Libertarian activist sues DHS, FDNY, NYC hospitals for rights violations

Julian Heicklen is back, and this time the libertarian activist from New Jersey isn't lying down for anyone.

Heicklen announced to his supporters that he is filing criminal and civil complaints this week against federal, state, and city officials and institutions for repeated civil rights violations.

"lying down on the job?" When police threaten to arrest him for
   exercising his freedom of speech on  public property, as they
  did on October 26, 2009, Julian Heicklen goes limp and silent,
  refusing to participate in his own illegal arrest. (screenshot
  from YouTube/Derek DeMarco).

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More about Julian Heicklen:

• Libertarian activist abused by police, paramedics, hospital staff
  

• Hospital wants payment for libertarian's forced Thorazine injection
  

• Police harass FIJA activist, arrest videographer
  

• Libertarian freedom activist forcibly hospitalized and drugged
  

• Jury activist arrested for exercising First Amendment rights
  
• To support Julian Heicklen and his freedom of speech movement, contact him at jph13@psu.edu. (NOTE: federal agents may be monitoring emails.)

Named in the suits are the US Department of Homeland Security, New York City Fire Department, Saint Vincent Hospital, Bellevue Medical Center, New York Downtown Hospital, US Central Violations Bureau, and the US District Magistrate, among others.

The civil complaints were mailed to the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Wednesday, January 27, and the criminal complaints will be in the mail early this week.

The complaints stem from official responses to Heicklen's attempt to distribute information about jury rights.

For six straight weeks last October and November, Penn State University Professor Emeritus Julian Heicklen arrived outside the federal courthouse in Manhattan to distribute Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA) pamphlets to potential jurors.

On each occasion, Homeland Security police insisted he stop distributing the brochures while Heicklen insisted it was his Constitutional right to do so on public property. The confrontation inevitably ended with police announcing Heicklen's arrest, to which Heicklen responded by lying down on the pavement and refusing to respond.

From there the storyline would take different courses. He was usually searched for ID, had his JURY INFO sign and remaining pamphlets confiscated, sometimes given a receipt and a citation or summons, and either handcuffed or allowed to leave.

Normally he was handcuffed and an ambulance was summoned to take him to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation.

  Julian Heicklen is confronted by police for apparently committing the
  crime of free speech on public property (screenshot from video by bile)

Usually he was examined and allowed to leave. But in one case he was forcibly injected with Thorazine, a strong and potentially dangerous antipsychotic drug, and kept overnight against his will.

During his last attempt to inform potential jurors of their rights as jury members he was grabbed by police, punched and pounded on by paramedics, stripped naked at the hospital and stuck with needles without his permission.

"My intent for passing out FIJA literature is to stop the judges from lying to the juries" about jury nullification, Heicklen told supporters. But after Department of Homeland Security Police stopped him during his first effort, "the issue of more importance to me is the First Amendment issue of free speech."

NOTE: Julian Heicklen's reports to his supporters are routinely posted on the New Jersey Libertarian Party website by NJLP newsletter editor Len Flynn.

 
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