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Buju Banton Trial Day!

Buju Jury Instructions

Our friendly neighborhood federal blogger goes to trial this morning in Tampa on behalf of Jamaican reggae artist Buju Banton.

This being the 21st Century, of course there's a FB page:

His fans have launched a letter-writing campaign against his prosecution and plan a rally outside the courthouse when he goes on trial today.

There are also Facebook pages, websites and T-shirts in support of Buju Banton, a four-time, Grammy-nominated reggae musician facing federal drug charges in a case his lawyer says was entrapment.

More than 100 people have responded to a Facebook invitation posted by Tampa area supportersto rally outside the federal courthouse on North Florida Avenue.

"I'm sure there's going to be a lot of people showing up," said fan Kay Bonacci, 58, of Largo. "This is a big thing. This isn't just America. This is all over the world."

Because I'm a wonk, I checked out the voir dire and proposed jury instructions just to see how they were framed.

And indeed you can get a good sense of where David is going with the defense from the proposed jury instructions, which deal with nice things like entrapment, testimony of co-defendant with plea agreement, and other instructions civil lawyers rarely encounter.

Full post as published by South Florida Lawyers on September 20, 2010 (boomark / email).