On September 4, Judge William Sullivan, of Massachusetts’s Plymouth County Superior Court, declared a mistrial in the case of Commonwealth v. Lindsey Clancy.

After seven days of deliberation, the jury was clearly “hung,” with one member refusing to support a verdict of “not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility” in Clancy’s killing of her three young children.

I suspect I may be the only person in America who doesn’t hold strong opinions on what verdict the jury should have reached.

Yes, I oppose murder. Yes, I’m especially appalled by the murders of children. Yes, I am skeptical of most “insanity pleas.” And yes, I’m aware that juries don’t always get things right. But I was not one of the 12 people who spent a week in that jury room, carefully considering the trial’s 21 days of testimony, its more than 1,500 evidentiary exhibits, and the details of the applicable laws. I don’t consider myself qualified to gainsay the conclusions of any of those 12 people.

I do, however, have a strong opinion on the controversy around, and the court’s handling of, one juror’s filibuster, his insistence on voting his informed opinion and personal conscience despite severe pressure to give in.

On the sixth day, the jury’s foreperson sent a note claiming that the holdout juror wasn’t following Judge Sullivan’s instructions on the meaning of “reasonable doubt.” The judge then privately lectured the jurors on the meaning of that term.

Clancy’s attorney then petitioned Sullivan to remove the recalcitrant juror, essentially claiming that a single vote to convict in the face of 11 votes to acquit constituted a violation of the law. Sullivan rejected the petition … but neither the lecture nor the petition should have happened in the first place.

American law recognizes the right of a jury to acquit a defendant “in the teeth of the facts.” We call it “jury nullification”: The jury decides that even though the defendant did X, the law forbidding X is wrong, at least in that case.

Prosecutors hate that because they prefer convictions at any cost. Judges hate it, because they like to be in charge and don’t think anyone should be free to ignore their “instructions.”

The lone juror in the Clancy case is a flip side of jury nullification. He decided, based on the evidence he’d seen and the testimony he’d heard, that she was guilty, and he wasn’t going to let himself get bullied into saying otherwise. The effect isn’t as broad as acquittal — the prosecutor is free to bring the case again — but it’s the same principle. Jurors get to vote their conclusions and their conscience. Period.

That’s important. The American “justice” system is less about actual justice these days than about padding prosecutors’ records with plea bargains and convictions to advance their careers, keeping cases flowing through judges’ courtrooms without inconvenient delays, and keeping American prisons operating at full capacity. Jurors are our only line of defense against that trend. Respect them.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Three Card Monte. Photo by ZioDave. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

“Only I can make this promise to you,” US president Donald Trump told America from the stage of his party’s weird midterm “convention” event on September 9: “If the Republicans win the House and Senate, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000.”

Most coverage of Trump’s offer to bribe voters to vote Republican focuses on two things — that yes, it was an offer to bribe voters to vote Republican, and that actually doing it would be a $1.2 trillion+ budget-buster of a bribe, the biggest direct “universal” US government payment in history.

Those elements are obviously worth discussing, but they’re not really unusual. Every politician tries to bribe the voters in every election, even if most don’t do it QUITE so plainly. As for the size, well, Trump has always put great importance on being the first to do this, the one who does that the YUGEest, etc. The next time he just goes “normal, business as usual” will be the first.

I’m more interested in the indisputable fact that the “Trump dividend,” if it happened, wouldn’t be a “dividend” at all. In fact, it would be yet another new tax on the recipients.

A dividend is a share of earnings paid out to a company’s shareholders, generally from a profitable cycle. The United States isn’t a business, you and I aren’t shareholders, and the enterprise isn’t turning a profit — as a matter of fact, it runs continuous deficits and is drowning in accrued debt.

This “Trump dividend” is incredibly unlikely to happen — it would have to be  approved by Congress, and there’s no incentive for Congress, or Trump, to follow through on their end of the bargain once they have what they want — but if it happened, it would be paid for by taxing you at least as much, if not more than, that $5,000.

The taxation probably wouldn’t be direct, since that would be a transparently stupid “give me $5,000 … OK, here’s your $5,000!” transaction.

The taxation would take place through borrowing, which is still a tax on you, only with payment deferred and interest due on a continuing basis until the principal is repaid.

In addition to interest, that added borrowing by the federal government would drive up interest rates on your own borrowing, and the injection of the $1.2 trillion into the economy would inflate the price of everything you buy.

So: Trump is offering to pay you $5,000 and jack your cost of living up, in return for which he’s  demanding your vote and $5,000 plus interest.

If that sounds like a good deal to you, you suck at math and you’re probably a member of the rapidly shrinking “MAGA” base.

I’m not suggesting that you vote Democrat this November. There’s plenty of bribery in that party’s pitch, too, even if the delivery is less brazen. The difference is in demeanor, not content.

None of these politicians can give you anything they aren’t taking, or planning to take, from you. Politics is a scam.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

As of September 8, Forbes reports, more than 100,000 people have signed a petition asking organizers of New York City’s 9/11 Commemoration Ceremony to “carefully consider whether [New York City mayor Zohran] Mamdani’s participation would align with the intention of the ceremony and the expectations of the families most directly affected by the tragedy.”

Coming from family members of people who died in the 9/11 attacks, the petition deserves a respectful hearing, whether the claims about Mamdani’s sentiments, sympathies and past actions ring true or not. They’re the people who lost loved ones. The ceremony is, or should be, for them.

Unfortunately, some less deserving people compulsively run to the front of parades that aren’t about them. One such person is former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani.

“It offends me that he’s coming,” Giuliani said in a weekend interview, following up with claims that Muslims in general want to “take us over” and that Mamdani is “a clear supporter of that.”

At least 32, and possibly more than 60, Muslims died in the 9/11 attacks (excluding the attackers, of course). I wonder what their loved ones think about the guest list at the Commemoration Ceremony?

As for Giuliani, he’s now spent 25 years milking 9/11 for every drop of personal and political benefit he can get out of it, including a run for president in 2008, during which then US Senator Joe Biden of Delaware characterized Giuliani’s every stump speech and question response as “a noun, a verb, and 9/11.”

Let’s take a quick look at Giuliani’s actual record concerning that sad day.

He was elected mayor shortly after a 1993 terror attack on the World Trade Center.

One major recommendation coming out of that attack was to equip the city’s first responders with compatible radio gear such that police officers, firefighters, and paramedics could communicate with each other during such events.  Seven years later, as his second term was ending, that hadn’t been done.

Another recommendation was the creation of a city “crisis management center” to coordinate the response to terror attacks and other major emergencies. He did follow through on that one … and chose the most prominent terror target in the city, the World Trade Center complex (building WTC 7), as the center’s site. On the day of the attacks, the center had to be evacuated due to fire instead of serving the city’s needs.

Afterward, he capered around the country calling himself “America’s mayor,” while rushing the site cleanup such that many victims’ remains went unrecovered, and declaring the site “safe” despite significant environmental hazards —  skimping on safety and causing more deaths among cleanup workers from illness than were caused by the attacks themselves.

By 2007, Giuliani was the one victims’ families didn’t want at their events, and for good reason.  He’d used them as backdrops for his constant antics instead of treating them with respect. And he never gives up trying to make that day all about Rudy Giuliani. What Rudy Giuliani thinks. Whether Rudy Giuliani’s “offended.” Quick, someone buy Rudy Giuliani an ice cream cone.

The actual loved ones of the actual victims are entitled to hold their days of remembrance without being used as props. And after 25 years of pointless and murderous wars, increasing domestic police statism, and fake “patriotic” caterwauling, all using 9/11 as the launchpad,  it’s long past time to start ignoring Giuliani and his ilk.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY