“I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.” Groucho Marx
June 5, 2024, And Every Wednesday
By Linda Case Gibbons, Esq.
(Check out Lest We Forget and FYI.)
Last week, a jury in a Manhattan court convicted former President Donald Trump. After the verdict, attorney and news contributor Jonathan Turley said he didn’t blame the jury for their decision.
I do.
Turley is a legal scholar, and a professor at George Washington University Law School.
A real sweetheart.
He’s a Democrat, but, like Alan Dershowitz, he respects the Rule of Law more than party allegiance, and interprets the law fairly.
But not this time.
Turley said we shouldn’t blame the jurors because of the Jury Instructions they were given by Judge Juan Merchan.
And, without a doubt, they were unusual instructions. Un-American even.
Jurors were instructed that there were three possible “unlawful means” each juror could apply to find Trump guilty of violating New York election law.
Each juror had to find at least one of the three had happened, but did not have to agree unanimously on which it was.
Jurors were not given a copy of the 55-page Jury Instructions when they retired to deliberate. It’s the way it’s done in New York.
Yet no juror felt it was his civic duty to vote for acquittal. Not one.
A verdict of acquittal could have been based on the testimony that was thwarted by the judge. Or just because the proceedings were in every way conducted like a Kangaroo Court.
With apologies to kangaroos, what is a Kangaroo Court? Cornell Law School defines the elements.
The court exhibited extreme bias against one of the parties;
There was collusion between the judge and one of the parties;
The due process rights of the accused were not respected;
The proceedings lacked decorum;
The court interpreted the law in a way that would have forced a party to act in a completely unreasonable manner.
This past weekend, Chad Daybell was sentenced to death for killing two young children and his wife, and was given a more fair trial and thoughtful jury instructions than Donald Trump.
And yet, the one juror who wasn’t buying what Judge Merchan was selling was nowhere to be found.
Four months ago we witnessed something eeringly similar. But that was in a Communist country. Not in America.
After persecution, indictment, conviction and imprisonment, Russian opposition leader Alexei Nevalny was ultimately killed.
His crime was that he ran for office for opposing corruption in Russia.
The government didn’t like him. And the people did.
He was a threat to President Putin and the current Russian government, mostly because he refused to give up, take the hint, and go away.
In Trump’s case, this trial, and more trials to follow, was a last-ditch effort to break him, financially and emotionally., and to remove him from the presidential race.
It is because Trump, too, is a threat. To Joe Biden and Democrats.
And even though Joe can ride a bike, albeit before he falls off, Donald Trump can run a country.
And, to his opponents' dismay, Trump refuses to give up. Take the hint, and go away.
Hold the line, America.
Stay strong, Patriots.