Tag Archives: grand juries

Donut Whole: Free Ted Visner… and the Michigan 10 Million

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… from the clutches of a typical county in the most corrupt state in the union[1]
Update by Brian R. Wright

Who is Theodore Joseph Visner?

The voice of Christmas present and all those to come, the hope and focal point for victims of public officials running amok all over the late great state of Michissippi… and for the rest of the country, perishing from self-inflicted danger-of-loss of their First Principles[2]—life, liberty, and property.

I’m simply putting this up today, and will elaborate later: To this humble columnist, Ted seems to have gotten the ultra royal shaft by local kangaroos of the foulest character and currently sits in their Bay County kidnappers’ compound, having been convicted by an insider-drone jury of anti-peers, and then in the early days of December sentenced to two years (minus time served) of state time on bogus firearms charges arising from calculated, fraudulent police-theft-motivated entrapment of the slimiest ground-slug nature.

I think.

The problem is that I don’t have phone access to Ted, so I have to try to get the details of his situation thru his wife, Dani, who lives understandably ‘beside herself’ with their young ‘un in Pinconning. [Note: Even if I were to go to the Bay City Jail, apparently I would not be able to visit with him. I can only sign up to do video. This appears to be a bold new policy sweeping the country of violating habeas corpus.]

For the time being, while Ted remains in Bay City, you should be able to send to him a postcard or a letter—mine got thru—it has to be black or blue ink on white paper and white envelope: Send to Honorable [ 🙂 my own special title for good people who are not public officials; you can just use ‘Mr.’] Ted Visner, 503 3d Street, Bay City, MI 48708. The problem is that I don’t know exactly where they are in the process, and he may be going to state for 30 days, then elsewhere, awaiting appeal, transfer, etc. Dani also mentions that you may set up an account at securstechnologies.com and connect with him that way, for how long I don’t know. His name is Theodore Joseph Visner, and I provide a Facebook page address below as well. It would be great if he got an avalanche of Christmas well wishes. I believe his email address, mijusticeleague@gmail.com, is still monitored by Dani. 

From what I’ve been able to gather—and Dani and I, et al, would surely welcome a first-rate independent journalist working for a major independent metropolitan daily newspaper with a team of staff and budget adequate to uncover what looks like MAJOR CRIMINAL CORRUPTION AT THE TOP LEVELS OF AT LEAST THREE MICHIGAN COUNTIES (KENT, ISABELLA, AND BAY)—the latest tale, and why Citizen Ted sits in jail while the average Michiganian, like me, enjoys the holidays, festivities, and fond remembrances of family—listening to carols and sipping Evan Williams by the fireplace, is this:

Somewhere in 2017, on orders from above—those who feared that Ted’s exposure of official corruption would send them to serve out multi-decade felony convictions—a pack of official mid-Michigan gangster-muscle [drooling, steroid-junkie bandits disguised as police] 1) seized Ted’s lucrative, legal medical marijuana crop, then 2) used CAF (civil asset forfeiture) to take all the good stuff from his family’s belongings, and divvy up the proceeds among themselves.

[According to Dani, apparently it’s a major industry up north these days seizing medical marijuana crops and their owners’ personal property to pay the bills of local government… so as not to have to lay off, well, themselves.]

Poster child for people’s independent grand juries

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Donut Whole: Simple Grand Jury Template for Michigan, Etc.

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Simple, Practical Grand Juries
By Brian R. Wright

Note: This column is the standin for my book until it’s done: The Accountability Project, which addresses the the problem of political corruption in Michigan with a simple, practical rollout of people’s First Principles’ independent grand juries. Most of the key ideas for implementation are included here, but not the heartwrenching personal stories of a mere handful of the thousands of living, loving, peaceful human beings crushed by public officials running amok on their abuse of power and unspeakable crimes of corruption.

When the book is complete, the above paragraph will include the hyperlink to it.
 [From ‘notes on a napkin,’ 03/18/18. The idea is to proceed from our country’s First Principles and have the states, then the federal government, enable, facilitate, and obey (not own, control, and dictate) the people’s institution of grand juries. Note: This grand jury template and federal derivatives will be featured in my upcoming advocacy book, The Accountability Project. — bw]

First Principles’ Grand Juries
Phase 1 Implementation–State-County Level Jurisdictions
To be written in form of a bill for the Michigan legislature to pass:

[Name: The Accountability Act… additional verbiage]
[Purpose: Uphold the people’s First Principles against corrupt government]

It is anticipated and hereby accepted by the legislature that:

  1. Each of the 83 counties of Michigan shall accommodate a continuously sitting people’s independent grand jury (SIGJ) for exercising the people’s authority to directly monitor, investigate, and indict gross misconduct in office, violation of oaths, and abrogation of American First Principles (“We hold these truths…”) by public officials.
  2. Each sitting independent grand jury shall be composed, voluntarily, of 25 good and lawful persons who are not government employees or solely beneficiaries of state largesse, and who are Constitution-knowledge-and-fealty tested, randomly selected by lottery, acting with supreme authority over all state justice officials in the jurisdiction.
  3. The SIGJ grand jurors shall be compensated from the state treasury at 80% of the governor’s prorated salary for each session, and shall select a foreman, who shall select an independent counsel (IC) and private investigators (PIs) as needed; foreman and ICs/PIs shall be compensated at 100% of governor’s prorated salary.
  4. Session length, hours, working conditions, workflow, security and meeting requirements, empaneling of additional special grand juries, interface protocols to state and county officials, and so on shall be the prerogative of the SIGJ and developing common IGJ practice, except that as a general requirement it is anticipated grand juror identity will not be publicly known and full cost to the state treasury for all SIGJ and subjury sessions shall not exceed <$2 million> per year [January 2018 USD].
  5. The SIGJ of each county, as its primary mission, shall hear and rule on consideration of all reasonable complaints of corruption or criminal behavior of public officials and accomplices; it is the civic duty of all adult residents to report violations of oath of office and gross misconduct in office to the SIGJ.
  6. The SIGJ of each county, as its secondary mission, shall hear and rule on consideration of all reasonable filings by state justice officials alleging a crime by one individual(s) against another individual(s); the SIGJ for such person-to-person cases may either decide to itself investigate and send indictments back to the justice officials or set up a special SIGJ composed in the same manner as the primary SIGJ.
  7. State/county justice officials–judges, prosecutors, police, executives, etc.–work at behest of the SIGJ; when ordered or requested by SIGJ foreman and ICs/PIs to assist in investigating a case they do so as top priority; these officials, as a top priority, also promptly effect any public official indictments by bringing such individuals before a suitably composed and informed petit jury.
  8. The SIGJ retains full authority over the formation and function of the petit jury(s), assuring that all individuals–public or private–are accorded a fair trial, also by their peers, which shall have the same composition requirements as people’s grand juries, i.e. “not government employees or primarily beneficiaries of state largesse, and who are Constitution-knowledge-and-fealty tested, randomly selected by lottery…”
  9. Petit juries, like grand juries, do not belong to the state justice system, they belong to the people themselves, independently; judges, prosecutors, cops, etc., and defense attorneys are subservient to the petit jury via the foreman, who shall have the benefit of selecting independent counsel for aid and assist in assuring state officials conform to First Principles’ protocol and practice. Petit juries render verdicts based on conscience; they may judge law and fact, and nullify a prosecution at will.
  10. Any county SIGJ or SIGJ-designated special grand jury shall have authority to investigate and indict state public officials for malfeasance applying within their counties. However, the Accountability Act anticipates formation of a sitting state-level grand jury by the same means and adhering to the same founding principles as the county SIGJ. It is anticipated the State SIGJ will also serve as referee for conflicts among county SIGJs or cross-county acts of public official corruption.[1]

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Book Review: Consent of the Governed (2015)

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Scratches the itch for liberty like no other book since Cracking the Code
By Jason W. Hoyt
Reviewed by Brian R. Wright

Abundant thanks to my recently realized compatriot, one David Schied (standing on the front lines boldly against Michigan general corruption), for referring me to this remarkable groundbreaking rallying cry for the people’s reassumption of their inherent grand jury authority. David, in a recent conversation, extolled Consent of the Governed as perhaps the most important book he’s read in the past decade… commanding his undivided attention until completion.

I purchased the Amazon Kindle edition for a very reasonable price of $5.99, digested it in roughly a week, and I agree: It IS the most important book that activists for liberty will read this year or for the remainder of the 20-teens. Why? Because as the subtitles tell us, it is the people’s guide to holding government accountable, informing us—with meticulously researched references—that ‘we the people’ are, indeed, in charge and fully constitutionally franchised to take back our direct power over all the institutions of government. By OUR grand juries. NOW.

“We don’t have to wait for elections.” We don’t have to wait period.

It’s simply a matter of working out the details. How to best coordinate the state’s—federal, state, and local levels—wholesale relinquishment of corruptly assumed authority with its facilitation, accommodation, and  enforcement of the people’s grand jury investigations, indictments and presentments[1] (and petit or trial jury functions, too, by the way). In other words, make all public officials, in fact, what they were meant to be in theory: direct, 24/7/365-accountable servants, gophers, waterboys of and for the people.

“That’s mighty tall talk for a one-eyed fat man,” you say. [ref. John Wayne film, True Grit.] Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: American First Principles Day, August 2

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Setting up the Holiday and Invoking Our First Principles for the Common Good
By Brian R. Wright

Recently, while in attendance at the Oakland County, Michigan, meeting of Campaign for Liberty (C4L), master of ceremonies, Dennis Marburger, stated that the actual signing of the Declaration of Independence occurred on August 2, 1776. I had forgotten this little acknowledged fact, but truly this is a significant day. Because this is when those in the assembly actually put their ‘lives, fortunes, and sacred honor’ on the line. Perhaps more important to ‘the course of human events’ than political independence from England is the Declaration’s famous statement of what have become known as American First Principles—and, further, the foremost universal statement of INDIVIDUAL rights:[1]

  1. Equality before the law
  2. Natural rights of the individual
  3. Government’s sole purpose to secure these natural rights
  4. Government’s powers deriving from the People
  5. People’s direct authority to monitor and control government, even dissolve it

AKA American First Principles. These are the foundation of all valid laws for ‘our people’ … and by extension any other peoples willing to assert such inherent natural rights. [For ‘rights’ one may read ‘fundamental freedoms.’ I’m not going to quibble over terms. Like Ayn Rand, I’ll stipulate that a right is the moral claim of “freedom of action in a social context.”] The point is our individual rights—no matter who we are—are inviolable and we the people are in charge of all public servants whose job is solely to secure these rights. They screw up, we step in… it is a legal necessity and, indeed, we are morally and civically obliged to do so. Continue reading →

Article: Open Letter to Governor Don Siegelman (#24775-001)

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Sharing a special relationship that I hope to continue when he’s out
by Brian R. Wright

Note: Democratic Governor (1998-2002) of the State of Alabama was selectively, maliciously, and (demonstrably) criminally prosecuted by the federal judiciary for an appointment of a major campaign contributor to a nonpaying position on a state board—no funds went to the governor personally. [If every political figure were prosecuted for a quid pro quo response to a campaign contribution, there would be no political figures. The miscarriage of justice occurred under auspices of Karl Rove and the US Justice Department running amok with spite of the widely popular Siegelman for impeding the Republican gang’s power plans for Sweet Home Alabama.]

Further, Siegelman received an outrageously harsh sentence of seven years in the Oakville, Louisiana, federal facility. He’s due out in February; supporters are asking Obama to issue the governor a full pardon; Siegelman’s ordeal has received mainstream media attention over the years, including coverage by 60 Minutes. A documentary movie is near to being funded as we speak, entitled Atticus and the Architect, that promises to be a bombshell. It may actually result in the prosecution and conviciton—for criminal conspiracy to deprive liberty—of the notorious Bush operative and dirty tricks sadist, Karl Rove… aka “The Architect.”

Please help with the final days of fundraising to produce this extraordinary film!

My own awareness of Governor Siegelman’s case emerged a few years ago, and my support of him stems from consideration of the fact that we are all in this corrupt system together and if such blatant injustices and high-level corruption can happen to a former governor they can sure happen (and do happen) to you and me. Plus, I am just drawn to stand up for a good man of such notoriety for humanitarian reasons. The toll on him and on his wonderful family is simply staggering. I have sent him notes where he has been caged, and I sent him a Christmas card. I have also donated small amounts on numerous occasions to his cause. Continue reading →

Guest Column: Roots of the Grand Jury

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If it’s not a runaway, it’s not a real grand jury
Roger Roots[1][excerpt from his Constitution Society column here]

constitution_societyI. INTRODUCTION

The doings of American grand juries are notoriously misunderstood and unknown by most sectors of the public.[1] Generally, the grand jury process escapes obscurity only when indictments are made public and when, for whatever reason, grand jury “leaks” are disclosed in the news media.[2] In theory, the grand jury is supposed to act as a check on the government — a people’s watchdog against arbitrary and malevolent prosecutions.[3] By and large, however, federal grand juries rarely challenge federal prosecutors.

Today, critics are nearly unanimous in describing the alleged oversight function of modern grand juries as essentially a tragic sham.[4] The Framers of the Bill of Rights would scarcely recognize a grand jury upon seeing the modern version conduct business in a federal courthouse.[5] In modern federal grand jury proceedings, the government attorney is clearly in charge and government agents may outnumber the witnesses by six-to-one.[6]

A “runaway” grand jury, loosely defined as a grand jury which resists the accusatory choices of a government prosecutor, has been virtually eliminated by modern criminal procedure. Today’s “runaway” grand jury is in fact the common law grand jury of the past. Prior to the emergence of governmental prosecution as the standard model of American criminal justice, all grand juries were in fact “runaways,” according to the definition of modern times; they operated as completely independent, self-directing bodies of inquisitors, with power to pursue unlawful conduct to its very source, including the government itself.[7] Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: Warm Bodies for Liberty (WBL)

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That is: Warm Bodies (Acting) for (Truth, Justice, and) Liberty
“80 percent of success in life is showing up.”

SymbolThe adage about showing up, most often attributed to Woody Allen, expresses a profound truth especially germane to achieving benign political goals. How many times have you joined a group of people working to end some aggression of the state—in court, on the streets petitioning, attending or speaking before your city council meetings, and so on—and the total entourage numbers three individuals!? Way too many times, I’ll wager. It’s totally discouraging. No one wants to go to the ramparts alone. This has to stop. We need to bring masses of bodies to bear on government crime and corruption.

I’m thinking of three notable incidents of my own experience where not nearly enough people showed up:

  1. In summer of 2014, Doreen Hendrickson was tried for criminal contempt of court—a second time—for refusing to commit perjury on a tax form. The judge instructed the jury that it was not to consider the lawfulness of the contempt order (which suborned Doreen to perjure herself). Hundreds of thousands of Americans have benefited from her husband Pete’s discoveries in his book Cracking the Code, with an average recovery of $10,000. At no day of the trial, nor in the subsequent sentencing hearing, did Doreen’s supporters in the courtroom exceed 25 persons.
  2. A couple of years ago, an electrohypersensitive woman in Oakland County, Michigan, Dr. Georgetta Livingstone, removed her biohazard surveillance electric meter for health reasons. She replaced it with a safe analog meter. The power company in Michigan, DTE, shut off her electricity. She installed energy alternatives. Her homeowners’ association (HA) has been fining her hundreds of dollars a day for refusal to use a ‘smart’ meter. The HA is taking her to court for the fines—scheduled for October 2016. She countersued, the HA moved for summary dismissal, which was granted by an Oakland County judge on May 11. In attendance to show support for Georgetta were perhaps 10 people. [This is a significant case and ‘smart’ meter opponent-activists in Michigan number in the several thousands.]
  3. The third incident is recent, a petition campaign put together by a few ‘liberty Republicans’ to put a Stop Civil Asset Forfeiture ordinance on the ballot for several communities in Oakland County. One of the key fiefdoms is Auburn Hills, which also has one of the highest signature count requirements (726). We go door to door, mainly, and the measure is an easy sell: anyone can typically get 10 signatures per hour, with practically no rejections. We’ve collected perhaps half that total with only three weeks to go. A lot of people show up at the organizer’s place to talk but thus far only perhaps a dozen persons have come to walk (gathering 10 signatures or more).

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