Frank Nugent

Text and photo by Ken Bush

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The MoLP's 1992 lieutenant-governor candidate, former Gravois, MO Township MoLP Committeman, and co-founder and director of the Missouri affiliate of the national jury-rights group, Fully-Informed Jury Association, Franklin M. ("Frank") Nugent, died of cardiac arrest at his home in Oakland, MO in suburban St. Louis on the morning of March 21, 2004. He was four months shy of his 80^th birthday.

In 1996, as director of FIJA-MO, Frank Nugent testifies at a hearing of the MO. House Judiciary Committee in Jefferson City for a bill to force judges to fully inform jurors of the jury's true powers. The bill did not pass out of committee after the Missouri Bar Association condemned it.

He inspired with his passionate writings and speeches, helped liberty-minded projects by his generous donations, and, with wife Dorie, provided gracious hospitality to local activists and national libertarian luminaries.

"Though Frank gave dynamite speeches, it was behind the scenes that Frank shined," notes Mary Anne Gassmann, former chair of the Jefferson County (MO) Libertarians. "He wisely counseled us younger activists, devoting funds and equipment, or he and Dorie would turn their home into a temporary motel and bunker for marchers or petitioners for the latest cause at hand."

Paul Jacob referred to Nugent as a "great libertarian and libertarian resource." Paul, now the president of Citizens-In-Charge Foundation based in Virginia, is legendary for his leadership and coordination of countless LP and other ballot drives.

"In 1988 in particular, Frank and Dorie literally made it possible that we (LP) got on the ballot in Missouri and to a degree in neighboring Illinois. They turned their home into an army barracks: 40 or more ragged petitioners from all parts of the country, many whom bunked out on the floor of their bedrooms or in their basement. For a few grueling months their living room became a cluttered beehive - command central for me and the clearinghouse for the volunteers to compile all those signature sheets.

"And he treated me and those petitioners, strangers, as his cordial guests."

"Campaigning for the White House is grueling. I did it twice," recalled André Marrou, now living in Texas. He was Nugent's favorite LP candidate for U.S. v.p. (1988) and president ('92). "But my stays in St. Louis were unique -- quite a hospitable base of operations. Frank not only offered sage advice on a wide spectrum of campaign issues, he provided a bed and breakfast AND OFFICE, replete with my own phone line, fax machine and the latest Apple computer of the era. I speak for other libertarian visitors in revering his memory."

"In the formative days of the Advocates my first speaking engagement in Missouri was in the mid '80s," recalled Marshal Fritz from Fesno, CA, founder of the national nonprofit group Advocates for Self-Government. "Local libertarian's volunteered a man named Frank Nugent to pick me up at the airport. Two things first struck me at the time. Frank was so darned warm and friendly, and the dog-eared book on his dashboard: (Murray) Rothbard's 'For a New Liberty.' Frank proudly said it (and FA Hayek's work) was a pivotal intellectual turning point for him in becoming a libertarian. He reread it frequently and treated it like his bible.

"The Nugent's had a gift of charming hospitality and good food. I've traveled extensively and they were the finest hosts in the whole country. He not only generously gave funds to help my then-fledgling Advocates, he gave me my first cordless phone!"

F. I. J. A. ------

"My dad's exposure to libertarian authors and his life-long commitment to social-justice issues led to his involvement in the early expansion of the Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA)," recalled his son David Nugent, a college professor in Maine.

Recalled Larry Dodge: "In St. Louis, back in 1990, Frank Nugent and Ken Bush coordinated the very first national FIJA-Con(ference)." Dodge, one of FIJA's founding fathers (now retired and living in Panama) said that the St. Louis summit networked judges, lawyers and scholars with FIJA activists. "The national media noticed too. A front-page feature article in the Wall Street Journal in fact. Our jury-rights movement really took off then. Now the movement just lost a great guy and I a great friend. I'm grateful he left us many compelling essays on the vital role of informed juries."

In 1990 Nugent and the late Terry Inman founded the Missouri affiliate of FIJA (FIJA-MO). Nugent continued to serve as the FIJA-MO director and chief spokesman until his death. He frequently debated the topic in the media or public forums, sometimes against a judge or prosecuting attorney.

National radio host George Noory (of the overnight show "Coast-To-Coast A.M.") was first exposed to FIJA through Nugent's hour-long interview on Noory's program.

What's FIJA?

FIJA-MO's goals are to inform everyone that a jury can lawfully take written notes, question witnesses, and - Nugent's most fervent cause -- deliberate on a court case's facts AND laws. Thus a jury could find defendants not guilty because the jury finds the law to be unjust. Nugent would plead: "A jury so empowered is the anchor of justice in our rule of law." The title of his most acclaimed speech: "Jury Veto Power -- The Best Kept Secret of Judges and Prosecutors."

Nugent often concluded his talks with a summation: "Jury veto power is the final check and balance in our system of government to stop a bad law or too harsh a sentence from harming a defendant in that particular case. Citizens, as trial jurors, hold the key to real participatory democracy IF they are fully informed of their little-known rights and powers. "

"In the last fourteen years of his life, FIJA was his greatest cause," noted long-time Nugent friend and FIJA-MO cohort Roy Lieberman of south St. Louis county. "How ironic that my good friend Frank died thirteen years to the day two other libertarians died: the MoLP's other revered elder activist Ogden Scoville of Springfield, MO and Nobel-prize economist, Fredrick Hayek."

Bio Brief ----

Though he grew up in St. Louis, he was born in Lincoln, Nebraska. He and his brother spent a few years of his youth in a boys home.

He served in the Army in World War II and graduated in 1951 with a bachelor's degree in education from Washington University. He was one course shy of a masters degree in counseling - a skill he would informally use later in life.

Nugent and his wife Dorie owned their own insurance agency and some apartments in Jefferson County. They reared two sons, James and David, in the St. Louis area.

Dorie notes: Frank's passion was the lessons of history and the dynamics of the social world, though he read widely in archeology and cosmology. He greatly admired and personally corresponded with Immanuel Velikovsky.

Not only volunteering to advance liberty and freedom, Nugent did charitable work too.

"Frank had a special gift working with severely autistic children," observed his sister-in-law, Bonnie Rosen of U. City. "Some kids wouldn't respond to professional therapists, but Frank was magically able to get through to the kids."

Bill Frasure, of Creve Coeur, a longtime Kiwanis organizer in St. Louis, recollected: "Frank came through big time for St. Louis area Kiwanis. He helped raise and deliver over $350,000 in donated supplies and medical equipment for a charitable clinic on a poverty-stricken island of Honduras."

From Left to Libertarian ----

"My dad was a liberal most of his life, until the 1970's, when he read (then-popular gold-bug authors) Harry Browne and Howard Katz," remembered his son James Nugent.

To a concern for social justice Nugent now added what he dubbed "monetary justice" - restoring economic equity to the masses through an "honest monetary system of 100% redeemable gold" rather than today's fiat currency "merely backed by debt."

Nugent was particularly struck by Howard Katz's scholarship showing the correlation between a government's money creation and its ability to warmonger.

Through the monetary issue Nugent discovered the books of the late libertarian economist Murray Rothbard and F.A. Hayek that converted Frank from liberalism to libertarianism.

So by the early '80s, adding to his life-long concern for social justice, Nugent now embraced economic justice through free markets and capitalism. Both civil liberties and free markets -- the two criteria that define a libertarian.

But how did FMN get from small "l" to big "L"?

In 1984 Nugent wrote a libertarian-leaning letter published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch which caught the attention of then-Libertarian activist Terry Inman, who invited Nugent to his first of many MoLP meetings to come.

Nugent soon thereafter joined the state and national Libertarian Party.

With an even-handed zeal to fight injustices, Frank would now write many more libertarian newspaper lettters and essays. With his new Libertarian comrades-in-arms he could be spotted at various Midwest hearings or protests against injustice:

He attended rallies against foreign military entanglements and government denying sexual freedoms or full gun rights, or a city misusing eminent-domain laws to expand a shopping center or the St. Louis airport. As a libertarian he spoke out for both unfettered free enterprise and speech -- against subsidies for corporations, farmers, art projects and stadiums, and against censorship.

He was always upset that the laws protecting freedom of speech didn't embrace commercial speech too, one reason he quit his membership in the ACLU. He loved turning people on to the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the Bill of Rights and the Constitution's gold & silver clause in Art. I Sec. 10. But he mainly felt compelled to get the libertarian word out to liberals that they, like he once, weren't aware of an underlying free-market violation that caused the very problems they feel only government can solve, like inflation, poverty, street crimes, deforestation or pollution.

As a lifelong avid outdoorsman he and his family camped and boated throughout North America. Perhaps that's why he felt a particular affinity and appreciation of free-enterprise environmentalism and wrote about it often.

Nugent also had his two constructive criticisms of many Libertarians: He felt that federal and state candidates and the parties don't emphasize fully-informed jury issues nearly enough nor support America adopting on-going national referendums like Switzerland, ala (1989 Nobel Peace Prize nominee) Francis Kendall's speech at the '89 national LP convention. Nugent felt both issues would capture the public's attention, more positively differentiate us from other groups, and pointedly threaten the "government-corporate axis."

But apart from the politics, Frank Nugent spent life to the fullest with myriad talents and interests: He read academic journals on holistic medicine, astronomy, and visited and read about Egyptian and Mayan pyramids. He was a self-taught piano player, mechanic, remodeler, and repairman. His favorite pastimes were playing with and entertaining his five grandkids or motorhoming with his wife around the continent. Yet he often made time to focus his many talents and resources to help alert human beings to the peace and bounty to arise from a world of< limited government and more private initiative.

Nugent's ardent advise to a fellow activist or candid council to a friend, or his (oral and written) compelling challenges to the liberal and conservative mindset, were heartfelt and forthright. He was blunt and get-to-the-point. He was "Frank" in more ways than one. To those fortunate friends or nieces and nephews that he respectfully and lovingly spoke to over the years, Nugent's middle initial "M" seemed to stand for "mentor."

Many activists knew only his political side. He did it so well that it seemed it was that way his whole life. But he joined these struggles in but the last two decades of his 79 years. Notwithstanding, I know I speak for many in posthumously recognizing Franklin McEwen Nugent as our Libertarian elder statesman.

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A memorial service for Frank M. Nugent was held in Ladue, MO on March 27th at the Ethical Society. Over 140 relatives, friends and colleagues gathered in the Society's theater from around the country. His favorite hard-money author Howard Katz was there from Massachusetts, as well as long-time Libertarian officers from the St. Louis metropolitan area: LaDonna & Jim Higgins, Steve & Lisa Schaper, Lloyd Sloan, Eric Harris, Mike D'Hooge, Mary Anne & Herb Gassmann, Maggie & son Alek Burnes, and Roy Lieberman.

Nugent family friend Tamara Millay of St. Louis was campaigning in Arkansas (for her bid to be the LP's 2004 vice-presidential candidate) at the time of the memorial service so she sent her regrets to his family.

In the audience was Nugent's movie-going and camping buddy, Libertarian Tony Stever, who Frank's niece Sara Rosen, of San Francisco, acknowledged during her memorial speech from the podium.

It was Stever who saved her "Uncle Bud's" life in the early 1990s when, on a camping trip near a river, the Nugent's motorhome broke loose from its perch and nearly crushed Nugent and pinned him under the water. Stever jumped to the rescue and got Nugent out of harms way.

Frank later feigned regret: "Now I'll be forever indebted to the bastard!"

In addition to his wife of 55 years, Doris Marglous Nugent, his survivors include two sons, James W. Nugent of St. Louis and David Nugent of Waterville, Maine and five grandchildren.

The family requests that any memorial contributions be made to the Fully-Informed Jury Association, P.O. Box 5570, Helena, Mont. 59604-5570.

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