Biography
Mark Edward Schmidter is a Florida contractor, Vietnam veteran and jury-nullification activist associated with the Fully Informed Jury Association. Orange County authorities arrested him on June 29, 2011 for distributing jury-rights pamphlets to prospective jurors outside the courthouse during the Casey Anthony trial. Chief Judge Belvin Perry convicted him of two counts of indirect criminal contempt and imposed concurrent terms of 141 and 151 days, but Schmidter remained free on appeal. After an appellate court invalidated one of the two orders and affirmed the other contempt finding, he entered the Orange County Jail on February 21, 2013. He was released June 5 after serving 104 days. Apopka police arrested him again on September 14, 2013 while he distributed petitions against red-light cameras; he spent about eleven hours in jail and was released on $500 bond.
