Some Propositions to Empower Citizens Against the State
Every high school in America shall offer and require four years of Civic Law.
No person may vote without passing the Civic Law curriculum, or accomplishing the same through a GED or following private training. No one may be prohibited from retaking their Civic Law exam as many times as they like, or at any age, although the government need not pay for the provision of repeat training where it can prove to the unanimous satisfaction of a jury that it has previously made reasonable and sufficient efforts towards the education of the person.
The nationally-prescribed Civic Law curriculum must, at a minimum, include a full explanation of each citizen’s rights, the basic structure of the US government, including the personal and organizational liability of the US government for offenses against citizens, and how to determine what the law is with the resources available to members of the public online and reasonably available to every citizen without a computer; and this must be proven every year by statistically sufficient sampling and testing to determine the mean and variance of the national population’s performance that year on the relevant test(s).
Persons born before yyyy shall be deemed for all purposes to have fulfilled the national civics requirement; but are entitled to free education of the same regardless of age if they wish it.
No person may be convicted of any crime that is not recorded in sufficient specificity to give certainty to such person that they would be in violation of such crime, if a reasonable person who has passed the Civic Law curriculum would not have been able to determine to a reasonable certainty that the act for which such person is being prosecuted is against the law, using the training and knowledge learned in their Civic Law curriculum. Such proof may be offered in any form allowed by law by any criminal defendant or civil litigant against the government or any government employee. Without limiting the foregoing, the specificity with which each crime is recorded must be proven every year by statistically sufficient sampling and testing to determine the mean and variance of the national population’s performance that year on the relevant test(s).
No one may be prosecuted or convicted for violating any law or regulation where they can show they had at the time, or can articulate at trial, any reasonable apprehension that they might have been in violation of any other law or regulation by obeying (or making a good-faith effort to obey) the first law or regulation.
No person’s rights shall be abrogated by reason of their having been convicted of any crime, following the completion of their sentence.
The failure of any elected or appointed official, or any member of the civil service, to disclose any misdeeds of any branch or department of government, shall be a felony.
Some Propositions to Promote Transparency
All federal accounts, budgets, and estimates must be prepared and maintained using the same accounting standards and rules applicable to publicly-traded private companies listed on any US exchange.
No part of federal funds or expenditures subject to Congressional control, modification, or elimination, may be isolated or defined as a “trust.”
Elected officials shall be liable for all accounting errors and improprieties to the same extent as any officer of any publicly-traded private company.
Some Propositions to Protect the Integrity of the Judicial System
No one may be convicted of any crime unless all evidence admitted in support of such conviction is made public prior to conviction and is published to the jury prior to conviction.
No one may be convicted of any crime if any part of the proceedings, or any information or material observed or observable to the fact finder, is not public.
No one may be convicted or held in custody by any secret court or tribunal, by any court or tribunal acting in secret, by any court or tribunal whose records are sealed or secret, or by any court or tribunal whose proceedings are closed to the public.
No one may be deprived of their life, liberty, or property by the government, except as part of the lawful range of sentences prescribed by a criminal statute following conviction.
No public defender may be asked to defend more cases than any prosecutor against whom such public defender is representing a client, is prosecuting; and no public defender may be asked to defend more cases than the average number of cases defended by private attorneys. Any conviction or other decision against any client of such a public prosecutor shall be vacated and reversed, and any harm to such person as a result of conviction or other decision compensated to them, in any year with respect to any public defender who is not in compliance with this rule. Any public defender who voluntarily takes on more cases than he or she is allowed under this provision, when other adequate defenders are available, shall be jointly liable with such prosecutors.
Once any criminal defendant is charged, the government has an obligation to spend as much on behalf of each defense as on behalf of each prosecution, and to provide as many resources of every description to the defense, as are available to the prosecution.
No one who has made any plea bargain may testify against another as a component of that bargain.
Plea bargains are subject to the same anti-bribery rules as those applicable to all other witnesses.
A jury and judge must rule on whether the case against the plea-bargain witness would have ended/create precedent, before any testimony obtained as a result of or in connection with any plea bargain may be used against anyone else.
No law may be applied retroactively if the effect is to impose a crime or increase the effect or the risk of a finding of liability or the consequences/sentence of such liability, after the fact.
No plea bargains at all. OR No plea bargain may reduce any sentence by more than 30%.
No one may be convicted of a crime under a law where it is a case of first impression, but instead may only be convicted and sentenced under lesser-included charges that are well-established, although the charges of first impression shall be treated in all other respects as an adjudication on the merits.
No confidential plea bargains shall be allowed in any criminal case, and the evidence and reasoning of the judge in approving each plea bargain, with specific reference to risks, facts, and applicable law and charges in each case as to each charge plead on, must be entered in the record.
A defendant may appeal any sentence resulting from a plea bargain on a basis of actual innocence under the same circumstances allowed post-trial to any other convicted criminal. OR No plea of actual innocence shall be voided by any plea agreement.
No one may be prosecuted or convicted for any conduct in defense of a criminal matter, where the prosecutor would not be similarly liable for the same conduct (g., plea bargains vs witness bribery).
No act may be counted as an element of more than one criminal offense in any one or more criminal charges, indictments, jury instructions, plea bargains, or other judicial processes of any government or governments.
