Letter: U.N. wants unfair trials

Friday, July 5, 2002 | 8:45 a.m.

One of the most cherished rights of Americans is threatened by the U.N.'s International Criminal Court (ICC) in Belgium -- the right to trial by jury.

The U.S. Constitution (Article III, Section 2, Clause 3) provides that "The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed ..." This right was so important it was repeated in the Sixth Amendment.

In the Declaration of Independence, our Founding Fathers charged that King George "combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws ..." as well as "depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury," and "transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences."

The ICC will return us to that tyranny because it does not allow trial by jury and threatens us with foreign jurisdiction and with transporting our citizens overseas for imprisonment and so-called "trial."

The only constitutional position for Americans is to support efforts like Congressman Ron Paul's American Sovereignty Restoration Act, H.R. 1146, which would withdraw the U.S. from membership in the U.N. and cut all U.S. funding to the United Nations.

BECKY MADDOX