him not guilty and set the precedent that members of juries could judge the morality and legitimacy of laws.

The United States’ first Chief Justice, John Jay, once told jurors, “You have a right to take upon yourselves to judge [both the facts and law].” Jurors would seize this right to nullify anti-sedition laws in the early 1800s that attempted to stifle free speech criticizing the newly formed United States government.


Judges first began cracking down on the right to nullify in the late 1800s. By that time, jurors had already used nullification to challenge the Fugitive Slave Act, which imposed heavy punishment on Northerners who aided escaped slaves from the South. Though judges came to discourage nullification, the practice went on to be useful in nullifying Prohibition-era laws.

Jury nullification still affects prohibition against outlawed drugs. In 2012, a New Hampshire jury acquitted a Rastafarian man, Doug Darrell, of growing marijuana—though he was technically guilty of the violation. The jurors had been informed of their right to nullify and found the law and charges against Darrell to be unjust. They found him not guilty.

However, this power of the people has not gone unchecked. Though some states allow for the practice, judges often fail to notify jurors of their ability to nullify. Activists have been harassed and jailed for attempting to inform jurors of their right to judge the morality of laws.

The Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA), a non-profit organization that educates jurors on their rights (and whose pamphlets Ianicelli was handing out when he was arrested), is one group that attempts to counter these suppressions by the justice system.

Kirsten Tynan of FIJA reported on Ianicelli’s case, stating that officials in Denver claimed a juror had complained about Ianicelli’s presence near the courthouse, prompting his arrest. Tynan was told Ianicelli was arrested on charges of jury tampering, which according to Colorado law, consists of:

(1) A person commits jury-tampering if, with intent to influence a juror’s vote, opinion, decision, or other action in a case, he attempts directly or indirectly to communicate with a juror other than as a part of the proceedings in the trial of the case.

(1.5) A person commits jury-tampering if he knowingly participates in the fraudulent processing or selection of jurors or prospective jurors.

(2) Jury-tampering is a class 5 felony; except that jury-tampering in any class 1 felony trial is a class 4 felony.

Though Tynan acknowledged that under some circumstances nullification activism is not legally permissible, it appears Ianicelli was within his rights. He is due back in court on August 11 to face his victimless felony charges.

It is more than alarming that a man attempting to facilitate and strengthen the judicial process is punished with the full force of the law—the very thing Ianicelli sought to educate jurors about. As Harlan F. Stone, the 12th Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court said in 1941, “The law itself is on trial quite as much as the cause which is to be decided.” When the justice system refuses to allow jurors to be aware of their rights, let alone exercise them, the country’s entire system of “law and order” is called into question.

Carey Wedler writes for theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

Carey Wedler joined Anti-Media as an independent journalist in September of 2014. As a writer and senior editor, her topics of interest include the police and warfare states, the Drug War, the relevance of history to current problems and solutions, and positive developments that drive humanity forward. She currently resides in Los Angeles, California, where she was born and raised. Learn more about Wedler here!


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19 Comments on "Man Arrested, Charged with Multiple Felonies for Telling Jurors About Their Rights"

  1. This will be very interesting, because the jury in his trial will have to hear all about jury nullification! Or, the judge puts a gag order on those two words and any attempt to explain them! Damage is done, the public has heard all about it! The judge is an oath violating traitorous fool! He will have to nullify the charges to keep this under control! LOL!!!

    • That is pretty funny,sadly, and true…i’m betting on the latter, a complete gag. The system is so corrupt and rigged you can’t even properly defend yourself anymore…

      • Another reason we haven’t voted in twenty five years, only those that vote are called to serve on juries. Also: The justice system is corrupt to the core and criminals can appeal the death penalty and stay on death row for decades or lifetime, even when the jury rec. death . Local folks are waiting for closure on a twenty five year case in my city, where the guy is still on death row for an air tight murder one case (DNA found at the scene). I have nothing to do with the system and never will. This country is trashed in many ways to elaborate here. One example is we are being invaded via our borders and Muslims are entering the country legally by Obama’s amnesty and they are unscreened, with jihadists embedded with the refugees. Vandals were allowed in and Rome fell. Train wreck ahead.

  2. The arrest and felony charges will only be a shock to those who believe America still has a functioning justice system.

  3. The
    Scam of the Legal System

    The
    “legal system” is nothing other than a huge scam, fraud,
    artifice, which is set up solely for the impoverishment and control
    of its victims. And of course, it also has the intent of using any
    means at all at its disposal for keeping itself going on forever, and
    growing, at an ever increasing rate.

    But
    fear not, Dear Reader, as there is a most simple way out of that
    abyss, that labyrinth which we have been led into under the false
    idea that we can hire someone to help us in obtaining our justice
    when we are wronged. It is quite simply the serious and dedicated
    application of the Three Magic Questions. They are; What is the
    EXACT AMOUNT of fraud that ANYONE has the right to commit? What is
    the EXACT AMOUNT of fraud that ANYONE has an obligation to endure?
    What is the BASIC PREMISE that is being operated off of in the
    instant case? No lieyer who has ever been asked those first two
    questions has given a straight answer, the ONLY answer possible,
    which is none. For to do so would put an immediate end to the fraud
    which they depend upon for their daily bread!

    It
    is a given that no one who is dependent upon something will ever do
    much, if anything at all, to harm it. Hence, we see quite clearly
    now as to why the lieyers of the world do not like to look too
    closely at the origins of their “profession” and what has
    become of it. What had started out as a bona fide alternative to the
    thoroughly corrupted King’s Court, has now become that very thing
    which it was created in protest against; a totally corrupted system!
    Many may balk at what this Author says, but NONE of them can offer up
    even the slightest shred of anything to actually prove it wrong.

    If
    there was some amount of fraud that one had a right to commit or an
    obligation to endure, then how could it possibly be measured?
    Without that measuring stick or container or balance scale, how could
    anyone know for certain how much was not enough or how much was too
    much?

    What
    is the BASIC PREMISE that is being operated off of at any given time?
    Don’t we have the Right to know that? Aren’t we at a severe
    disadvantage if we do not? Who can say that we have no inherent
    right to know all of what goes on around us? Are we “persons”
    held as slaves to another in a democracy, or are we free men and
    women in a republic? Please heed these words here well, for they ARE
    the key to the chains around your ankles!

    If
    you print out the TMQs, either by hand or machine, and then post them
    all around your house and at work, after a short amount of time of
    thinking about them, they will become a part of your mind and way of
    thinking. Every time that you are interacting with others, you will
    think of it in terms of those TMQs!

    Look
    up the definitions of fraud and contract, and learn them as well as
    you know your own name. Make them such a part of your thinking that
    not a day goes by without contemplating them, and you will then begin
    to see a change in your life. In the way that others treat you, and
    you treat others as well. It can’t help but happen, unless you wish
    to keep on being cheated and cheating others too.

    The
    entire legal system is a den of thieves and vipers. Why should we
    continue to feed them anymore, when they bring us such unlimited
    amounts of misery? We need to use the TMQs and starve them all out
    of business as well as existence!! What would a so-called “judge”
    be able to say or do if asked those three simple questions? What
    could they say? What can ANYBODY say in response to them? It should
    be dawning upon you Dear Reader, just about now, that you are at the
    mercy of a corrupted system that has gone wild and is completely out
    of control. Who is going to rein it all back in? Can it ever be
    done? This Author says no, it cannot! It is like a hand or arm with
    gangrene in it. It cannot be saved, so it must be cut off as quickly
    as possible, before the body dies and there is nothing left to save.

    Make
    your OWN test of the TMQs as this Author has done. Ask as many
    lieyers as you can stomach, what the answers to those questions are.
    You won’t get one in a thousand to answer you honestly, for it would
    go straight against what they are all about! Just look up “Attorney
    and Client” in the Corpus Juris Secundum, Section 14 and see it
    for yourself!

    A
    thorough and careful study of any law dictionary will give you more
    knowledge of and insight into the criminal nature of the legal system
    than you could ever imagine. It is just FILLED with expose’ after
    expose’ of how corrupt the system is, if you are only daring enough
    to see it for what it is.

    Very
    few people will go into a fight that they completely KNOW they have
    no chance of winning. They would rather just let the fight come to
    them, and be killed, than to expend their last energy in that way.
    The lieyers of the world are the same way. They know that they
    cannot prevail against the TMQs, so they do all that they can to
    avoid them like the plague. To answer them correctly, is to commit
    suicide, both financially as well as “professionally”.
    Being as professional as an unwashed whore that is. What could a
    lieyer do for honest work then? Surely not much until retrained, as
    their whole career was all about lying, cheating and stealing. If
    anyone at all can prove this Author to be wrong to any degree, in any
    way, then let them do so at once! This is all born out of some facts
    as solid as a piece of granite stone, coupled with a bit of logic.
    True, some may like to ridicule these facts, thoughts and logic, but
    can they prove them to be wrong? Or have all of the differences
    between what is right and what is wrong been eliminated? If such is
    the case, then surely it must have been done by the lieyers
    themselves, for no one else would profit so handsomely from such a
    dastardly deed as they would. But to be fair, whores at least serve
    a useful, if maybe distasteful purpose in society. Lieyers on the
    other hand, do not. Maggots, jackals and vultures may feed off of
    dead bodies, but lieyers are the main cause of all those dead bodies.

    These
    elevated to the bench so-called “judges” (actually they’re
    just Executive Administrators sitting in Admiralty jurisdiction) are
    just more lieyers, and are far from being unbiased. Since they do
    not swear a proper oath of office, and also are members of the
    British Accredidation Registry who take bribes (cash payments in
    “income tax” cases and monies from civil judgments paid
    into their retirement funds), how can they be anything BUT biased??

    Justice
    must satisfy the appearance of justice. The USSC has ruled and
    reaffirmed so in Levine v. United States, 362 U.S. 610, 80 S. Ct 1038
    (1960), citing Offutt v. United States, 348 U.S. 11,14, 75 S. Ct.
    11,13 (1954). “A Judge receiving a bribe from an interested
    party over which he is presiding, does not give the appearance of
    justice”. How much plainer than that does it need to be?? For
    further proof of all this, just do a search for “Fraud upon the
    Court” or “Fraud on the Court” and see what you find.
    “It is axiomatic that fraud vitiates everything”. Those
    words are not those of this Author only, they come from many, many
    court cases. ANY officers committing fraud upon the court render the
    orders and judgments of that court void, of no legal force or effect.
    This is the reason why everyone needs to get the “judge”
    on record at the outset, BEFORE any kind of plea is entered into the
    record, a promise to not commit any kind of fraud to any degree in
    the proceedings nor to allow anyone else to commit any fraud either.
    What kind of “judge” would not gladly make such a promise?
    Would any honest judge have a valid reason for not doing so? Is
    there some kind of hidden premise that is being operated off of in
    the courtroom? As stated earlier, NO ONE who is benefiting from a
    fraud or scam can be counted upon to injure it. The legal system has
    become a plague upon the land, and like a plague, it will kill itself
    off after it destroys more hosts than are needed to keep itself
    going.

    No
    casino anywhere in the world forces people in off the street at gun
    point and makes them gamble with their life or property, so why
    should a court be able to do it? What is the basic premise of the
    courts? It’s certainly not to ensure that justice is done! The
    outcome of any so-called “trial” is no more guaranteed than
    whether black or red will come up on the spin of a wheel. In the
    subject of casinos, most everybody is aware to some degree that the
    games are all rigged up in favor of the house, but how many of us
    know that the courts are rigged up every bit as much, if not even
    WORSE?

    In
    the case of U.S. v. Robert C. Braun, Mr. Braun merely asked if the
    property he and his fellows had been protesting upon had ever been
    ceded to or bought by the federal government. It had not, so the
    silent judicial notice of federal legislation being in full force and
    effect there was negated. Braun, and his already convicted fellow
    protesters (all of whom had hired attorneys BTW) against abortion had
    not in fact violated the F.A.C.E. Act and were thus set free. Foley
    Bros. v. Filardo had been upheld, much to the chagrin of the
    prostituting attorney, who told the “judge” that if the
    legislative jurisdictional challenge from Braun was permitted to
    stand, “half the prison doors in America would fly open”.
    EXCUSE ME?!?! That filthy scum bag lieyer KNEW that fraud was being
    committed all along, and yet did nothing to stop it? Why wasn’t he
    put into jail for aiding and abetting a crime? Or is it his JOB to
    commit fraud upon everyone that he can get away with? It most
    certainly does seem so!

    So
    woe unto YOU, lieyers of the world! The people are beginning to wake
    up to your foul works and evil deeds, and soon we will be rid of you,
    one way or another!

  4. If you look at that jury tampering law, you realize the judges and others in the justice system, such as District Attorneys, tamper with juries every day. So obviously the law only applies to the people who are the ultimate victims of bad laws, the people themselves.

  5. Colorado legal system is setup to prey up anyone that provides money to the local government. This “judge” is extremely complicit with how corrupt the system is and will defend his “income” from the system even if it means your death by cop…

  6. One would think that when an corporate executive administrator masquerading as a public official and a judge gives any instructions to a jury he is tampering with the jury and when he tells the jury to disregard something he is tampering with the jury and when he just answer yes or no, he is tampering with evidence. You get the idea.

  7. Maybe judges should be charged with something, like not issuing all the instructions to the juries?

  8. The only way it seems to get rid of BAD LAWS and victimless crimes is through Jury Nullification. Because We CERTAINLY cannot expect the establishment to do it. They see every bogus law as a source of revenue….

  9. Wow, as time goes on we see that “right is wrong and wrong is right.”

  10. a courtroom is where the English language and the Constitution go to die.

  11. One day North Korea will have more freedom than USA

  12. Demand a jury trial.

  13. Justice for the silver spoon crowd.
    The current ‘system’ only serves to abuse the have nots.

  14. Apparently this also means that the First Amendment is now null and void as well. As far as I can tell he didn’t directly contact any juror and try to “influence’ their selection or vote. Perhaps grounds to sue the Denver DA on violation of his Civil and Constitutional Rights.

  15. If he was handing these pamphlets out to everyone, the state has no case.

  16. This is why I always encourage anyone who loves liberty to move to New Hampshire, where jury nullification is protected by state law. This means we’re able to educate jurors about their right to nullify with impunity… and have we ever been doing that:
    http://rightsbrigade.com/2015/08/05/rights-brigade-conducts-7-operations-in-2-days/

  17. Sallie Dodd Butters | August 6, 2015 at 9:24 pm |

    His mistake was to hand them out on Court House property!

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