The group has been handing out pamphlets to jurors which basically say that the jurors should vote with their conscience and not feel pressured into voting against what they believe. Seems like pretty standard stuff. *** Of course, you can’t just say there’s a compelling interest. There actually has to be one, and I’m struggling to see how better informing a juror of their rights as a juror could possibly be about manipulating a jury or would harm the integrity of the jury system. Wouldn’t you think a juror who better understand what being a juror means increases the integrity of the system?

Jurors are not supposed to “vote with their conscience,” and it is incorrect to state that that is their right. They are supposed to vote based on the facts in evidence and the law. To promote otherwise would certainly “harm the integrity of the jury system.” That’s all it would do. Pretty standard stuff.

Completely untrue. The founding fathers considered jury nullification a necessary fourth check and balance to the other three in our government.

Actually average_joe, its not the jurors duty to interpret laws. They are there to be the check on legislation that goes against public interest.
Take prohibition for example. It was not repealed because all the nice citizens wrote to their legislators and complained as your grade school teachers undoubtedly told you. It was repealed because bootleggers were brought to court and the jury would vote not guilty every time, even though it they were blatantly guilty according to the constitution.

This is a very seldom spoken fact about jurors because of the obvious legal ramifications it would cause when jurors start thinking in terms of their own conscience instead of some politicians ‘law’

… I felt my spirit die slowly from just reading this…

Why do people always bring up the McDonald’s Hot Coffee Case as an example of a frivolous lawsuit? Look up the details of that case. It was anything but frivolous.

If the juries are morons then the problem isn’t the existence of jury nullification and giving them more choices, the problem lies with the fact that they are morons and hence are unable to properly evaluate evidence to come to a reasonable conclusion in the first place. Allowing them to evaluate evidence and come to conclusions based on that evidence requires the assumption that they are not morons and hence they are intelligent enough to rationally exercise jury nullification if they see fit.

Do you have a point? Are you able to add anything to the debate?

Every juror isn’t there to impose his or her own version of justice. That’s anarchy.

Voting with your conscience is what acquitted many people who lynched black people in the 40’s. It’s also what put many black people to death for crimes with no evidence. Great Idea.

What you refer to as “free speech” is almost certainly grounds for a mistrial, and may constitute jury tampering. It is fundamental to the American system of jury trial that the jury must decide based on the evidence and law presented in court, and only that evidence. The jury is not allowed to make up new laws that it thinks should be in force, nor disregard those that are in force. This principle is a protection for the accused and for the people. It prevents convictions based on community opinion, the personal prejudices of jurors, or past reputation of the accused. A jury takes an oath to apply the law as written to the facts presented. If, as you propose, anyone could hand fliers to a jury stating “facts” about the accused that are not in evidence and asking the jury to consider these ‘facts” this entire system collapses. Trial is then not by law and evidence but by innuendo and opinion. The restrictions you complain about protect the freedom of individuals in court proceedings.

An example:

Assume you have a previous conviction for stationary rape. Many years later you are sued for copyright violation. would you consider it fair if the copyright holder distributed literature to your jury asking that they “teach this rapist a lesson?” by rendering a big verdict for infringement? If you don’t think this should happen, why do you support “free speech” restriction when you want a fair trial, but not when someone else does?

Upstate NY

For what it is worth,
I disagree with probably 98% of what you say BUT
I have tremendous respect for you because you

1: Have a name
2: Try to refrain from the pointless name calling that you are often subjected to.
3: Demonstrate a clear passion for your positions(ie: you are not just arguing to be a poop disturber).
4: Acknowledge when it is shown that you were mistaken.

I wish you well in your studies.

I misunderstood. My apologies.

the law agents need to work harder to convince others they are useful and productive and deserve the power invested in them by the people.

well put after all they are our government we own them
but at the same time we are not their people they do not own us they work for us providing services to american people

shit if someone overcharged me for fixing my roof and it still leaked i would sue to get my money back

“OVERCHARGED ME FOR FIXING MY ROOF AND IT STILL LEAKS”
sounds like the war on drugs to me LOL

Jurors are not supposed to “vote with their conscience,” and it is incorrect to state that that is their right. They are supposed to vote based on the facts in evidence and the law. To promote otherwise would certainly “harm the integrity of the jury system.” That’s all it would do. Pretty standard stuff.

This is mistaken, and I expect it’s exactly the sort of error the pamphlets in question are addressing.

Many poeple don’t know, and authorities would like them ot be unaware of, a juries responsibility ot judge not just the facts of a case but the law under which it is tried.

A jury is not just a group of people picked to decide the facts and therefore guilt or innocence. They are also a representative selection of citizens who are expected to decide if the law being used is just and if it should be enforced on their behalf.

Because of this and the widespread belief that the ‘War On Drugs’ is stupid law it has become a common tactic for defendants to try and tell juries they can agree that a defendant broke drug laws but also not convict defendants on the basis of the law being an ass.

And because authority fears citizens resisting the imposition of laws like this authority is increasingly trying to hide jurys own authority from them.

It is now illegal in several U.S states for officers of the court to tell juries they can nullify laws.

Authority would like, but hasn’t yet found the courage and way to remove this authority from juries.

Knowing that juries were citizens final word on the authority of the state to impose it’s law and will (beside the individual facts of a case) is what lead Thomas Jefferson to say;

“I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.”

Only if a “troll” is someone who has a minority opinion. Some people accept that definition, but I don’t think it’s very useful.

Smarter than HE.

CBMHB

“If juries were there only to decide simple matters of fact and do as they are told about the law “

This is, by far, the overwhelmingly accepted view of the role of juries among people who actually deal with juries.

And yet, such people still think juries perform a useful service.

On the contrary, if juries were to impose their own view of what the law is, then judicial and legislative elections would be a pointless waste of time and money and we might as well abolish them.

Joe, you are entitled to your own opinion but not your own set of facts. And you were indeed lazy. It’s called a browser. Open it and read the Constitution. Thanks.

Joe, you are entitled to your own opinion but not your own set of facts. And you were indeed lazy. It’s called a browser. Open it and read the Constitution. Thanks.

Can you point me to the exact part you think I missed?

Which part deals with the right to jury nullification? We must have skipped that in my Con Law class… 🙂

Even if the pamphlet just “informs jurors of their rights” without adding any facts, that could be a problem. The judge is supposed to provide instructions to the jury, and those instructions are supposed to be correct and legal.

Except that every judge today blatantly LIES to the jury by telling them that they must render a verdict according to the law. This is a lie because even though it is never mentioned to the jury and even though the judge and the prosecutor will do everything in their power to prevent juries from knowing about it, jury nullification is still a valid jury power in the US. A jury has the power to disregard the law if they feel that convicting someone under it would be unjust.

What’s the surest, quickest way to get out of jury duty? Mention jury nullification to the judge and you’ll be out of the courthouse so fast that you’ll get whiplash.

Yes, clearly if someone disagrees with you, they must be unable to grok the subject matter, and must be a “troll” or a conservative too!

Here’s a little caselaw from the Second Circuit. It’s a really long quote, but I think it’s very instructive on the issue of whether there’s a right to jury nullification:

We take this occasion to restate some basic principles regarding the character of our jury system. Nullification is, by definition, a violation of a juror’s oath to apply the law as instructed by the court-in the words of the standard oath administered to jurors in the federal courts, to ?render a true verdict according to the law and the evidence.? Federal Judicial Center, Benchbook for U.S. District Court Judges 225 (4th ed. 1996) (emphasis supplied) We categorically reject the idea that, in a society committed to the rule of law, jury nullification is desirable or that courts may permit it to occur when it is within their authority to prevent. Accordingly, we conclude that a juror who intends to nullify the applicable law is no less subject to dismissal than is a juror who disregards the court’s instructions due to an event or relationship that renders him biased or otherwise unable to render a fair and impartial verdict.

***

More generally, the very institution of trial by jury in a criminal case, as Judge Learned Hand observed, ?introduces a slack into the enforcement of law, tempering its rigor by the mollifying influence of current ethical conventions.? U.S. ex rel. McCann v. Adams, 126 F.2d 774, 776 (2d Cir.), rev’d on other grounds, 317 U.S. 269, 63 S.Ct. 236, 87 L.Ed. 268 (1942). This is so because, as Judge Hand explained, ?[t]he individual can forfeit his liberty-to say nothing of his life-only at the hands of those who, unlike any official, are in no wise accountable, directly or indirectly, for what they do, and who at once separate and melt anonymously in the community from which they came…. [S]ince if they acquit their verdict is final, no one is likely to suffer of whose conduct they do not morally disapprove….? Id. at 775-76.

***

But as the quotation from the Supreme Court’s opinion in Standefer indicates, in language originally employed by Judge Learned Hand, the power of juries to ?nullify? or exercise a power of lenity is just that-a power; it is by no means a right or something that a judge should encourage or permit if it is within his authority to prevent. It is true that nullification has a long history in the Anglo-American legal system, see Dougherty, 473 F.2d at 1130-33, and that the federal courts have long noted the de facto power of a jury to render general verdicts ?in the teeth of both law and facts,? Horning v. District of Columbia, 254 U.S. 135, 138, 41 S.Ct. 53, 54, 65 L.Ed. 185 (1920); see, e.g., United States v. Trujillo, 714 F.2d 102, 105-06 (11th Cir.1983). However, at least since the Supreme Court’s decision in Sparf v. United States, 156 U.S. 51, 102 (1895) (holding that, while juries are finders of fact, ?it is the duty of juries in criminal cases to take the law from the court and apply that law to the facts as they find them?), courts have consistently recognized that jurors have no right to nullify. See Gordan, supra, at 272, 277 (noting that, with Sparf, the Supreme Court ?fixed the law where Lord Mansfield had left it? in King v. Shipley (?The Dean of St. Asaph’s Case?), 4 Doug. 73 (K.B. 1784), in which Mansfield had written that jurors have the power, but not the right, to decide the law); Howe, supra, at 589 (referring to Sparf as ?the Supreme Court’s final and authoritative denial of the [jury’s] right? to serve as judges of the law); see, e.g., United States v. Kerley, 838 F.2d 932, 938 (7th Cir.1988) (?[J]ury nullification is just a power, not also a right ….?). As a panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit-composed of Chief Judge Spottswood W. Robinson, III, Judge George E. MacKinnon, and then-Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg-explained:

A jury has no more ?right? to find a ?guilty? defendant ?not guilty? than it has to find a ?not guilty? defendant guilty, and the fact that the former cannot be corrected by a court, while the latter can be, does not create a right out of the power to misapply the law. Such verdicts are lawless, *616 a denial of due process and constitute an exercise of erroneously seized power.

United States v. Washington, 705 F.2d 489, 494 (D.C.Cir.1983) (per curiam) (emphasis in original). Indeed, as we noted above, the exercise of this de facto power is a violation of a juror’s sworn duty to ?apply the law as interpreted by the court.? United States v. Boardman, 419 F.2d 110, 116 (1st Cir.1969), cert. denied, 397 U.S. 991, 90 S.Ct. 1124, 25 L.Ed.2d 398 (1970).

***

Inasmuch as no juror has a right to engage in nullification-and, on the contrary, it is a violation of a juror’s sworn duty to follow the law as instructed by the court-trial courts have the duty to forestall or prevent such conduct, whether by firm instruction or admonition or, where it does not interfere with guaranteed rights or the need to protect the secrecy of jury deliberations, see infra Section II.C, by dismissal of an offending juror from the venire or the jury. If it is true that the jury’s ?prerogative of lenity,? Dougherty, 473 F.2d at 1133, introduces ?a slack into the enforcement of law, tempering its rigor by the mollifying influence of current ethical conventions,? Adams, 126 F.2d at 776, then, as part and parcel of the system of checks and balances embedded in the very structure of the American criminal trial, there is a countervailing duty and authority of the judge to assure that jurors follow the law. Although nullification may sometimes succeed-because, among other things, it does not come to the attention of a presiding judge before the completion of a jury’s work, and jurors are not answerable for nullification after the verdict has been reached-it would be a dereliction of duty for a judge to remain indifferent to reports that a juror is intent on violating his oath. This is true regardless of the juror’s motivation for ?nullification,? including race, ethnicity or similar considerations. A federal judge, whose own oath of office requires the judge to ?faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon [the judge] … under the Constitution and laws of the United States,? 28 U.S.C. ? 453 (1994), may not ignore colorable claims that a juror is acting on the basis of such improper considerations.

Accordingly, every day in courtrooms across the length and breadth of this country, jurors are dismissed from the venire ?for cause? precisely because they are unwilling or unable to follow the applicable law.10 Indeed, *617 one of the principal purposes of voir dire is to ensure that the jurors ultimately selected for service are unbiased and willing and able to apply the law as instructed by the court to the evidence presented by the parties.

So also, a presiding judge possesses both the responsibility and the authority to dismiss a juror whose refusal or unwillingness to follow the applicable law becomes known to the judge during the course of trial. Rule 24(c) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure provides for the substitution of alternates for ?jurors who, prior to the time the jury retires to consider its verdict, become or are found to be unable or disqualified to perform their duties.? Surely a juror is ?unable or disqualified,? for purposes of this rule, who is intent on nullifying the applicable law and thereby violating his oath to ?render a true verdict according to the law and the evidence.?

Similarly, we conclude that a juror who is determined to ignore his duty, who refuses to follow the court’s instructions on the law and who thus threatens to ?undermine[ ] the impartial determination of justice based on law,? Krzyske, 836 F.2d at 1021, is subject to dismissal during the course of deliberations under Rule 23(b). This conclusion reinforces the court’s inherent authority to conduct inquiries in response to reports of improper juror conduct and to determine whether a juror is unwilling to carry out his duties faithfully and impartially. The rule we adopt applies with equal force whether the juror’s refusal to follow the court’s instructions results from a desire to ?nullify? the applicable law or, for example, as in the cases described above, see supra pp. 613-14, from a perceived physical threat or from a relationship with one of the parties.

U.S. v. Thomas, 116 F.3d 606 (2d Cir. 1997).

Or work harder to explain why those laws are important and just.

I was not supporting those throwing out insults. Just pointing out that the playing victim act was childish.

I agree that throwing out insults is not a great way to argue. But which had a bigger impact on this thread? His one post with tons of content and a silly insult at the bottom, or you then hijacking the thread with half a dozen “oh woe is me!!!!” comments about how you can’t take RD blowing his lid at you for not doing basic research.

You’re right, it is the internet, and rather than respond to the childish insults I receive, from now on, I’ll try and just ignore them.

He was right about the Founding Fathers. I didn’t know that stuff, and I’m glad to now know it. I’ve expressed my appreciation for this now three times in this thread.

After doing some research this evening, though, turns out I’m right about there being no right to jury nullification. Do you care to admit that your claim that the people in front of the courthouse were simply “informing a juror of their rights as a juror” is wrong as a matter of law? I doubt it.

That is not what it says there.

It says jury nullification is legal, but the jury is not entitled to jury nullification instructions meaning they must know they have that right before hand since the courts don’t like that law and are less likely to have it mentioned even going so far as to try and actively prevent it.

What kind of student of the law make such a gross misrepresentation?

Are judges legislating now?
Have they the power to change the law?

There are 2 bodies only who can decide what is a right and what is not and that is the legislative and the people.

[citation needed]

Some location is better than no location at all. Outside a court house is some location which is better than what we otherwise have.

It is precisely because there is a compelling interest that this carries past the courtroom’s doors.

This compelling interest is why the judge’s order
does not violate the First Amendment.

Please identify the compelling state interest.

You’re flatly wrong that aeven a compelling state interest by itself ttrumps the First Amendment. First, we are not talking about a historically unprotected category of speech obscenity, fighting words, or incitement to unlawful action.

We are talking about a prior restraint on truthful information on a matter of public concern.

What compelling interest is served by the judge’s order?

Protecting the trial against jury tampering is of course a compelling state interest, but under the strict scrutiny framework, the restriction upon speech must not only serve a compelling interest but must also be narrowly tailored employing the least restrictive means.

If the jury is in its right to acquit based on its own moral determination, it’s not tenable to hold that informing the juror about the law of nullification is tampering.

Please explain Mr. Average lawyer Joe how the order is narrowly tailored employing the least restrictive means.

If you had provided this answer in a bar exameyou are unfit for the bar.

Second, a prior restraint on speech is suspect and is not constitutional just because the state interest is compelling.

In the court’s dicta the interest allowing prior restraint is often
referred to one of the highest order.

There are a few cases from the lower court’s having upheld prior restraint on speech, United States v. Progressive (suppression of the nuclear bomb formula) and an order forbidding the CNN from broadcasting the Noriega tapes, but prior restraint on

truthful and publicly available information is seldomely found constitutional.

That is not what it says there.

It says jury nullification is legal, but the jury is not entitled to jury nullification instructions meaning they must know they have that right before hand since the courts don’t like that law and are less likely to have it mentioned even going so far as to try and actively prevent it.

It says: “Although the jury has the power of nullification, the jury has no right to engage in nullification.” If you have no right to do something, but you do it anyway, then are you not doing something legal. In other words, jury nullification is not legal.

What kind of student of the law make such a gross misrepresentation?

I’m the kind of law student that gets very good marks on exams and that judges entrust to do research for them. I made no “gross misrepresentation” that I can see. If I’m wrong, I’ll gladly admit it, but I don’t see it.

Snore. It’s not truthful information since there’s no right to nullification. There is only a power. For reasons why nullification is a compelling state interest, see the really long quote I posted from the Second Circuit.

The court whose language I quoted was only pulling certain points from each of those cases, not adopting those cases’ holdings as a whole.

Having the power to do something does not mean having the de facto right. There simply is no right. There is no contradiction. The word “right” has a very specific meaning. You’re twisting that meaning, not me, and not the courts.

The fact that juries can do this and nobody can stop them does not negate the compelling interest test. Nor is it accurate to say that the jury is “allowed to do” it. Being able to do something is different from being allowed to do it.

…a human being has the right and obligation to be fair and do what is right. Lawyers and judges can’t change that.

This is just simply not true.

And here we have the essence of AJ.

Is this codified anywhere? I know you can find some “founding fathers” who believed pretty much anything, from “the US is a christian nation” to “blacks aren’t really people”.

I wasn’t disagreeing with the “lawyers and judges can’t change that” part. I was disagreeing with the parts that came before that. I stand by my statement that it simply is not true, and I’ve offered plenty of evidence to back it up. You’ve offered no evidence for your position.

That is the essence of the AC.

Can you name something I can do legally but that I don’t have the right to do? Seems like a non sequitur to me.

Hey, a full post with only one CAPITALIZED word. Keep taking them meds, you are almost back to being human 🙂

Funny, did you request a citation when Mike said *the exact same thing* in the original article? Or just when someone you disagree with says it?

I wasn’t disagreeing with the “lawyers and judges can’t change that” part. I was disagreeing with the parts that came before that.

Yeah, that would be the “a human being has the right and obligation to be fair and do what is right” part. I know you don’t believe that’s true, but that’s you. I do.

That is the essence of the AC.

Why, thank you!

Um, the legislature is the representative body of the people. No individual person has the right to decide what the law is. That is dictatorship.

He might be referring to a moral right, as opposed to a legal right.

For example, someone may have had no legal right to help a slave escape ownership in 1850, but they would have had a moral right to do so.

I’d say his interpretation is pretty good. Yours, on the other hand, is not.

The courts have basically said that jury nullification is a necessary evil in criminal cases, as long as general verdicts (as opposed to special verdicts) are used, but that nullification is a violation of the juror’s oath, and courts should do everything in their power to prevent such violation/nullification.

It does not mean “they must know they have that right before hand since the courts don’t like that law.”

Why, it’s almost as if he picked the most relevant points from different sources and put them together to support an argument!

The nerve of this guy!!!

“you can say all you want that the jury does not have a right to nullification, they only have the power…. but the statement in and of itself is a contradiction in terms.”

No, it’s really not. I’m not sure why you equate “power” with a “de facto right.” Do I have the “de facto right” to shoot someone? I have the power!

If someone were distributing literature on how to kill a jury member without getting caught, I don’t think the truthfulness of the information would end the First Amendment analysis.

At any rate, we don’t know whether the information in this case was truthful or not, regardless of how you view jury nullification.

Yeah, that statute, as written, appears to cover at least some types of activity that are probably constitutionally protected.

Although, perhaps the intent requirement gets around some of that.

Also, I think that is the first time I’ve ever seen the term “bailiwick” used literally and properly.

I had to look “bailiwick” up. Nicely done. I think the crux here is that the pamphlets were being handed out to people who were in fact prospective jurors for the specific purpose of influencing them. If the judge was trying to prevent activity that only might affect prospective jurors, I’d agree that that would be prior restraint. But as it is, I think it’s debatable.

but probably not much longer than tomorrow morning when ‘Anonymous’ starts in at again.

As if though you’re not “anonymous”.

I found a case from the Alaska Supreme Court coincidentally involving this same FIJA group. It’s Turney v. State, 936 P.2d 533 (1997).

In that case the defendant, Turney, was charged with jury tampering for handing out pamphlets and telling jurors their “rights” near the courthouse in Fairbanks. Turney argued that Alaska’s jury tampering statute was overbroad because it criminalized protected speech. The court rejected the overbreadth argument, noting that:

[I]t is the intent to influence the outcome that is critical. Whether such statements violate the statute turns on the intent of the utterer; a misguided or erroneous suggestion does not violate the statute absent the prohibited criminal intent. ***

Speech aimed at influencing the juror’s conduct as a juror, i.e., the juror’s execution of the responsibilities imposed by the trial court in a particular case, is not constitutionally protected. Justice Frankfurter noted that: “In securing freedom of speech, the Constitution hardly meant to create the right to influence judges or juries. That is no more freedom of speech than stuffing a ballot box is an exercise of the right to vote.” Pennekamp v. Florida, 328 U.S. 331, 366, 66 S.Ct. 1029, 1047, 90 L.Ed. 1295 (1946) (Frankfurter, J., concurring).

Other courts that have looked at the issue have also recognized that utterances involved in the obstruction of justice are not protected by the First Amendment. In rejecting an overbreadth and vagueness habeas challenge to a witness tampering statute, the federal district court in New Hampshire held that the defendant’s interest in communicating with a potential witness with the intent to tamper was ?minuscule? and outside the scope of First Amendment protection. Kilgus v. Cunningham, 602 F.Supp. 735, 739-40 (D.N.H.), aff’d, 782 F.2d 1025 (1st Cir.1985). The Florida Court of Appeals similarly concluded that ?[e]fforts to influence a grand jury in its deliberations respecting specific matters under investigation by it are not shielded by the constitutional guarantee of free speech.? Dawkins v. State, 208 So.2d 119, 122 (Fla.App.), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 854, 89 S.Ct. 101, 21 L.Ed.2d 123 (1968). In concluding that the presence of spectators wearing ?Women Against Rape? buttons at a rape trial deprived the defendant of a fair trial, the Ninth Circuit noted that ?[w]here fair trial rights are at significant risk … the first amendment rights of trial attendees can and must be curtailed at the courthouse door.? Norris v. Risley, 918 F.2d 828, 831 (9th Cir.1990).

We conclude that because AS 11.56.590 is narrowly drawn and proscribes only speech intended to influence a juror in his or her capacity as a juror in a particular case, it does not reach speech protected by the First Amendment, and thus is not impermissibly overbroad.

The Supreme Court in Cox v. State of Louisiana, 379 U.S. 559 (1965), weighed in on the constitutionality of a statute that disallowed picketing near courthouses:

There can be no question that a State has a legitimate interest in protecting its judicial system from the pressures which picketing near a courthouse might create. Since we are committed to a government of laws and not of men, it is of the utmost importance that the administration of justice be absolutely fair and orderly. This Court has recognized that the unhindered and untrammeled functioning of our courts is part of the very foundation of our constitutional democracy. See Wood v. Georgia, 370 U.S. 375, 383, 82 S.Ct. 1364, 1369, 8 L.Ed.2d 569. The constitutional safeguards relating to the integrity of the criminal process attend every stage of a criminal proceeding, starting with arrest and culminating with a trial ?in a courtroom presided over by a judge.? Rideau v. Louisiana, 373 U.S. 723, 727, 83 S.Ct. 1417, 1419, 10 L.Ed.2d 663. There can be no doubt that they embrace the fundamental conception of a fair trial, and that they exclude influence or domination by either a hostile or friendly mob. There is no room at any stage of judicial proceedings for such intervention; mob law is the very antithesis of due process. See Frank v. Mangum, 237 U.S. 309, 347, 35 S.Ct. 582, 595, 59 L.Ed. 969. (Holmes, J., dissenting). A State may adopt safeguards necessary and appropriate to assure that the administration of justice at all stages is free from outside control and influence. A narr