Thoughts on juries, plausible deniability and the reasonable doubt concept

NPR broadcast a sad story yesterday about a parent (or sibling) of a 20-something woman who died from an overdose of fentanyl that was in some other drug (heroine?). The young woman was in daily phone contact with the parent but one day she didn’t call. The parent got worried and started searching. The next day, the found the body of the woman. She was killed by fentanyl in the drug. The police caught the drug dealer. He confessed to selling the bad drug to the dead woman. 

One member of a 12-person jury acquitted the drug dealer because they had a reasonable doubt about whether the drug dealer was one who actually sold the tainted drug to the dead woman. That one juror said they “reasonably” believed the dead woman could have bought the bad drug from someone else during the ~24 hour delay before her body was found. The drug dealer was released and faced no criminal liability in the incident.

That is how fragile and unpredictable it can be to find criminal guilt in court. All it takes is to create a “reasonable” doubt in the mind of just one person. All it took was for the drug dealer’s defense attorney to point out that it was possible that the dead woman bought some tainted drug from someone else, even though there was no evidence of another drug dealer. The belief in guilt of the other eleven jurors was irrelevant. Just that one person and their doubt let the drug dealer go free.

In the eyes of the law, justice was swerved. But was justice really served? Why did eleven people see guilt where just one did not? Exactly what does “reasonable doubt” mean?

Now, think about all the defenses that Trump will raise if he ever is indicted for anything related to his 1/6 coup attempt and the Republican Party’s culpability. It is hard and unpredictable to get criminal convictions for blue collar crimes and criminals. It is about ten times worse for white collar criminals like Trump or Republican elites. It is almost a miracle that Trump’s charity and university were found to be fraudulent criminal operations. But even there, Trump suffered no serious personal repercussions. He paid a pipsqueak fine and paid some stolen money back. Big deal. /s

The Imperial Supreme Court rises to power over all

This legal analysis is very important to know at least a little about. It directly speaks to how Republican Party fascism will most likely rise to power. It hints at the terrifying influence that (i) brass knuckles capitalism, (ii) rabid Christian nationalism, and (iii) the court’s often contradictory and/or irrational ‘all ends justify any means mindset.’ 

The argument laid out here strongly suggests that American fascism will most likely rise mostly via the least democratic federal institution, the now Imperial US Supreme Court. I posted this yesterday but it got lost in the focus on Trump’s criminal referrals to the DoJ. Due to its importance, I deleted this from yesterday’s original post, and repost and expand it here as a stand alone item. This really does deserve some attention.

The NYT writes:

The conventional critique of the Supreme Court these days is that it has lurched to the right and is out of step with the public on many issues. That is true so far as it goes.

But a burst of recent legal scholarship makes a deeper point, saying the current court is distinctive in a different way: It has rapidly been accumulating power at the expense of every other part of the government.

The phenomenon was documented last month by Mark A. Lemley, a law professor at Stanford, in an article called “The Imperial Supreme Court” in The Harvard Law Review.[1]

“The court has not been favoring one branch of government over another, or favoring states over the federal government, or the rights of people over governments,” Professor Lemley wrote. “Rather, it is withdrawing power from all of them at once.” 

He added, “It is a court that is consolidating its power, systematically undercutting any branch of government, federal or state, that might threaten that power, while at the same time undercutting individual rights.” 

In a similar vein, Justice Elena Kagan noted the majority’s imperial impulses in a dissent from a decision in June that limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to address climate change.

“The court appoints itself — instead of Congress or the expert agency — the decision maker on climate policy,” she wrote. “I cannot think of many things more frightening.”

A second study, to be published in Presidential Studies Quarterly, concentrated on cases involving the executive branch and backed up Professor Lemley’s observations with data. Taking account of 3,660 decisions since 1937, the study found that the court led since 2005 by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has been “uniquely willing to check executive authority.”  

The study’s authors, Rebecca L. Brown and Lee Epstein, both of the University of Southern California, wrote that “there is little indication that the Roberts court’s willingness to rule against the president bears any reliable relation to preserving the balance among the branches or the workings and accountability of the democratic process.”

“Instead,” they wrote, “there are increasingly frequent indications that the court is establishing a position of judicial supremacy over the president and Congress.”

Why is the Supreme Court accumulating power? To advance the raging Christian nationalist and brass knuckles capitalist agendas that they were knowingly put on the bench to advance. All the evidence so far is that the radical right Christian nationalist-laissez-faire capitalist Supreme Court is going to try to completely rework the federal government and Christianize American society under Christian Sharia law. The court intends to kill secularism, secular law, secular public education, democracy, civil liberties and regulation of business, consumer protections, guns and pollution. That is the court’s agenda. It is the same as the fascist Republican Party’s agenda. 

If the Republican Christofascist Supreme Court gets its way, government, social and commercial power will be wielded by cruel, corrupt, arrogant plutocrats and an enraged White male Christian Taliban. Secular public schools will be replaced by radicalized Christian Madrasas schools that brainwash innocent children to accept and practice hate, intolerance and White Christian bigotry.

Rulers and teachers in the Christian Madrasas

Q: How likely is it that the Supreme Court, staunchly backed by a radical right Republican Party, will be able to radically Christianize America and convert it to some form of a non-democratic, radical capitalist Christofascist theocracy-kleptocracy in the next ~5 years? 0%? ~5%? ~20%? Something else?

Footnote: 

1. Lemley wrote in his Harvard Law Review article:

The past few years have marked the emergence of the imperial Supreme Court. Armed with a new, nearly bulletproof majority, conservative Justices on the Court have embarked on a radical restructuring of American law across a range of fields and disciplines. Unlike previous shifts in the Court, this one isn’t marked by debates over federal versus state power, or congressional versus judicial power, or judicial activism versus restraint. Nor is it marked by the triumph of one form of constitutional interpretation over another. On each of those axes, the Court’s recent opinions point in radically different directions. The Court has taken significant, simultaneous steps to restrict the power of Congress, the administrative state, the states, and the lower federal courts. And it has done so using a variety of (often contradictory) interpretative methodologies. The common denominator across multiple opinions in the last two years is that they concentrate power in one place: the Supreme Court. (emphasis added)

My quibble with Lemley is this. Those Republicans are not merely “conservative Justices on the Court.” They are radical right extremists at the least, Christofascists IMO.

Trump's criminal referrals

The 1/6 committee referred the traitor thug Trump to the DoJ for breaking four laws. As always for white collar crimes like that criminal intent is front and center. Goon tyrants in the US like Trump are expert at making sure plausible deniability is sufficient to convince at least 1 juror there is reasonable doubt or plausible deniability. People like the lying pro-tyranny lawyer John Eastman gave advice to Trump that he will point to as evidence he seriously believed he was not breaking any law.

That is one huge bulwark that defends Trump against a criminal indictment.

Another bulwark in favor of Trump is the paralyzed Merrick Garland.

Between the plausible deniability and the ineffective Garland, the criminal referrals of the 1/6 Committee may not go anywhere.

The unknown here is special prosecutor Jack Smith. I don’t know if the criminal referrals will reach Smith or not.

NBC News summarized:

• The committee voted to make criminal referrals to the Justice Department for former President Donald Trump, lawyer John Eastman and unspecified "others." Trump was referred under four criminal statutes: obstructing an official proceeding, making false statements, defrauding the U.S. and inciting an insurrection.

• The panel also referred four Republican members of Congress to the House Ethics Committee for ignoring its subpoenas, though it did not name the members.

• The committee released a 154-page summary of its findings Monday. The full final report is expected to be made public later this week.

The 154 page 1/6 Committee introductory material is at this link. The final full report will be released with in the next week.

The Hill comments on the referrals:

Investigators on the committee said they decided on criminal referrals against Trump based on sufficient evidence showing that he violated various statutes: inciting, assisting, or aiding and comforting an insurrection; obstructing an official proceeding; conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to make a false statement; and other conspiracy statutes.

The recommendations themselves, however, are largely symbolic, as the Department of Justice is not required to look into referrals from congressional committees. They also come as the agency is conducting its own investigation into the Capitol riot that was recently put under the purview of an independent special counsel.

But the referrals nonetheless mark a significant escalation in the political fight between the committee and Trump, especially as the former president wages his third bid for the White House.

From the lying, corrupt Republican politician files, etc.

Why are so many Republican politicians 

lying criminals?

What the hell is going on with all these Republican criminals being elected to office? Where is the mainstream media before these corrupt liars get elected? The NYT writes:

George Santos, whose election to Congress on Long Island last month helped Republicans clinch a narrow majority in the House of Representatives, built his candidacy on the notion that he was the “full embodiment of the American dream” and was running to safeguard it for others.

His campaign biography amplified his storybook journey: He is the son of Brazilian immigrants, and the first openly gay Republican to win a House seat as a non-incumbent. By his account, he catapulted himself from a New York City public college to become a “seasoned Wall Street financier and investor” with a family-owned real estate portfolio of 13 properties and an animal rescue charity that saved more than 2,500 dogs and cats.

But a New York Times review of public documents and court filings from the United States and Brazil, as well as various attempts to verify claims that Mr. Santos, 34, made on the campaign trail, calls into question key parts of the résumé that he sold to voters.

The NYT article goes on to point out that it could find no information to verify this thug’s claimed university education, his career as a seasoned Wall Street financier and investor, his family business, his 13 properties or his animal rescue charity. All of it appears to be vaporware lies. The NYT did find that he had criminal charges filed against him in Brazil for check fraud. Not surprisingly, that fun little tidbit was omitted from his personal disclosure statements. What a patriot!!

As usual for Republican politicians in this situation, Santos and his public relations firm (lying propagandists) fall back on the tried, true and effective KYMS propaganda tactic. His public relations firm, Big Dog Strategies, is a Republican-oriented political consulting group that handles crisis management. They all refuse to answer any questions. By golly, that’s first rate crisis management. With the KYMS shields up, people inclined to hate Democrats and liberals can give Santos the benefit of a doubt and feel good about electing a corrupt scumbag to congress. 

KYMS = keep your mouth shut

How many, if any, of these people 

is not a criminal?

CNN’s march toward Faux News Lite status

The Hill writes:

Chris Licht, who became CEO of CNN earlier this year, said he has been surprised by the “uninformed vitriol” directed at him from liberals as he attempts to shift the network’s editorial direction, in a series of interviews with The New York Times.

Licht took over the network in May, making a series of staffing and programmatic changes that have sparked buzz about Licht aiming for a more centrist slant.

“The uninformed vitriol, especially from the left, has been stunning,” Licht told the Times. “Which proves my point: so much of what passes for news is name-calling, half-truths and desperation.”  

But Licht has also faced the strains of a slowing economy and dwindling digital advertising, causing him to lay off some rank-and-file employees and make other major cuts.

Despite claiming that alleged uninformed vitriol from the left proves that much of what passes for news is name-calling, half-truths and desperation, Licht did not give one example of uninformed leftist vitriol. All he had to do to have any credibility on this was just specify three or four examples of what he is talking about. Either Licht is just making stuff up, and/or The Hill is incompetent in not asking and/or reporting some of what the alleged uninformed vitriol is. Absent that information, the public has to take his word for it. Since he is struggling with inadequate profit, one can reasonably conclude Licht is a liar.

See, that’s what happens when one loses trust. Here, the ruthless capitalist profit motive is front and center. We all know what happens to inconvenient fact, truth and sound reasoning when it gets in the way of profit. All Licht has to do is state examples of the uninformed vitriol he has experienced. Then we can decide for ourselves if he is full of crap or not.

From the thugs and scoundrels files

The Hill writes: 

Trump calls Jan. 6 panel members ‘Thugs and Scoundrels’ 

ahead of Monday hearing

The panel has also expected to issue symbolic criminal referrals on Monday, with multiple members arguing there is plenty of evidence that Trump is guilty of crimes.

“Republicans and Patriots all over the land must stand strong and united against the Thugs and Scoundrels of the Unselect Committee,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “It will be a dark period in American history, but with darkness comes light!!!”

The amount of projecting that goes on with fascist Republicans continues to be breathtaking. Those folks have zero shame and zero concern about their own hypocrisy and double standards. Truth Social is Lies Antisocial! Just like the fascist GOP!

From the crackpots galore files:

Musk gets voted out of Twitter power?

The AP writes:

More than half of 17.5 million users who responded to a Twitter poll created by billionaire Elon Musk over whether he should step down as head of the company had voted yes by the time the poll closed Monday.

There was no immediate announcement from Twitter, or Musk, about whether that would happen, though Musk said that he would abide by the results. 

The results of the unscientific online survey, which lasted 12 hours, showed that 57.5% of those who voted wanted him to leave, while the remaining 42.5% wanted him to say.

Even if Musk leaves, he probably won’t really leave. Instead, he can just hire someone else do his deranged crackpottery for him, e.g., bullshit Musk Twitter stuff like this from the AP article:

The action to block competitors was Musk’s latest attempt to crack down on certain speech after he shut down a Twitter account last week that was tracking the flights of his private jet.

The banned platforms included mainstream websites such as Facebook and Instagram, and upstart rivals Mastodon, Tribel, Nostr, Post and former President Donald Trump’s Truth Social. Twitter gave no explanation for why the blacklist included those seven websites but not others such as Parler, TikTok or LinkedIn.

A test case was the prominent venture capitalist Paul Graham, who in the past has praised Musk but on Sunday told his 1.5 million Twitter followers that this was the “last straw” and to find him on Mastodon. His Twitter account was promptly suspended, and soon after restored as Musk promised to reverse the policy implemented just hours earlier.

Are things in America more whacky than usual, or is it just me? Hm. I’m gonna go check out Mastodon, Tribel, Nostr and Post. Wonder how whacky they are going to be.