The Monitor from McAllen, Texas • 18

4C Monday, April 23, 2001 THE MONITOR, McAllen, Texas OPIN OK rr THE MONITOR VIEW The Environment Free market best way to save nature "The good news Is, the skies are less crowded. The bad news is It's because we're on strike." Jurors: You have the right to acquit, despite orders The clean little secret you may not hear much about this Earth Day is that the environment in the United States is in much better shape than it was a generation ago and is likely to continue to improve no matter what public policies are in place. According to the San Francisco-based Pacific Research Institute, which published its sixth annual "Index of Leading Environmental Indicators" report this past week, almost all indicators show improvement. Since 1970 aggregate air pollution emissions have decreased 64 percent. In the past 10 years nine cities that historically have had the worst air quality have reported decreases in the number of days with "unhealthful" air, from 57 percent to 1 00 percent.

There has been a 45 percent decline in toxic emissions since 1988. Despite concern about "sprawl," only 5 percent of the land in the United States is developed. About 93 percent of the land in the country consists of pasture, rural, forests, rangeland and federal land. Conventional wisdom might attribute these improvements to aggressive government regulation and firm enforcement of environmental laws, which could be put at risk in an administration with iess commitment to enforcement. But the trends toward a cleaner environment have held steady since the early 1970s, through both Republican and Democratic administrations.

Dr. Steven Hay ward, who prepared the Pacific Research report along with Julie Majeres, says "these positive environmental trends are almost certain to continue in the coming decade, the result mostly of improving technology and increasing local He said that "for too long, the commitment to environmental protection has been measured an the basis of growth of EPA budgets. The next 30 years of environmental progress will be led by local control, cooperative dialogue, and results-oriented technological and market-based innovations." It is not considered polite to say so, but technological improvements and even widespread public concern about It is not considered polite to say so, but technological improvements and even widespread public concern about environmental qualities are closely linked to increases in economic development and wealth. rj environmental qualities are closely linked to increases in economic development and wealth. As Richard Lovejoy, a veteran environmentalist who coined the term "biodiversity" and has spent decades working in the Amazon said in a recent public radio interview, the key to future environmental improvement in Brazil is finding ways to help market forces work in ways that allow development while improving environmental values.

Unfortunately, the idea that market forces can be more effective than bans, prohibitions and stern enforcement has yet to penetrate the insular environs of the national capital. "We just haven't communicated the idea that the key to environmental improvement is private property in a free-market environment," said Fred Smith, president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. "Until we do, those who understand that regulation is often inefficient and counterproductive, the best way to improve the environmerft is to let people own it and have a long- term interest in its health, will remain on the defensive." Until freedom lovers develop a suitable rhetoric to support "an environmentafism as if people mattered," as Mr. Smith puts it, most of the dialogue will be centered on centralized command-and-control strategies. It might help to remember that things are getting better not solely because of such strategies indeed, it is often despite them but through the technologies, concern and freedom of action that come with economic growth and development.

A reporter for Colorado's Aspen Daily News coined an interesting phrase in a March 14 article, forwarded by the kind folks at the Jury Rights Project (www.levellers.orgjrp.). It seems a 43-year-old local ski VIN instructor namad Jerry Begly-'; former member of the Army Special Forces and a Second Amendment advocate -had received a summons to appear for jury duty at SUPRYNOWICZ COMMENTARY AROUND THE STATE convicted by one of Judge Barnhill's brethren of the Gilpin County bench, but that verdict was finally dismissed on appeal last year. The D.C. Court of Appeals held in the 1972 Vietnam draft case U.S. vs.

Dougherty that "The pages of history shine on instances of the jury's exercise of its prerogative to disregard uncontradicted evidence and instructions from the judge. Most often commended are the 1 8th century acquittal of John Peter Zenger on charges of seditious libel the case that gave 'Americans our freedom of the press and the 19th century acquittals in prosecutions under the fugitive slave laws." The problem comes when we're asked, "What specific statute gives juries the right to disobey the judge's orders and acquit just because they think the law is bad, or-has been misapplied?" There is no such law, of course. Neither can you find a law that says you have a right to fly a kite, or walk your dog. The problem here is the very notion that there must be a law to allow us to do something, when in a free nation we should be taught from childhood a different paradigm, a different "default setting" that we citizens are free to do anything not specifically prohibited (and that the government is further sharply limited in the range of things they can even seek to regulate or ban). No law allows the government to appeal or overturn a jury acquittal, nor for any juror to be questioned by authorities, or charged or punished in any way for voting to acquit, even if the judge sits there in all his solemn majesty and says: "This jury is instructed to convict: I am giving you no choice." It's all one big bluff.

If you ever sit on a jury deciding the fate of a fellow citizen who you believe is being railroaded for nothing but angering a bunch of smug bureaucrats that he or she has never really harmed anyone try it. Acquit on all charges. You can, you know. For further information on the fully informed jury movement, check out Website www.fija.org. modern-day Joseph Goebbels or should that be Tom Paine? holds court, masterminding a sinister scheme to convince the American people they're actually supposed to be living under a form of government where the judges, bureaucrats and other functionaries have powers sharply limited to those specifically listed, while the people at large including citizens called to sit on juries- have the freedom to say or do anything they please, so long as it's not specifically banned by written law.

Talk about a subversive notion! As it turned out, rather than grant Mr. Begly the public forum he was so anxious to exploit, local Judge Erin Fernandez-Ely found discretion to be the better part of valor, ruling, "In the interest of judicial economy, the hearing is vacated and the juror discharged from any obligation with respect to this case and.this Court." Case dismissed. "A juror, is required to follow the law as instructed by the Court," Judge Fernandez-Ely went on to assert, having safely buffered herself from having to confront the very citations from our founding fathers which refute that erroneous doctrine. It was in Colorado, of course, where the now famous case of obstinate juror Laura Kriho unfolded a few years back. After the suburban Denver jury on which she was serving had ithdrawn to the jury room, Ms.

Kriho had the nerve to violate the judge's "orders," discussing the sentence a young woman might receive if convicted on a minor drug charge, and also questioning the reasonableness of such drug laws. A fellow juror snitched on Ms. Kriho. i In that 1996 case, District Court Judge Kenneth Barnhill dismissed the jury and declared a mistrial (though Ms. Kriho had been given no chance to try to win over other jurors to her perfectly reasonable point of view.) Laura Kriho was put on trial for contempt of court apparently for failing to leap to her feet during jury selection and announce she opposed the Drug War (though it turned out no one had specifically asked her about that.) Denied the jury trial she's guaranteed by the U.S.

Constitution, Ms. Kriho was Colorado's Pitkin County Courthouse March 9. Mr. Begly reported as ordered, but was promptly dismissed from -the jury pool and ordered to appear five days later to "show cause" why he should not be held in contempt of court, after he was spotted passing out leaflets to other prospective jurors in the hallway before jury selection started. The pamphlet Mr.

Begly was handing out was a widely circulated palm-sized booklet containing quotations from the founding fathers and such past U.S. Supreme Court justices as Oliver Wendell Holmes and Samuel Chase, on the subject of jury powers. This "Citizens' Rulebook" also contained "unattributed quotes, such as 'The only power the judge has over the jury is their and 'One juror can stop tyranny with a "Not guilty vote!" reported Aspen Daily News Staff Writer Rick Carroll. The ski instructor, who told the Daily News he's for "far less government," complained his free speech rights had thus been infringed. The follow-up story came on March 14, under the headline: "Judge drops charges injury leaflet case." Summarizing what had gone on to date, reporter Carroll told his readers Mr.

Begly had been "dismissed from jury duty last week for handing out constitutional propaganda to juror candidates." Isn't that a delightful phrase: "constitutional One imagines some basement room full of clattering old mimeograph machines, where a sneering, Austin American-Statesman, April 15, on lobbyists killing school fund reform: Follow the money. You must do that to understand why bills aimed at cleaning up scandal and ethical abuses at the State Board of Education are foundering. Follow the money. That explains why legislation establishing a professional investment board to manage the $20 billion school trust fund now has met sudden and fierce resistance from unlikely opponents. Currently, the elected State Board of Education oversees the school fund.

In this case, the money leads to prominent Austin and San Antonio lobbyists hired by private financial managers who have a huge stake in maintaining the status quo at the State Board of Education. Clearly, some investment firms are working the system to protect their financial interests. They aren't doing anything illegal by hiring the big-gun lobbyists, but their brand of influence peddling should be rejected by legislators. Lawmakers should send a message that the school fund is not for sale. The school fund is vital to Texas schoolchildren.

If pays for their textbooks and annually funnels about $250 per student to public schools. All schools receive that money regardless of their wealth. But the fund has been mismanaged. The Texas Education Agency says the board could have reaped millions more in income if it had consolidated the fund's custody and securities lending intone bank and kept more investment duties in-house. Outside managers were paid $20 million in 2000.

Some of that money could have gone to public schools. Aside from its lack of financial expertise, the board has lacked an ethical compass. The school fund has been plagued by scandal and ethical abuses since the education board several years ago began hiring outside money managers to help invest school fund assets. A majority of the board has used the school fund to advance political or personal agendas. That it did not diminish the value of the $20 billion school fund is more a testament to a stock market that was booming for most of the past decade than the board's management.

The best solution to the board's troubled past remains abolishing the board. But lawmakers aren't likely to go that far. Short of that solution, lawmakers should support SB 512 and HB 2414 and their constitutional propositions. Send a message that our schoolchildren's trust fund is not for sale. Call Senate leader, Lt.

Gov. Bill Ratliff, at 512-463-0001 and House Speaker Pete Laney at 512-463-3000. Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. MALLARD FILLMORE A FREEDOM NEWSPAPER (J rrscirzz. ltd TUp Letters Policy We welcome your letters and guest columns.

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