Contaminating the jury panel

[Zwerg]

Some years ago, I was summoned for federal jury duty in Los Angeles. I did all I could to get out of it because I am not a qualified juror, but simply telling the system that relevant truth gets you nothing. So I was on a panel, and the judge questioned the panel, asking us to stand if we disagreed with a statement he made. He asked the people standing for their names, and then a dozen folks (IIRC) were chosen at random, put into the jury box, one at a time handed a microphone, told to stand and address everyone with answers to the question, "What do you have to say for yourself, having told the judge that you disagree with statments A, B, C, etc?"

"Everyone" included the entire jury panel (I think maybe sixty people, not sure), all the attorneys, the judge and the defendant.

When my turn came, I gave them an earful.

After introducing myself as instructed, I launched into a denunciation of the "war on drugs" (the defendant was a Colombian cocaine smuggler, alleged). Then I explained that I could not send anyone to punishment for having commited acts that should not be illegal. Finally I said that I could not sit on a jury that was not "fully informed," that is, told in advance by the judge that they may properly find a genuinely guilty defendant NOT guilty IF they determined that the law under which he was being tried is not proper.

I believe I went on for quite a while, leaving little out. The judge sat blinking at me and saying nothing. The feds scribbled furiously on their yellow pads; at the time I wondered why, but now maybe I know.

If (and that's a big if) I understand the law, a defense attorney who said those things to the jurors could be put in prison for saying them. And a juror who said them in deliberations could be similarly treated, provided some other juror ratted on him. I know the system hates jury nullification, and enforces its hatred stringently.

But there sat all the potential jurors, taking in the forbidden words, thinking (I hope) about everything I was saying, from "harm reduction" and individual rights, to the costs of the drug war and the folly of persecuting/prosecuting people for their vices.

Did I contaminate the jury panel? After they threw me out of the courtroom did the prosecution immediately call for all those potential jurors to be dismissed and replaced by innocents who had never heard the fundamental ethical concerns I raised?

I have always wondered....