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PaperclipPerfector  9d ago (text post)   30288 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 9, 2024

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Daniel Penny Acquitted

Last Friday after several days of deadlocked deliberations, the judge agreed to the prosecutor's request to drop the most serious charge of manslaughter, and asked the jury to consider the lesser charge of negligent homicide. It's strange that the jury was so quickly able to dismiss this charge while spending multiple days debating the more serious one.

This case was pretty controversial but judging by the political temperature I don't forecast any major protests or riots.

The jury was 7 women and 5 men. I do wonder who the holdouts were at first.

I could see men being all about frontier justice while the women give into empathy, but I can also see a jury of women who have years of experience feeling vulnerable on the subways swooning over Penny.

I find it interesting that the people celebrating the "vigilante justice" of the UHC assassin are the same people upset about the Daniel Penny verdict.

I suspect that those people would have been more sympathetic to Mr Penny if Mr Neely had been responsible for the cessation of the metabolic processes of an order of magnitude more Americans than Usama bin-Ladin....

There's no mystery to solve. The leftist instinct in America is always to sympathize with the poorer person whose life is in disarray. It's extremely clear which way this breaks in both cases (everyman subway rider / deranged lunatic and CEO / presumably indebted twenty-something).

But isn't Luigi Mangione from a rich family? It seems like people on Tumblr that I follow still stan him (and are posting joke quizzes asking if he's hot), so it's not obvious to me that he's an underdog in this way. Like, sure, he's objectively poorer than the CEO, but I think a lot of the "appeal" of the assassination is the "righteous fury" at insurance companies, which many Americans have had bad experiences with.

We know that now but I think the sides had already been chosen before that became know several hours ago. I don't disagree that there is a special hatred for the insurance CEO but I don't feel that the overall reaction would have been any different if this had been any other major company's CEO, do you?

Definitely yes. Killing Bezos or Pichai or Nadella would have gotten a much more mixed reaction, for instance. Musk, the same times a billion. Killing the CEO of Ford probably wouldn't have garnered any positive reaction; killing the CEO of GM would have gotten the "horrible to kill a woman" thing (at least from the press). I'm not sure if there's any CEO universally loved, but this guy (or rather, anyone in his position) was likely among the most universally hated.

Disagree. People who are already celebrities like the names you listed have battle lines already drawn around them to some degree, so let's leave them aside. If it was the CEO of Ford, my gut instinct is that on e.g. Reddit the reaction would be essentially the same. They would have to work a little harder to identify the "violence" that said CEO had inflicted on employees or consumers, but not that hard. It's second nature for "late stage capitalism" thinkers. "I'll extend him the same consideration that he extended to the thousands of drivers who died when Ford covered up evidence of faulty brakes / the millions dying from climate change due to lobbying against emissions standards / the families who went hungry when layoffs happened while he pulled down $50M / year."

Disagree, with an insurance-related CEO one can immediately think "that guy's responsible for denying care to thousands of people, literally killing them", and that goes much farther to intuitively justify it than "the CEO of Ford ... didn't pay workers enough? Polluted?". Maybe from very committed anticapitalists it would, but the average person on reddit or twitter isn't one

The left construes violence incredibly broadly and intentionally eliminates distinctions between different types of "violence". The mere existence of socioeconomic inequality is a form of violence/genocide to them. I imagine that if Bezos was killed the reaction would be even more positive just due to him being wealthier and infinitely better known.

I suppose you're right that commies will be commies and you would see that sort of stuff, but I still think you'd see a lot less hate for the Ford CEO, and a lot less sympathy for the killer.

Do you have examples of this? I was perusing Bluesky today, and none of the lefty accounts I follow on there have said anything about the Penny verdict.

Do you have examples of this? I was perusing Bluesky today, and none of the lefty accounts I follow on there have said anything about the Penny verdict.

This is the real story. Cases like this have been rallying points for activist progressives since Michael Brown, at least in the meme's current iteration. That they make very little hay of this and prefer not to discuss it at all is a potent sign that they feel on the backfoot in the culture war.

Given how much of the Neojacobin's success I attribute to their relentless will to just keep pushing and pushing and pushing, this is remarkable. Maybe the optimists were right and we have indeed reached peak woke. It won't mean anything of course as long as the institutional capture is not at least partially reversed.

Same with me, Twitter search shows a few disparate BLM posts but no major interest from lefty accounts otherwise.

Goes both ways, people celebrating the vigilante justice of the Penny verdict criticizing the assassination of the UHC CEO. (For the record, that is the correct, prosocial position.)

What's prosocial about profiting in death?

Health insurance is a fleeting necessity. It's been useful as structural opposition to American single-payer, but AGI approaches as does the panacea, and the industry will cease to exist by 2100. Healthcare as a whole has to put a price on human life, health insurance does too, it's the cold calculations of what's needed to stay solvent and I would only say remain attractive to investors where this latter is necessary to the former. Not when it's simple profiting, and that's what's happening here, profiting in death.

There is nothing prosocial about that behavior. Civilization does have a long relationship with profiting in death, but the avarice underlying that is iniquity's millstone we trudge ever against. Great men have been driven by their want for something to make the most lasting achievements, but it is grossly reductive to categorize it as greed. If that is a fair term, then it applies truly to precious few men who have ever lived. Better to know those traits are found commonly, and those great men were motivated by something ineffable and gestalt, rather than mundane greed.

So to suggest, in this not being prosocial, that civilization was not raised on the line of people being murdered randomly in the street, is to view it in a hypermodern and wrong lens. Thompson was not a random person, he was a modern nobleman who led an organization that profits in death and reaped finally a historically appropriate reward. That historic archetype did fear murder in the commons, so whoever among them today who do not fear being struck down, or who did not, they are or were living in that hypermodern lens, and that's not civilization, it's castration.

AGI approaches, the panacea approaches. Some here, I hope all, will live to see the extinction of health insurance, but regardless, by the end of the century it will be gone, as will the majority of occupations in healthcare, and civilization won't bat an eye. In 200 years it will be a morbid curiosity of 20th and 21st century life, and probably considered in studies as part of humanity hurdling the real problem of the lost jobs and purpose caused by AGI. But those are the things that matter, not "lost" profit opportunities, and not a nobleman dead in the street.

This guy worked for an insurance corporation that had like an 8-9% net margin. That’s not exploitative. That’s not greed on a grand scale. The US public consistently rejected single payer at the ballot box. They are frustrated with the current system, but cannot propose an alternative upon which most can agree.

And you ask, How magnanimous is Lockheed-Martin? I tell you yea, they profit one cent off the dollar when Hellfire smites an apostate's wedding.

I recognize the necessity of health insurance, I endorse it verbatim as part of the bulwark against single-payer. I understand they have to make hard decisions, because healthcare is triage, and when resource allocation literally is life-and-death, cold calculation is required. This makes it better, it does not make it good. While I'm at it I guess I also should clarify that I see no good in a man being murdered in the street. This may cause deaths downstream, I assume no one's taking that CEO role now without United providing private security, that cost, likely trivial as it is, may be pushed on the consumer, so a rise in rates or claims denied and both lead to reduced life outcomes and death. On the other hand if it causes them to approve claims they otherwise wouldn't, we might see life downstream of this, but I'm not saying let us do evil that good may result. It was murder, and his condemnation will be just. I only plea to history in what constitutes "prosocial" behavior: Thompson was a plebeian who made himself a patrician, and civilization continued all the same through those periods where noblemen who profited from commoners' deaths still feared earthly vengeance.

It doesn't matter if it's 8%, the misdeed is not meted off the margin.

I think it's not exactly useful to gauge a company's level of "greed" by its profit margin, particularly these huge companies. They are not tight ships running as lean as possible: they inevitably swell with thousands of useless, well-paid employees. Not to mention well-paid executives. These firms love to tighten the screws on their clients in order to avoid cutting the fat.

And of course using this as your proxy will make out better-run companies as being "greedy", and poorly-run ones saints.

vigilante justice

Was it though? A sane account of the event is that the guy was out of his brain, drugs likely involved, and he may have had an OD related cardiac event while he was being restrained. Guy was even still alive when the cops got there, and they refuses to touch him to try to save his life because he was so filthy they were afraid they'd catch something. I'm not sure preventing someone from harming others with a fundamentally nonviolent hold (Neely wasn't bruised, broken or bleeding) and then handing them over to police who allow him to OD to death counts as "vigilante justice" in the same way Batman or The Punisher conjures up.

Vigilantism isn't just when someone ends up dead. Spiderman is still a vigilante when he leaves perps bound and webbed for the cops to find (fits the legal definitions of battery and false imprisonment).

Unless Penny set out that particular day to detain someone on the subway, he was not a vigilante. Defending yourself or others is not vigilantism, it is defence.

Spiderman is a vigilante because he seeks out crime to stop. Penny is a guy who had an assault nearly happen in front of his eyes. He finds himself in this situation again I'll have questions. But we can't just expand the definition of vigilante to "Anybody who's not a police officer who makes a criminals life harder in any way, shape or form." And it's especially egregious in a self defense situation. Makes it sound like you are obligated to allow yourself to be victimized, which I know the tribal "restorative justice" types actually believe, but all the same, no.

Is blood vengeance vigilantism? It's not exactly seeking out crimes to stop, after all.

I agree. I just wanted to say that vigilantism isn't just limited to extrajudicial killing.

Color me somewhat surprised.

I was somewhat expecting a guilty verdict, and my guess was that'd trigger another wave of emigration out of NYC.

Depending on whether this results in large scale riots, it still might.

Depending on whether this results in large scale riots, it still might.

It's cold and rainy. No one's rioting in this, spontaneously or otherwise.

Good timing on releasing the verdict, then.

New Yorkers have to live in New York. There’s nobody who lives in NYC who hasn’t been scared by homeless psychos over the last 5 years.

Depending on whether this results in large scale riots, it still might.

I predict with 95%+ confidence that this will not happen. Large scale defined as > 5 people dead or > 100 million in property damage.

I doubt we'll see any rioting or even protesting beyond the usual Antifa bullshit, sparsely attended at that.

It was a nice case of jury nullification, which of course it a nice tool to counteract the absurd practice of piling charges that is perverting the justice system.

The real criminal is the MTA - they chose to make the subway and the public transit unsecure. If they had put the safety and comfort of the passengers, if there were people to respond there wouldn't have had a need for vigilantism.

I think that Daniel Penny contributed substantially to the death, but we can't be put in a situation in which to evaluate how crazy a crazy is before the bystanders have to intervene. A stabbing could take a tenth of a second.

I think this is the right decision for the charges that were brought.

Also what is the idiocy of the American justice system that allows civil law suits for criminal matters? Talking about the one filed by his father (also - if you have a father, how the fuck are you homeless, i would really like to hear said father on the stand about the relationship with his son)

I dont see how this is a case of jury nullification. From a reading of the medical records, its pretty hard to see that the state even carried its burden of proof on the most basic of questions: That but-for Penny's actions, Neely would still have been alive at the end of the encounter. That is even before the prosecution's difficult case in proving criminal recklessness and/or negligence given the chaotic situation and that the actual witnesses on the scene were pretty evenly split.

He was alive at the end of the encounter. He was pronounced dead in the hospital.

I called it nullification because the trial always hanged on if the jury would see him as good Samaritan or reckless vigilante. Not on the facts.

Assume that surfaced a lot of posts of him being storm front member or racist or whatever - do you think he would still have been acquitted?

He was pronounced dead in the hospital.

I didn't follow this part of the case closely so I'm not sure if this applies here, but it is very common for someone to be "dead" for all useful purposes, but we don't formalize that until they end up in front of the Trauma/ED team and they've given up.

I've seen the EMTs bring in someone on a LUCAS who was stiff and cold but until the doctor takes a look at them...other staff don't want the responsibility/documentation/risk of getting it wrong.

That's less jury nullification and more just how juries work. A NY jury is going to convict a white supremacist of murder of he's credibly accused of eating at Katz's while a patron nearby chokes on pastrami.

Also what is the idiocy of the American justice system that allows civil law suits for criminal matters?

Every Common Law jurisdiction allows this, see the recent McGregor case in Ireland, various cases in the UK etc.

A shared idiocy is no less idiotic. At some point the supreme court should empower the fifth to mean that for one event there should be only one trial and probably also limit the charges that can be piled on.

This creates a conflict of interest between the interests of the individual and the interests of the state, and it comes up much more than you think and probably has affected you at some point. Consider the following: A runs a stop sign, causing an accident that totals B's car. A policeman on the scene finds A at fault and issues a ticket for running the stop sign, the penalty for which is a $100 fine and points on the license. A pleads not guilty because he wants to avoid the points and it's customary for the state to agree to drop the points in exchange for a guilty fee where the defendant only pays the fine. A enters his plea a week after the accident, and the court schedules a hearing for two months after the accident.

Meanwhile, B is without a vehicle and puts a claim into A's insurance company. She is relying on the insurance payout to buy a new car, which she needs to get to work. Since the civil claim is rolled into the criminal claim, however, the insurance company can't pay out until the ticket is resolved, which it won't be for two months. Furthermore, B now has to be ready to present evidence at trial since she doesn't know that A just intends to get a deal and may be arguing that he didn't actually run the stop sign. Plus, there's always the risk that the cop just doesn't show up and she's the only witness available to testify, so she has to show up lest the whole matter be dismissed.

So now B is stuck waiting months for an insurance payout that A's insurer would have just paid, and making things incredibly more complicated than they need to be.

Yeah, how does that work exactly? How does the father have standing to sue for the death of an adult child?

How far does this go. Can I sue for the wrongful death of a brother, a cousin, a distant relative, a friend, an acquaintance...?

You want some kind of civil wrongful death statute, otherwise someone who gets killed by a reckless driver or due to a defective product couldn't get money damages for it.

Wrongful death is a creature of statute, and as such the statute defines who has standing to sue. A rough approximation is that you'd have standing if you'd be entitled to inherit under the state's intestacy law.

In kind of "rough order," first the surviving spouse, if no surviving spouse (or if spouse doesn't sue), then the children, if no surviving children, then the parent, if no parents then dependents (not applicable here, dude was homeless...), and then if none of those, the executor/representative of the estate (again, not applicable here). Friend/acquaintance only applies if you qualified as their dependent.

I think Jordan Neely was batshit crazy and chose to live on the streets because of it.

Explain like I am not a NY lawyer: why would everyone in the jury find him not guilty of Criminal Negligence but be split on Manslaughter?

The holdouts got tired.

Perplexity tells me the difference between criminally negligent homicide and second degree manslaughter in New York is in the defendant's state of mind. Under criminally negligent homicide, the person failed to perceive the risk of death, while under second degree manslaughter, they were aware of the risk of death but consciously disregarded that risk.

With bystanders saying Neely was going to die, combined with Penny's training, it seems hard to justify the idea that he just didn't see a risk of death from a six-minute chokehold, including nearly a minute after he went limp. The trial's outcome could be reasonable if the jury agreed that Penny knew what he was doing while disagreeing on whether he was justified in doing it.

Maybe people on the jury saw the dropped charge for what it was, a naked attempt to still send Daniel Penny to prison when it looked like their case was lost.

My guess is that there were one or two people on the jury who saw Penny as a hero who wouldn't agree to any conviction no matter how minor. I would have been one of those people, and would have more than willing to hide my power level during jury selection.

I'm sure our lawyers will chime in, but they always seem to miss the point. It's not about the nitpicky lawyery details most of the time. It's about who has the power to get what they want, using the law as a pretense to achieve this.

Regardless of the instructions, the jury was really asked to consider "do you think Daniel Penny is a murderer who you want to see rot in prison"?

Maybe the DA will face some blowback for wasting the public's money trying to send a good man to prison while routinely failing to prosecute career criminals who prey on ordinary people.

My guess is that there were one or two people on the jury who saw Penny as a hero who wouldn't agree to any conviction no matter how minor.

It doesn't look like it played that way. If 10 or 11 of 12 are willing to convict then they aren't going to decide to acquit because of 1 or 2 people, especially not so quickly after the higher charge is dropped. If the jury is mostly willing to convict the guy of manslaughter after days of deliberation, I don't see 2 people turning around the other 10 in a couple of hours. This looks more like most of the jury wanted to acquit but one or two holdouts wanted a conviction. Dropping the manslaughter charges may have signaled to the jury that the prosecution didn't really believe in their case, which may be enough to flip these people.

I would have been one of those people, and would have more than willing to hide my power level during jury selection.

I'm generally curious; what makes you think you could hide your power level during jury selection? How do you think you could accomplish this?

I was selected on a murder trial a couple years back and it was easy as hell. Nobody wanted to be there. Over half the jury pool was rejected on spurious reasons.

Getting on a jury was relatively easy in my recent experience.

If over half the jury pool was rejected for spurious reasons then it doesn't sound like it was that easy to get on. I'm assuming you answered the voir dire questions honestly.

No most of the jurors obviously wanted to get out of jury duty. They cited things like missing work, obviously lying about strong political opinions, etc.

obviously lying about strong political opinions

As someone who has strong political opinions about criminal justice, I have no idea what I’d do if I were picked for jury duty. Either I’m honest about my very strong views and I look like a crazy liar, or I lie about them and perjure myself. It’s a tough break.

I'm generally curious; what makes you think you could hide your power level during jury selection? How do you think you could accomplish this?

Watching that dude do it in the Derek Chauvin trial. He got away with wearing a 'get your knee off our necks' shirt to a protest by claiming to not know the details, it looks pretty easy to do. I'm not black though.

My plan would be use low-key Golden Retriever mode, channel humility, vacuous attentiveness, and moderate excitement to be involved in this novel experience: a wide-eyed, gawking tourist enjoying their guided walkthrough of the famous American Justice system. I'd be interested in hearing how or why this would fail.

I'm generally curious; what makes you think you could hide your power level during jury selection? How do you think you could accomplish this?

Good point. Many smart people think they can outsmart cops and lawyers but fail spectacularly because they are playing a game for the first time against people who play it for a living.

And I'm not willing to perjure myself either.

So... all I can say is that I would do my best to try to get on the jury and, once there, acquit. Would our genius lawyers be able to ferret this out? Maybe, maybe not. They're probably not quite as smart as they like to believe either.

I'm generally curious; what makes you think you could hide your power level during jury selection? How do you think you could accomplish this?

By not being too gung-ho in either direction (so neither side vetoes you) and possibly playing down your IQ somewhat?

The one time I was in a jury pool, the lawyers were going through the pool trying to find people biased in their direction.

The one time I was in a jury pool, it did seem like the lawyers from both sides were trying to get people to self-identify as independent thinkers and then veto them. Probably both lawyers thought that they were in total control and wanted to have a jury of relative simpletons that they could guide. Of course, not both can be right.

I'll admit, I know almost nothing about jury selection except for what I've read in John Grisham novels, lol. I think it would be fascinating to hear about how trial lawyers approach selection in a big case like this one.

It's not so much that we don't want smart people or independent thinkers as it is that we don't want overly opinionated people who will fuck up the deliberation process. A jury full of relative simpletons isn't a good thing because they won't want to pay attention, won't be able to understand the testimony or jury instructions and will instead just rely on whatever biases they have. The Chauvin jury was composed almost entirely of people with professional or managerial backgrounds. What we're trying to avoid is the kind of person who is overly opinionated and is unwilling to work with the other jurors. We need people who can deliberate, not just voice their opinions. If 1 juror gives the other 11 the impression that he isn't fully invested in deliberating and has already made an unchangeable decision, all it's going to do is piss of the other jurors and increase the chances of a hung jury.

That brings me to another aspect of your plan that was faulty: The presumption that you would be able to hang the jury on your own. Hung juries are almost always fairly evenly split. If you find yourself in a room with 11 people who are voting to convict after several days of deliberation, then it's unlikely that they're doing so purely for political reasons. If you haven't turned at least a few members around in that time, then you're probably wrong, and unless you're a total moron, you'll probably come around yourself. In a high-profile case such as this, there is going to be a lot of pressure for a verdict, and the judge isn't going to send everyone home just because you say you're deadlocked; the system is willing to keep you there a lot longer than you think they will.

I think it would be fascinating to hear about how trial lawyers approach selection in a big case like this one.

I can't speak for big cases, and there are differing theories, but a few general truisms hold. Basically, I aim to have a discussion with prospective jurors, not an examination. In big trials they might interview the jurors individually, but most of the time they bring them in 10 or 20 at a time. I'll start by making a general statement that I expect most people to agree on, just to get people comfortable with raising their hands. There will inevitably be someone who doesn't raise their hand, so I'll pick on that person first to see why they don't agree with everyone else (it's usually because the person is incredibly shy). From there, I try to focus on open-ended questions that don't suggest an answer and give the prospective juror a chance to elaborate on their views. I try to avoid anything that can be answered with a simple yes or no.

For example, in this case I might ask "In the past several years there has been a lot of discussion about how people are increasingly feeling unsafe on public transit. What do you think about that?" And this is where @ArjinFerman's comment ties in. Most people will speak freely about controversial subjects during voir dire. Most people will offer opinions that have the potential to get them booted. You don't know what my trial strategy is or what evidence is going to be presented. You haven't read all of the other jury questionnaires. You don't know where I'm going with my questions. If you think that straddling the line between both sides is going to work, you'd better be sure that you know what the sides actually are. If I'm the prosecutor on this case, I'm not trying to get a bunch of woke-ass do-gooders on the jury, because that isn't going to happen. I've probably accepted the fact that the jury pool is frustrated about erratic behavior on the subway and is sick of having to deal with it. Yeah, some people are more liberal, but they're going to be outspoken and probably get the boot from the defense. I'm trying to craft an argument at trial that acknowledges Mr. Penny's right to intervene but that the problem was in the execution. The only question is whether I think you're willing to accept my argument, and you don't know my criteria for that.

If you find yourself in a room with 11 people who are voting to convict after several days of deliberation, then it's unlikely that they're doing so purely for political reasons. If you haven't turned at least a few members around in that time, then you're probably wrong, and unless you're a total moron, you'll probably come around yourself. In a high-profile case such as this, there is going to be a lot of pressure for a verdict, and the judge isn't going to send everyone home just because you say you're deadlocked; the system is willing to keep you there a lot longer than you think they will.

How democratic!

You can make any choice as a juror, so long as you make the one everyone else is making. And if you don’t make the decision everyone else wants you to, the state will use force to intimidate you into changing your mind.

We might as well just use Nazi ballots, if the whole point of juries is to use social and economic pressure to force people to vote the same way, and using confinement and isolation to overcome conscientious disagreement. These are totalitarian tactics, incompatible with freedom.

If you haven't turned at least a few members around in that time, then you're probably wrong, and unless you're a total moron, you'll probably come around yourself.

Well, give me some credit here, surely arguing with the Motte's finest all these years counts for something that would help me turn people to my side?

the system is willing to keep you there a lot longer than you think they will.

So I get that I might have shit to do, and might be worried about losing my job or something, but when we're talking about something like the Penny case, I don't know if I could sleep at night if I had the power to let him off the hook, but caved in because I really had to run some chores.

For example, in this case I might ask "In the past several years there has been a lot of discussion about how people are increasingly feeling unsafe on public transit. What do you think about that?"

Would some bland answer like "If people feel this way, maybe the city could hire more cops or something, but I dunno, I'm not an expert" immediately flag me in a case like this? I guess I'd be a bit more careful expressing pro-cop sentiment in something like the Chauvin trial.

Most people will speak freely about controversial subjects during voir dire. Most people will offer opinions that have the potential to get them booted. You don't know what my trial strategy is or what evidence is going to be presented. You haven't read all of the other jury questionnaires. You don't know where I'm going with my questions.

None of this is relevant. The game I'm playing is "hide my power level" not "ensure I will be selected for the jury". I'm mostly trying to look normal, not read your mind. The latter sounds like an easy way to play myself like in that Princess Bride "only a great fool would reach for what he was given" skit.

If I'm the prosecutor on this case, I'm not trying to get a bunch of woke-ass do-gooders on the jury,

Exactly, which is why I said won't go gung-ho in either direction.

Thanks for sharing. Your post is very interesting, as always.

For the record, in my one jury selection I did get booted for raising my hand when it was pretty clear that the lawyer asking the question didn't want me to. It was a long time ago, but IIRC, he said something and then asked if anyone disagreed. The jurors seemed pretty intimidated. I'm probably not the only one who disagreed, but I'm the only one who raised my hand. The other jurors seemed pretty intimidated. When I raised my hand, the lawyer then immediately pounced on me in a fairly harsh way and forced me to defend my statement. It was then I realized that the trial was already under way. (Note: My uninformed belief is that it's probably against the rules to prejudice the jury during this stage, but that everyone does it in an oblique way anyway).

In the end, I was the only one dismissed by that lawyer and the defendant ended up settling.

When it comes to where I could pull a Henry Fonda, I do understand your skepticism. I can't confidently say that I'd succeed because I've never been in that position before. But I think I am pretty high on verbal intelligence, charisma, and disagreeableness. I like my odds.

"In the past several years there has been a lot of discussion about how people are increasingly feeling unsafe on public transit. What do you think about that?"

"IDK, maybe -- I haven't really noticed anything, myself"

The goal is often just to reduce variance. If whether lawyer thought they were going to lose, they wouldn't be there, they'd have settled/plead/dropped the case.

I'm sure our lawyers will chime in, but they always seem to miss the point. It's not about the nitpicky lawyery details most of the time. It's about who has the power to get what they want, using the law as a pretense to achieve this.

Whatever residual doubts I had about this have left my body after listening to the recent US vs. Skrmetti hearing. It's all just word games to provide the thinnest veneer of legitimacy + how many judges are on your side.

The vibes based arguments I've heard, is that after the judge ordered them to keep deliberating after they announced they were hung, NYC Mayor Eric Adams came out and said the entire trial was politically motivated, and that Penny should never have been tried.

Adams had some critiques of the Democratic establishment on migration before but he seems utterly unburdened by any sense of loyalty since the election.

Interesting to see.

but he seems utterly unburdened by any sense of loyalty since the election.

More cynically, since it came out that he'd been taking bribes from Turkey.

That seems to be the general right wing take, that he's singing for his pardon.

He was to the right of the Dem establishment on crime well before he got elected. That was in fact why he got elected.

Well, that and his skin color means that he can pursue (relatively) “tough on crime” policies without being tarred as a racist

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