Everybody talks about the polarization between the Left and the Right in this country.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think it\u2019s overstated.\u00a0 The Trump hush money trial in Manhattan is the perfect litmus test for this polarization.\u00a0 If you can believe that he is getting a fair trial then you are living in a separate reality.\u00a0 The degree to which the judge has put his thumb on the scales of justice is pretty breathtaking.\u00a0 He has managed to instruct the jury that beyond a reasonable doubt is no longer the criterion for conviction.\u00a0 In fact, he is allowing the jurors to decide what exactly the underlying crime is without recourse to any particular part of the penal code.<\/p>\n
But I guess I\u2019m curious what percentage of the population in this country is okay with this.\u00a0 Because even if it\u2019s as low as forty five percent then that\u2019s a really big problem.\u00a0 The Left is about a third of the populace.\u00a0 If there is another twelve percent of the people who are completely on board with a court railroading a presidential candidate just because they don\u2019t like the way he parts his hair then we\u2019re already past the point where things can be fixed.\u00a0 There has to be two thirds or at least three fifths of the people who are relatively sane to protect us all from the crazies.\u00a0 We can\u2019t expect to just squeak past every one of the forks in the road where the insane are pushing us to ride off a cliff.\u00a0 It can\u2019t always be 51-49.\u00a0 One of these days we will go over the edge.<\/p>\n
Many years ago, I served on a jury where the prosecution was trying to railroad a guy on a charge of making a death threat against his ex-wife.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 After the trial the judge shared with us that there was an underlying custody battle going on and this charge was a part of that struggle.\u00a0 But the only person who supposedly had heard the threat was the couple\u2019s two-year-old daughter.\u00a0 Her mother claimed that the girl had told her of the threat that her father had made in front of her during a visit with him.\u00a0 But every time they tried to put the two-year-old on the witness stand she burst into tears and then we were sequestered while the prosecution attempted to bolster the little girl for the next attempt at questioning.\u00a0 After the third attempt the judge put an end to this charade and we were sent into the jury room to deliberate.\u00a0 Well, I\u2019ll tell you it was 11-1 and I don\u2019t suppose you have to wonder who was one.\u00a0 Eventually they tried to talk me into splitting the decision by voting guilty to one of the lesser charges.\u00a0 You know, split the difference.\u00a0 So, I asked them what part of beyond a reasonable doubt didn\u2019t apply to any of the charges.<\/p>\n
Now that day I had gone into the courtroom determined to hang\u2019em high.\u00a0 No namby-pamby bleeding-heart nonsense for me.\u00a0 The guilty must pay.\u00a0 And this guy didn\u2019t look like me or lived his life as I did.\u00a0 But suddenly all these other people who looked and lived like me were exposing their real feelings about unbiased justice.\u00a0 They were just picking the side they liked.\u00a0 To hell with the facts or the lack of facts.\u00a0 They were willing to send this man to prison for five years without proof.\u00a0 It was monstrous.<\/p>\n
Three hours later they called it a hung jury and the judge talked to us and admitted that using a two-year-old as a witness was ludicrous and a little cruel.\u00a0 But my fellow jurors were very angry with me.\u00a0 They wanted to send a message regardless of the facts; \u201cbelieve the woman.\u201d\u00a0 Going home that night I had a sickening feeling about what justice in this country had become.\u00a0 Imagine your fate is decided not by the evidence but by what you look like.\u00a0 That was a chilling discovery.<\/p>\n
Now I know it\u2019s a forlorn hope, but I admit I\u2019d love to see an 11-1 hung jury.\u00a0 That would send a powerful message that there are still a few honest men left.\u00a0 And we really do need that message.\u00a0 Because otherwise there isn\u2019t any way that we can go forward together.\u00a0 If the truth is just an inconvenience that we have to shrug off to get what we want then we\u2019re doomed.<\/p>\n
Update – 30MAY2024 – Yep, we’re doomed.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Everybody talks about the polarization between the Left and the Right in this country.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think it\u2019s overstated.\u00a0 The Trump hush money trial in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4500,4569,16],"class_list":["post-29005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","tag-equal-justice","tag-kangaroo-court","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\n