USA v. Donald J. Trump – Indictment 8/1/23

[necrovore]

An article about the implications for the rule of law:

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/democrats-have-broken-america-wheres-outrage

[Doug Morris]

13 hours ago, necrovore said:

An article about the implications for the rule of law:

How much is there to back this up?

 

[DavidOdden]

2 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

How much is there to back this up?

One of the primary claims in the article, which I find to be sufficiently well-supported by observable facts over the past 60+ years, is that conservatives held the rule of law to be a fundamental virtue and a central premise of conservatism. The second implication is that the Democrats are working hard to somehow eliminate the threat of Donald Trump, and furthermore their methods are not intellectually honest, which again I cannot see any basis for disagreeing with. As part of the lack of intellectual honesty of which I speak, there is a thorough and selective hypocrisy in the actions of Democrats, purportedly in aid of upholding the law. There is a substantive question regarding Biden’s participation in his offspring’s power-peddling which I have no position on. It is rather well-documented that Biden’s administration, through David Weiss, slow-walked tax avoidance charges to the point that the statute of limitations expired on 2014 and 2015 charges, and was just appointed special counsel to investigate his conduct.

None of this is particularly surprising to me, and illustrates a basic shift in political strategy that has been in progress over the past half century – the death of Reagan conservatism. My use of the past tense in referring to the relationship between conservatives and the rule of law is deliberate. Trump’s main “contribution” to conservatism is the elimination of the last lofty moral standard that made conservatives marginally palatable – he managed to sink the right into the same pit that the left has been wallowing in for decades, only deeper.

There is one significant error in the article, where it says “Only their steadfast commitment to this traditional ideal explains why conservatives are allowing Democrats to flagrantly corrupt our judicial system to destroy their opponents and protect themselves”. What conservatives? They are all dead, retired, or usurped. What we have, instead, is a party distinction that doesn’t reflect an ideology.

[Doug Morris]

David Odden, do you think our system of democratic elections and orderly transfers of power will survive?

 

[DavidOdden]

All told, I expect things to procede as normal for the rest of my life, barring extraordinary events (the stuff of sci-fi). I do expect an uptick in electoral litigation, but at least the present Supreme Court will most likely not tolerate a surprise legal theory that turns a loser into a winner. There were a number of opportunities for SCOTUS to hand the election to Trump and they were all rejected, and they recently nipped in the bud a theory that might have worked to the advantage of Trump-types. There is absolutely no reason to think that the military would intervene in the transfer of power. Now, as for the behavior of the general population, there were numerous anti-Trump riots after he won the election, which didn’t get much attention.

We can only hope that someone besides Trump is the Republican nominee in 2024. The only thing that would be worse than Trump winning would be Trump losing. It has been a long time since there has been a successful coup in the First World.

[Jon Letendre]

A long time? 2020 was just three years ago.

And, as RFK Jr points out there was also one in November '63.

As Tucker said to Trump the other day, they will have to kill him.

[necrovore]

This country is like a certain Surfside condo. You can see the cracking, the spalling, the exposed corroded rebar, but nothing will happen right away.

Just wait until the time of maximum stress.

[Boydstun]

 

ACLU Argues Trump Gag Order in Federal Election Subversion Case Is Unconstitutional

[Boydstun]

On 10/25/2023 at 10:31 PM, Boydstun said:

 

ACLU Argues Trump Gag Order in Federal Election Subversion Case Is Unconstitutional

Trump Gag Order Is Partially Upheld in Jan. 6 Case

Quote

 

. . .

The appeals court panel, led by Judge Patricia Millett, said that like other criminal defendants, Trump does not enjoy unfettered rights to speak. Her opinion Friday afternoon said Trump's lawyers had "miscast" Supreme Court precedent and offered no meaningful limits on what such a defendant could say outside already clear violations of federal law.

. . . 

The D.C. Circuit [United States Court of Appeals – DC Circuit] ruling preserves restrictions on Trump and other parties in the case from disparaging likely witnesses in the election-interference case because of their expected testimony or participation in the investigation. It also bars Trump and others from making such remarks about court staffers and lower-level prosecutors involved in next year's trial, as well as their family members.

. . .

Considering Trump's argument that his ongoing political campaign and his criminal defense strategy are deeply intertwined, the court wrote, "the existence of a political campaign or political speech does not alter the court's historical commitment or obligation to ensure the fair administration of justice in criminal cases.”

. . .

"Mr. Trump is a former president and a current candidate for the presidency, and there is a strong public interest in what he has to say," the court wrote. "But Mr. Trump is also an indicted criminal defendant and he must stand trial in a courtroom under the same procedures that govern all other criminal defendants. That is what the rule of law means."

 

 

Edited December 9, 2023 by Boydstun

[Boydstun]

On 12/8/2023 at 9:46 PM, Boydstun said:

Trump Gag Order Is Partially Upheld in Jan. 6 Case

 

Petition for rehearing en banc by appellate court denied.

[Boydstun]

Appellate court for D.C. federal court in the case United States of America v. Donald J. Trump has ruled that the former President does not have immunity against criminal prosecutions. I expect the U.S. Supreme Court to let the ruling and its reasoning stand by not accepting an appeal.

Quote

Since then, hundreds of people who breached the Capitol on January 6, 2021, have been prosecuted and imprisoned. And on August 1, 2023, in Washington, D.C., former President Trump was charged in a four-count Indictment as a result of his actions challenging the election results and interfering with the sequence set forth in the Constitution for the transfer of power from one President to the next. Former President Trump moved to dismiss the Indictment and the district court denied his motion. Today, we affirm the denial. For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant. But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution.

 

Edited February 7 by Boydstun

[Boydstun]

CNN got this new information on this 'unnamed co-conspirator' in the case that is the topic of this thread using the Wayback machine to retrieve posts of Chesebro when his twitter account had been a public one. Chesebro had not used his real name for that account, but has now admitted that it was he Chesebro posting.

"Kenneth Chesebro, the . . . attorney who helped devise the Trump campaign’s fake electors plot in 2020, concealed a secret Twitter account from Michigan prosecutors, hiding dozens of damning posts that undercut his statements to investigators about his role in the election subversion scheme, a CNN KFile investigation has found.

"Chesebro claimed to investigators he saw the alternate slates of Republican electors only as a contingency plan to have ready in case the Trump campaign won any of its more than 60 lawsuits challenging the election results — which it didn’t. He also told Michigan investigators that in his conversations with the Trump campaign, he made clear that “state legislatures have no power to override the courts.”

"But just days after the 2020 election, BadgerPundit tweeted that the court battles didn’t matter and that Republican-controlled legislatures should send in their own GOP electors, predicting even then that then-Vice President Mike Pence could use them to throw the election to Trump.

“You don’t get the big picture. Trump doesn’t have to get courts to declare him the winner of the vote. He just needs to convince Republican legislatures that the election was systematically rigged, but it’s impossible to run it again, so they should appoint electors instead,” wrote BadgerPundit on November 7, 2020, the day multiple media outlets, including CNN, called the election for Joe Biden.

"Yet in his interview with Michigan investigators, Chesebro said the very opposite, claiming that the entire electors plan was contingent on the courts.

"'I saw no scenario where Pence could count any vote for any state because there hadn’t been a court or a legislature in any state backing any of the alternate electors,' Chesebro said.

"Pro-Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro told Michigan investigators that he told the Trump 2020 campaign that the “alternate electors” should only be used in conjunction with ongoing litigation. But CNN found tweets from 2020 where Chesebro dismissed the role of the courts and said the electors alone could overturn the election.

"The fake electors plot features prominently in special counsel Jack Smith’s federal election subversion indictment against Trump, who has pleaded not guilty. Chesebro has been identified by CNN as an unindicted co-conspirator in that case.

"Chesebro was indicted alongside Trump in a separate 2020 election interference case in Georgia. He struck a plea deal there in October, agreeing to plead guilty to one felony count of conspiracy to commit filing false documents. He gave proffer interviews to Georgia prosecutors as part of the cooperation agreement, though it’s unclear if he was asked about his social media accounts.

"Michigan investigators secured Chesebro’s cooperation in December, after previously charging the 16 fake electors in that state with multiple felonies. Chesebro has additionally met with investigators in Wisconsin and Arizona who are probing their fake electors, and he avoided charges in Nevada after cooperating with prosecutors there."

[tadmjones]

https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/roles

What is a fake elector? The specific form of the certificate of the ascertainment is not 'spelled out' federally, but the legal requirements that must be present in the documents are. So how did people conspire to submit 'fake slates of electors', are those being charged in Michigan alleged to have forged documents of this kind being shown to have submitted forms containing votes tallied? Were these documents signed/affixed with the state seal by the executive? If not how can they be considered to be 'fake' electors?

I think you can indict a ham sandwich and these cases smell fishy like overcharged ham.

Edited February 27 by tadmjones

[Boydstun]

5 hours ago, tadmjones said:

https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/roles

What is a fake elector? The specific form of the certificate of the ascertainment is not 'spelled out' federally, but the legal requirements that must be present in the documents are. So how did people conspire to submit 'fake slates of electors', are those being charged in Michigan alleged to have forged documents of this kind being shown to have submitted forms containing votes tallied? Were these documents signed/affixed with the state seal by the executive? If not how can they be considered to be 'fake' electors?

I think you can indict a ham sandwich and these cases smell fishy like overcharged ham.

The charges: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23880285/felony-complaints-redacted-combined.pdf

The sixteen defendants are accused of producing and attempting to use a false certificate of ascertainment containing electoral votes for Donald Trump, who had lost the 2020 U.S. presidential election in Michigan. The defendants were indicted in July 2023 on criminal charges of forgery, uttering, and conspiracy in attempting a fraud, as I understand it. 

One of the defendants is now cooperating with the prosecution. 

Summary statement from the AG: 

“The evidence will demonstrate there was no legal authority for the false electors to purport to act as ‘duly elected presidential electors’ and execute the false electoral documents,” Nessel continued. “Every serious challenge to the election had been denied, dismissed, or otherwise rejected by the time the false electors convened. There was no legitimate legal avenue or plausible use of such a document or an alternative slate of electors. There was only the desperate effort of these defendants, who we have charged with deliberately attempting to interfere with and overturn our free and fair election process, and along with it, the will of millions of Michigan voters. That the effort failed and democracy prevailed does not erase the crimes of those who enacted the false electors plot.”

Some of the false electors have claimed they were not aware of what they were signing. Others said they believed signing the certification was in case a future court reversed the decision.

In the federal case in DC, special counsel Jack Smith alleged Trump’s team attempted to persuade GOP electors to sign their names on an alternative certificate to make a “fake controversy” that would provide grounds for then-Vice President Mike Pence to throw out the electoral votes during the certification of results on Jan. 6, 2021.

Edited February 28 by Boydstun

[tadmjones]

But as a legal matter they would then be alleged to have forged the executive’s signature / state seal ? Was there also uncovered a plot to abduct the couriers that would deliver the documentation from the Secretary of State with proper seals , so their known fraudulent documents would then be delivered to DC , or would two sets just confuse Pence? Or was the preparation of the unsealed documents the same crime that a forgery charge would apply? 
 

A reasonable reading of the situation , one hopefully provided by a prospective jury, should conclude that their intent was not that a blatant forgery would not be uncovered and the plot would by itself subvert the results of the presidential election.

Given the clusterfuck that was the 2020 election , I’m not willing to stipulate the results out of Michigan with seal weren’t  just as fraudulent though “legal”.

Edited February 28 by tadmjones

[Boydstun]

1 hour ago, tadmjones said:

But as a legal matter they would then be alleged to have forged the executive’s signature / state seal ? Was there also uncovered a plot to abduct the couriers that would deliver the documentation from the Secretary of State with proper seals , so their known fraudulent documents would then be delivered to DC , or would two sets just confuse Pence? Or was the preparation of the unsealed documents the same crime that a forgery charge would apply? 
 

A reasonable reading of the situation , one hopefully provided by a prospective jury, should conclude that their intent was not that a blatant forgery would not be uncovered and the plot would by itself subvert the results of the presidential election.

Given the clusterfuck that was the 2020 election , I’m not willing to stipulate the results out of Michigan with seal weren’t  just as fraudulent though “legal”.

Count 2 is FORGERY: did falsely make, alter, forge, or counterfeit a public record, with intent to injure or defraud, to-wit: Certificate of Votes of the 2020 Electors from Michigan.

There has been loads of evidence that the legally approved results out of Michigan, and indeed out of every State in both the 2020 and 2016 elections were correct. Same as in the election results in Florida in Bush v. Gore. The difference in 2020 was that our Subjectivist in Chief, with some yes-men legal counsel, cooked up ways to create fog by outlandish LIES (in the event legal election challenges brought in courts failed – 60 times brought and all failed around the country, as I recall) for the incumbent to remain in office even though this time he had lost. There was nothing special about the election process but the desperation brainstorming and execution of plans for creating delusion in minds of enough of his supporters to make them think there were "irregularities" in this particular election that threw the outcome to his opponent, and on that LIE (not mere falsehood), open an alternative, possibly legal process (such as Flynn, recorded on private video, brainstormed) by which to circumvent the vote result by the citizens in November 2020.

I imagine defendants claiming that they were not aware of what they were signing or were deceived of the situation in which it would be used would be a complete defense against a charge such as 2, which contains intent, if the prosecution does not have evidence persuading a jury those claims are false and false beyond a reasonable doubt.

PS – You don't always get out of criminal liabilities just because you did not succeed in the crime or even perhaps did not intend the intercepted crime. I recall a case that came up in the 1980's in which a worker entering some U.S. Nuclear Plant had a pistol in his bag which was discovered using the machines you go through when entering for work. I remember at our plant co-workers in nuclear longer than I chuckling at the offender's claim that he forgot the gun was in there; to which they replied: "the court will say 'Very funny. 15 years in the slammer'." There is a law against bringing any guns with you to that employment. Period. 

Edited February 28 by Boydstun

[DavidOdden]

One aspect of this case which is ignored by the media is that this cannot be taken to be a real effort to defraud, forge or falsify. The submitted documents do not even marginally resemble actual certificates of ascertainment, they are clearly political theater in the fashion of leftist political theater of the 1960’s. The recipients did not, would not, and could not take serious the premise that these are real and official documents, given what the real thing looks like. The “Electoral College of Michigan” is an invention. The Sec’y of State does not address the certificate to specific individuals, the document is created by the SOS not a supposed “chairperson” of a non-existent entity, the actual certificate lists all nominated electors including write-in candidates and various minor party candidates. Crucially, vote totals for everybody are included. None of this is included in the theatrical documents. Compare the fake document and the real one.

Michigan law does not state what it means when one “falsely makes, alters, forges, or counterfeits a public record, or a certificate”. Conviction will hang on proving intent, and proving it beyond reasonable doubt, which means, showing that alternative intentions must be objectively non-credible. However, since this is a political trial, defendant mental state will simply be assumed and will not be critically scrutinized. It is even possible that some number of them are willing to sacrifice themselves, in order to enhance the impact of conviction and imprisonment of the opposition, for a protected political-expressive act.

No aspect of Michigan election law addresses “legal authority for the false electors to purport to act as ‘duly elected presidential electors’ and execute the false electoral documents”, in fact the electors were actually nominated (it’s just that their candidate lost), and the documents do not purport to legally report vote totals, which is what determines which nominated electors get to vote in the final event. Thus the Michigan AG falsely and fraudulently purports elements of a non-existent crime. The AG falsely, abusively and fraudulently disregards the obvious political-theater purpose of these documents.

This is a prime example of the serious rot that has infected objective American law, that anything not sufficiently proven to be true is “fraud”. This is not what fraud means, but it is how the term has been redefined (on the other side of the fence, the right also flashes out charges of “fraud” at incautious statements, as an educational tit-for-tat example above I have accused the Michigan AG of fraud).

Because the First Amendment protects political theater, the left and right could easily join forces to fight against their common enemy and obstacle to political control – the First Amendment.

 

[DavidOdden]

14 hours ago, Boydstun said:

if the prosecution does not have evidence persuading a jury those claims are false and false beyond a reasonable doubt

Incidentally, no falsification crime is a strict liability crime (unlike underage sex of drunk driving charges), the prosecution must prove that the defendant knew that the statement was false.

[DavidOdden]

On 2/27/2024 at 5:23 PM, tadmjones said:

A reasonable reading of the situation , one hopefully provided by a prospective jury, should conclude that their intent was not that a blatant forgery would not be uncovered and the plot would by itself subvert the results of the presidential election.

I can’t decide if I agree or disagree, because we are talking about a fundamental contradiction baked into the legal system. The function of law in a proper society is to narrowly limit the use of force, following objective moral principles articulated by the government of that society. The function of the juror is to decide whether the accused has in fact breached those principles in a specific way. It is in the nature of objective law that conviction is for a specific prohibited act, and not for a general evil character, and it is part of the law that you convict only under specific circumstances, you do not convict because you subjectively believe that the person is evil (nor acquit because you feel that they are virtuous).

Under the law, the jury / a juror is not to provide a ‘reading of the situation’, they are to carefully scrutinize the data admitted by the court into the record, from which they draw a logical conclusion – a yes or no answer to a specific question asked by the court. “Are you persuaded that on this data, this person performed this specific prohibited act, having this specific intent?”. They are not to invent testimony not actually offered or to create arguments not actually proffered, they are simply to decide whether they are persuaded by the prosecution or not, based on the record.

This being a specific intent crime, the defense could just advance a version of the political theater argument, if the goal is to prevent conviction (assuming these are not sacrificial animals on trial). If the defense does not advance the myriad arguments that those were purely symbolic political acts, a juror could still decide that the defendants are virtuous therefore should not be convicted for their acts, and could decide to change function from neutral evaluator of the facts to partisan advocate for one side. Jury nullification is always an option, and the only cure for jurors subjectively ignoring the law is to eliminate trial by jury (maybe not a bad idea, but a huge change in the US legal system requiring constitutional amendment). In civil law systems, (professional) judges are unbiased finders of fact, not supervisors of process and interpreters of statutory meaning.

Under the law, jurors do not construct defense counter-arguments, they evaluate prosecution arguments, asking whether they possess reason (facts and argumentation) to doubt the prosecution’s argument. Hopefully, the defense will provide such reasons for doubt, and not leave it to the subjective whims of a biased juror. However, the formalism of law is quite defective (in this case the legislature has provided no legal definition of ‘forgery’ or ‘falsely’ for certificates of ascertainment), hence the juror must make up his own definition – unless the judge sua sponte cooks up his own definition.

[necrovore]

29 minutes ago, DavidOdden said:

the only cure for jurors subjectively ignoring the law is to eliminate trial by jury (maybe not a bad idea, but a huge change in the US legal system requiring constitutional amendment)

I'd say it's a bad idea to get rid of juries, because of something about government having to be based upon the "consent of the governed."

However, in order for a jury system to fulfill its function of ensuring "consent of the governed," juries would have to be representative of "the governed," and it seems that the juries in Washington DC are not. They have a clear pro-establishment bias, probably because government bureaus and contractors are the biggest employers in Washington DC.

Clearly it would not be fair if a government agency (such as the SEC, FDA, etc.) accused you of something, and at trial all the jurors just happened to work for that same government agency. But all the government agencies agree on a lot of things (including the necessity of their own existence and the general way they do things). The things they agree about are part of a framework, and that's the same framework they will use to determine your innocence or guilt.

[DavidOdden]

44 minutes ago, necrovore said:

I'd say it's a bad idea to get rid of juries, because of something about government having to be based upon the "consent of the governed."

The well-known problem with the “consent of the governed” argument is that laws are not created by the consent of the governed, they are created by individuals who voted for a particular lawmaker who voted in an assembly with a bunch of other representatives – we don’t directly consent to laws (with a few rare examples in a few western states). Applying “consent of the governed” thinking to criminal trials, judges themselves should be eliminated and replaced with the judgment of “the governed”. The accused is one of “the governed”, but there is no requirement that they consent to being tried. And surely you have heard arguments to the effect that “by living in this society, you implicitly consent to abide by its rules”. That is utter nonsense, it perverts the concept of consent. Rather, if you chose to live in a society, you know that violation of the laws of that society will have consequences. The question that remains, a question that Objectivism has an answer to, is “what are the proper laws of a rational society”?

There are two senses of “representative”. Formally, a “representative” is an individual who purports to speak for you in a law-making ritual (legislative session). There is no implication that the person elected to be your representative shares any of your beliefs or cares about your interests. We have a procedure for deeming that a given person is your “representative”, based on geography. The other popular sense is the completely subjective “looks like me” sense, that some individual may share with you beliefs, interests, race, religion, hobbies or whatever.

There is no rational basis for requiring jurors to be representative of the accused in the subjective “look like the accused” sense (I can’t even imagnie what it would mean to have ‘representative’ jurors in the ‘voted for’ sense, the concept makes me shudder). The jury selection process does work in favor of a defendant who is most like the general population in a trial venue, which is not a good thing. This worked in favor of the accused in cases of racist murders of Blacks in the south in the 60’s, where all of the murderer’s neighbors had the same view as the accused, so they did not consent to convicting and punishing the murderers. Demographics changed over the years, so now in a few cases the populace has finally consented to punish rights-violators.

Fairness is not determined by demographic similarity of the dispensers of justice and the accused, or victim. Fairness is about dispassionate application of an objectively-stated moral code to the facts at hand. By training and temperment, a triumvirate of judges is better able to reach an objective conclusion than a dozen street-recruits. Consent of the governed is irrelevant to the question of fairness.

[necrovore]

1 hour ago, DavidOdden said:

The other popular sense is the completely subjective “looks like me” sense, that some individual may share with you beliefs, interests, race, religion, hobbies or whatever.

The idea is for the jury to be representative of the country (or at least the voters), not the defendant, and such "representativeness" implies that if the country is 50% Democrat then juries should be 50% Democrat (on average), that sort of thing. If Republicans and Democrats are bitterly divided about political issues, and they can still agree to convict or acquit a defendant, then that greatly reduces doubts in other people's minds about that conviction or acquittal. The same thing applies to Establishment vs. anti-Establishment and so forth.

1 hour ago, DavidOdden said:

This worked in favor of the accused in cases of racist murders of Blacks in the south in the 60’s, where all of the murderer’s neighbors had the same view as the accused, so they did not consent to convicting and punishing the murderers.

So the jury wasn't really representative but was chosen from all one side of the racism issue.

There can be simpler instances of the same thing where for example all the jurors watch the same TV news, and the TV news has taken one side and not presented the other side, so jurors might be prejudiced because of that.

Usually this sort of thing is why there is a jury selection process, and why a court can and should consider "change of venue" motions to have the trial moved to a place where a local population bias would not apply.

1 hour ago, DavidOdden said:

Consent of the governed is irrelevant to the question of fairness.

The reason "consent of the governed" exists is that it's another way to hold the government accountable for its actions. This, in turn, is necessary because, "benevolent universe" aside, reality itself won't necessarily do anything: if the government decides to kill everyone on Earth, reality per se isn't going to stop them. This is why people need to be able to.

I am aware, of course, that individual rights should not be subject to vote. Reality isn't subject to vote, either (and existence exists even if you don't consent to it). I think that if 95% of the population opposed individual rights (either certain ones or all of them), a government trying to preserve them by dispensing with jury trials would technically be engaged in an "occupation," and the days of those individual rights would be numbered anyway unless the population could be persuaded to change their minds.

Reality is an advantage for the government in this sort of situation: individual rights would end up being good for the country, and the population might learn that it can do just fine without opposing them. So the opposition would wither away in a few generations, especially if it doesn't have access to coercion, because there is no such thing as an honest revolt against reason.

The same thing applies in reverse if the population supports individual rights (either certain ones or all of them) and the government opposes them. The government could dispense with jury trials in order to maintain the control that it thinks is necessary, but if it has to resort to that, it is engaged in a sort of "occupation." However, if reason is not on its side, it will not be able to persuade the population, and will have to resort to more and more force (or fraud). Meanwhile, the bad consequences of their policies will cause conditions to deteriorate regardless of how successful the force and fraud are.

Edited February 29 by necrovore

[tadmjones]

3 hours ago, DavidOdden said:

Under the law, jurors do not construct defense counter-arguments, they evaluate prosecution arguments, asking whether they possess reason (facts and argumentation) to doubt the prosecution’s argument. Hopefully, the defense will provide such reasons for doubt, and not leave it to the subjective whims of a biased juror. However, the formalism of law is quite defective (in this case the legislature has provided no legal definition of ‘forgery’ or ‘falsely’ for certificates of ascertainment), hence the juror must make up his own definition – unless the judge sua sponte cooks up his own definition.

I am advocating for a jury nullification of this particular case, but not as a partisan even though I am 'in that camp'. In this specific instance and others like it , the subjective whim of the jury( as long as it affirms my opinion,lol) could/should be aimed squarely at prosecutorial overreach, as a mechanism to thwart a politically motivated legal action.

I served a term on a county grand jury and consistently voted for a No Bill in cases involving either possession or sale and distribution of controlled substances between parties of majority age, I was my own little jury nullification brigade, lol.

[DavidOdden]

1 hour ago, necrovore said:

The idea is for the jury to be representative of the country (or at least the voters), not the defendant, and such "representativeness" implies that if the country is 50% Democrat then juries should be 50% Democrat (on average), that sort of thing.

I see. Well, I am not a fan of competing jurisdictions, there ought to be fundamental unity in the political and legal system, where individual rights are protected irrespective of where you live. By eliminating municipalities and states as political entities, we would go a long ways towards a system of government that protects the rights of individuals rather than the ‘rights’ of states. But even so, that raises a (potentially surmountable) problem with juries and trials, that trials have to take place in a specific geographical location.

An unbiased random selection of 12 individuals from the US population would on average yield 60% white jurors, 19% Hispanic, 12% black and 6% Asian, also roughly an even distribution of males and females; 10% without complete high school education, 18% with graduate degrees, about the same number with just a bachelor’s degree etc. Also about 35% Protestants, 13% Catholics, a fraction of Jews and Mormons, and no discernible number for actual hard-core atheists. Other demographic properties include type of employment and income or wealth level, also the urban / rural divide. We can include political affiliation and sub-affiliation (MAGA, RINO etc).

The only demographic property that seems to be reasonably geography-neutral is sex (biological, not orientation or self-identification). The number of Republicans in Washington state is way below whatever you think the national average is, and it seems to be the opposite in Texas. Texas and Georgia have the highest Black populations, Wyoming and Montana have the lowest. Unbiased random sampling can never achieve national-representativeness as long as juries are geographically-based. It might actually be possible at some point to dispense with local juries, but right now that would be such a huge technological clusterfuck that it should not even be considered briefly. And so, we are necessarily stuck with juries that are unrepresentative of the nation (notice that I didn’t even mention demographic quotas as a scheme to reach representativeness, except to point out that it is an even worse idea). Rather than seeking demographically ‘representative’ juries, we should be seeking objective juries who will apply the law to the facts, rather than advocating along ideological lines. Jury-tainting can arise when local tabloids exercise their First Amendment right to declare the unconvicted to be guilty so maybe a venue-change is a solution, more likely these days it would solve nothing because media-generated prejudice is nationwide, and there is no event that you can point to when you have a long-term KKK-favoring population in a county that would justify a change of venue. There simply are no neutral venues.

An alternative to the current unqualified juror problem is to develop a better system of voire dire, to identify individuals who are willing to actually apply the law rather than reach an ideologically-driven conclusion. Foreign-born people who want to become US citizens have to pass a fairly trivial civics quiz, which native-born individuals do not have to pass. We could devise better jury-qualification standards.

[necrovore]

2 minutes ago, DavidOdden said:

I see. Well, I am not a fan of competing jurisdictions, there ought to be fundamental unity in the political and legal system, where individual rights are protected irrespective of where you live. By eliminating municipalities and states as political entities, we would go a long ways towards a system of government that protects the rights of individuals rather than the ‘rights’ of states.

There's a good reason for having states and "competing jurisdictions," too, though: suppose you have Big City with 90% of the population and Little City with 10%. It might be better if each one gets one vote in the Senate rather than having it done proportionally by population, primarily because for example there could be a vote on whether Big City gets to dump its garbage in Little City, and it passes, 90% to 10%, and a vote on whether Big City gets to collect a special tax from residents of Little City, and it passes, 90% to 10%... this sort of thing is also why we have an electoral college.

Locally-sourced juries aren't always biased. You could imagine that Little City, being somewhat rural, is frequently visited by bears who may attack people, and so maybe 5% of people carry Bear Guns to scare or incapacitate the bears to prevent this from happening. In Big City, though, there are no bear attacks, so somebody carrying a Bear Gun would likely be carrying it for some other reason. A prosecutor, playing to a Big City jury, can make it sound very suspicious that the alleged perpetrator was carrying a Bear Gun, but a Little City juror would understand that the Bear Gun proves nothing. Especially if the alleged crime occurred in Little City in the first place.

However, there's a difference between such a jury's "bias" and the bias in Washington, DC, and it's similar to the difference between a statement of fact (like what kinds of precautions are necessary on ships or in cold weather) and a statement of opinion (which is broader, more ideological, in nature). It would be good to move a trial if the residents of Little City are all of the same religion and there are religious overtones in the case that may overshadow the legal issues (and cause conviction of an innocent person or acquittal of a guilty one without proper reasoning). It would not be a good reason to move the case if Little City has a lot of harbors and the residents know a lot about the fishing industry and about what kinds of precautions ship captains should ordinarily take.

3 minutes ago, DavidOdden said:

An alternative to the current unqualified juror problem is to develop a better system of voire dire, to identify individuals who are willing to actually apply the law rather than reach an ideologically-driven conclusion.

I am concerned that corrupt people in power could make that into a sort of political or religious "purity test" which would make the jury system less fair.

A better solution would be to pursue a separation of state and education, so that jurors might have a better chance of being better educated. Without access to government money and power, educational institutions would have to earn credibility by being right in reality.

The notion of looking down one's nose at the "ignorant masses" sounds very much like Plato, and it should be borne in mind that Plato's philosophy did not lead to a free country. Ultimately, by means of Christianity, it led to the Dark Ages.