HC 11, Box 357 Kamiah, Idaho 83536 February 15, 2006 AT THIS TIME, FOR THE EXCLUSIVE USE

OF MY DEFENSE COUNSEL, I, Carol J. Asher, offer the following statement in light of the criminal charge currently pending against me, case #CR06-31016, alleging the crime of perjury. As background for this statement, I must relate the major points of the instant case which precipitated the charge I now face, and the manner in which I came to be personally involved in it. The following is true and correct to my very best knowledge and recollection. Having been placed on call for jury duty in Idaho County, Idaho for the second half of calendar year, 2005, I was summoned in July and served on a 2-day trial of a young defendant, William Edward Clark, of the community of Whitebird. Some months earlier, in March of 2005, defendant Ed Clark had been recognized by a passing Grangeville city police officer, in the vicinity of the Mammoth monument located on Hwy. 95 on the outskirts of town. According to the officers testimony at trial, the department had been on the lookout for Ed regarding some sort of parole or probation violation stemming from an earlier domestic disturbance incident. Arriving at the monument, Ed had locked his pickup at the time of exiting it. Some moments later, seeing a patrol car turn in and pull up behind the pickup, Ed began walking back toward it, keys held either in hand or in pocket. Soon, an Idaho County sheriff deputy arrived also on the scene. Each officer admitted during trial to their having forcefully wrested the keys from Ed in order to search the pickup. Ed vigorously protested this, advising them that the pickup did not even belong to him. Among the contents of the pickup, the officers reported finding some .15 of a gram of crystal meth in a tiny plastic bag, tucked inside of a contact lens case which, in turn, was found tucked inside a CD case lying, I believe, on the dash. The Ed Clark trial in July was over his alleged, knowing possession of this crystal meth. Throughout the trial we jurors were instructed repeatedly that if, at the conclusion of testimony, we judged that the prosecution had proven beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant knew the meth was in the pickup, we were to find him guilty; on the other hand, if we judged that the government did not so prove, then we were to acquit. Since 8 jurors voted guilty, while I and the three others voted for acquittal, there was declared a mistrial, and the defendant went free. In my sincerest judgment, the prosecution presented no real evidence at all, not even fingerprints, to prove that the defendant had any knowledge that the meth was there. For this reason, I voted to acquit, precisely as instructed. What made it reasonable to think that Ed may not have been aware of the meth was that he was merely using a community pickup that day. Witnesses testified that the pickup was owned by Eds mothers friend, the proprietor of a business in White Bird, where Ed Clark helped out part time, and that it was borrowed and used freely and regularly by quite a number of persons frequenting that place of business. On the day Ed Clark was detained, he had driven it to

Grangeville to deliver a load of aluminum cans for recycling. As I saw it, therefore, the meth could have been placed in the CD case at any time by any one of the prior users, or by any other person accessing the vehicle right up to the moment the meth was seized and secured as evidence......no proof of any kind to the contrary having been presented at trial. The written criminal complaint that has been issued against me by Deputy Attorney General Justin Whatcott asserts that I had stated under oath that I was willing to render a fair and impartial verdict based solely upon the evidence presented in the courtroom and the law as instructed... (Be it noted, however, that in this case the judge addressed the jury only generally as a whole, directing no questions to me personally, and so I felt no reason to state anything at that time. An underlying reason for this was the genuine faith, trust, and high esteem in which I had always held Judge Bradbury, ever since first meeting him at the start of his campaign for election a few years ago. I had attended candidate forums and heard him speak, and also more than once when he came to address our local civic group. Always Judge Bradbury impressed me (and my friends as well) through his strong pledge and promise to restore our district court and maintain it in fair and total service of the people. I personally posted and circulated campaign literature in support of Judge Bradbury, and was delighted when we succeeded in voting him into office. I will never forget being in attendance at the swearing-in ceremony for our new county commission, over which our equally-new Judge Bradbury presided. I remember how proud and happy I felt as he walked in, took the bench for perhaps his very first time, looked out at the overflowing crowd and said, Welcome to YOUR courtroom! I had never heard any judge say that before, and it was thrilling indeed. (It seemed that always before I had heard judges speak only in terms of my courtroom.) What a change! In Judge Bradbury, we felt blessed indeed with a true peoples judge. So it was that when at trial Judge Bradbury instructed us that we should apply the law as he would explain it to us, I expected no problem in doing that. I was sure that my favorite judge loved justice and honored the law, and I simply trusted that he would both explain it and apply it justly and competently. At that point in the proceedings, therefore, there was nothing to which I felt I needed to object. Thus, trustingly, I remained silent. It has been alleged by certain of my accusers that at the time of taking the jury oath and hearing the instructions of the judge I had already pre-decided to vote for acquittal, regardless of what the facts of the case or the law warranted. This is most absurd, and could not be more patently false, for at that early stage, none of us had even the slightest idea as to what the case was about, so how could I have pre-decided? When the time did come for deciding guilt or innocense, I did exactly as instructed. I had taken an oath promising to render a fair and impartial verdict based on evidence presented at the trial, and I did exactly that. I cannot emphasize too strongly that the verdict I rendered in the Ed Clark case was based entirely upon the lack of any evidence presented linking the defendant to the drugs in question. In light of no demonstrated or proven connection or knowledge on the part of the defendant to the presence of the drugs, I had to vote to acquit. While, admittedly, I did have difficulty, on moral and spiritual grounds, with at least one other aspect of the case handling, this latter comprised an

entirely separate matter, and did not at all figure into the reason I voted for acquittal. We can now examine that difficulty somewhat in detail: For me, by far the most troubling point in the trial proceedings arose over the officers forced search of the defendants car, having obtained no warrant to do so. As soon as the first of the two arresting officers took the witness stand, I immediately raised that point in the form of a written question submitted by way of the judge. The question read basically as follows: In your understanding of the law, Officer, was it lawful and proper for you to force search the defendants pickup without first obtaining a warrant? As I remember, Judge Bradbury did not read this question aloud (as he did verbatim most all of the others), but rather merely announced that the question had to do with the legality of the vehicle search, adding that sometime prior to trial it was agreed (presumably among the judge and lawyers in conference) that the search was legal. Accordingly, Judge Bradbury did not permit the officer on the stand to respond as to his personal understanding of the lawfulness of his actions. This left me feeling most distraught and disappointed. After all, I thought, we were there at trial precisely because of evidence obtained as a result of that warrantless search, even though the defendant had been confronted and originally detained over a totally different concern! (Incidentally, I kept looking at the defense lawyer, wondering how in the world he could keep so silent in the face of an issue so crucial to his client. Later on, I concluded [privately] that it must have been because some sort of prior agreement or settlement had been made.) Undeterred, however, and not at all satisfied with the explanation given thus far, I sent up to the judge once again precisely the same written question, just as soon as the second arresting officer had taken the stand. This time the judge merely read the question to himself and then said something like, This is questioning again the legality of the vehicle search, which, as already explained, was declared legal. And so the second officer likewise was not allowed to respond. In addition to this twice-submitted question, as court adjourned at the close of the first day and we jurors filed past the bench, I attempted to appeal to Judge Bradburys personal sensitivities by handing him a lengthier, prepared note which (if my memory serves me correctly) was in regards to my on-going, 4th Amendment concerns in the matter. Again, if I remember rightly, the judge opened the proceedings the following morning by merely mentioning that a juror had continued concerns regarding the search, but that the matter was to be laid to rest and not considered. As I saw it, in light of the prosecutions complete failure during trial to prove guilt on the part of the defendant, coupled with what I viewed as a horrendous violation of the latters constitutionally-guaranteed rights in the matter of the unwarranted search, I recall feeling sadly surprised and even horrified when, as deliberations commenced in the jury room, I listened to various initial comments from at least half of the jurors (before it got around to my turn). To my amazement, most indicated a bias against the defendant. Rather than focusing on real evidence presented against him (or the lack of it!) the young man was being criticized for everything from his casual dress to looking guilty to his (supposed) cocky eye contact and confident smiles he frequently directed to members of the jury. (Personally, I thought that he conducted himself extremely well for his age, and considering the situation he was in.) So, when it came my turn to speak, I was feeling upset and voiced openly my concern about what seemed to me a wrongful search on the part of the police. The jury foreman then reminded me that

the judge had ruled out the matter of the search, and that we were not allowed to consider it. Nevertheless, I let them know that I thought that that warrantless search had been unAmerican, and (frankly) a violation of the defendants 4th Amendment rights, no matter how much it had been declared legal by certain court authorities. I said something like, I cant take my orders merely from a judge, but am bound by a higher authority to render fair and just judgment according to the dictates of my own conscience in trying to protect the rights of the accused. I added a few other comments about how greatly it concerned me that the American people were not aware of and did not understand the hierarchy of law, resulting in our failure to properly monitor and hold our public servants accountable in securing the citizens individual and collective rights. At this, the jury foreman became more upset, almost yelling at me that I should have told that to the judge at the time he was instructing us on applying the law. But, I have a God-given right to serve as a juror, and had I said that, I would not have been allowed on the case. I was remembering, as I always will, an experience in a California courtroom many years before when the judge was instructing potential jurors in the usual way. When he came to the point of telling us that we must apply the law exactly as he would instruct us to do, I raised my hand and said, It is my understanding that as a juror my duty is to judge the law as well as the facts in the case. He immediately called me and the counsel team up to the bench where, in a whisper, he said, Maam, would you please repeat what you said? I did so in an equally hushed voice. After glancing nervously at the lawyers for a moment, the judge then turn to me and said, Thank you, Maam; youre excused. So ended my chances of serving on that jury. But back to the case at hand: The foreman, with at least one other gentleman juror voicing agreement, then said something like, Well then it looks like you could be facing big trouble here; you just could be charged with perjury. Even then not realizing quite how serious he was, I quietly responded, I suppose maybe I could. The foreman finished taking comments from the remaining jurors, then asked for a show of hands for the vote: The tally was 8 guilty, 4 not guilty. After a little more discussion, the vote was taken a second time, but no change occurred. The jury returned to the courtroom and the verdict was read, with the judge declaring a mistrial. I later learned that immediately following court adjournment that day, certain fellow jurors reported me to the judge and/or the county prosecutor. This set the wheels in motion, resulting ultimately in my being criminally charged. Carol J. Asher