The Lindsay Clancy Trial

So when from an inclusion in a current events summary to a mainline topic. I will repeat what I said previously just to set the stage.

A woman in Massachusetts, by the name of Lindsay Clancy, is on trial for murdering her three children. There is no question about whether she did it. She admits that she did it and hers lawyers admit that she did it. This hasn't kept feminists on the Internet from claiming her husband did it even though there is video evidence that he was at CVS at the time. The issue being debated is whether she was mentally ill and had been misdiagnosed which led to her being given medicine that made her condition worse rather than better. 

The trial is over, and has ended in a mistrial, but it's interesting how it got there.

It started with a note from the jury saying that they were deadlocked. As per standard procedure, the judge simply sent them back to continue deliberating. There was no indication as to what the split might be.

The jury then sent a second note saying that they were still deadlocked. Superior Court Judge William Sullivan delivered the Tuey-Rodriguez charge, a supplemental instruction urging the jury to make a final effort to reach a unanimous decision. There was still no indication of the split.

Then the jury sent a third note which showed considerable frustration. The note claimed that one lone juror was "refusing to follow the law." They had expressed doubt but refused to vote for acquittal.

Well, that brought us into a whole new situation. It was now clear that the vote was 11-1 for acquittal and the 11 were claiming that the 1 was not following the judge's instructions.

Judge Sullivan read the whole jury a definition of "Reasonable Doubt" and polled each jury as to whether they were prepared to follow the law and his instructions on the law. Each said that they were, so they were sent back for a third time.

Clancy's lawyer, Kevin Reddington, was going a little nuts. His client was one vote from acquittal. He got up and "suggested" that the judge remove the one juror and replace him with an alternate. The judge, correctly in my opinion, refused to do so. Somewhere along the line Reddington used male pronouns to refer to the juror, so everyone concluded that it was a man, even though the jury had six women and only three men. 

The Lone Juror, held out and the judge was forced to declare a mistrial. Reddington threw everything that he could come up with to prevent that, but to no avail.

The court, prosecution and defense have scheduled a meeting for the end of September to discuss scheduling a retrial so it looks like we're going to do this again.

The Internet went a little crazy over this. There was everything from calls for the Lone Juror to be tar and feathered to declaring them a national hero. I'm still not 100% certain it's a man by the way. Given the vitriol going around, they might want to lay low for a while.

Let's Talk Birthright Citizenship

Birthright Citizenship simply refers to the principle that if you are born in the US then you are a US citizen. This has been the traditional interpretation of the 14th Amendment which states:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

Despite what much of the media is saying Trump is NOT, at least not yet, trying to eliminate birthright citizenship or defy the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.

The claim, and it has been a conservative claim for at least a decade, is that illegal aliens, and therefore their offspring, are not "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" of the United States and therefore are not automatically granted citizenship.

This seems to contradict a Supreme Court decision in 1898. In the landmark case “U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark” the Supreme Court decided that the 14th Amendment must be interpreted based upon English Common Law and included all native-born children except for those who were: (1) born to foreign rulers or diplomats, (2) born on foreign public ships, or (3) born to enemy forces engaged in hostile occupation of the country's territory.

Note that "born to illegal immigrants" is not listed as an exception. The problem is that Wong Kim Ark's parents were LEGAL immigrants. 

The question was referred to in a footnote in "Plyler v. Doe" in 1982 which interpreted "Wong Kim Ark" as making "no plausible distinction...between legal and illegal resident aliens."

"Plyler v. Doe" may not settle the matter because the footnote is dictum and could arguably be said to be a misinterpretation of "Wong Kim Ark."

Besides, we already know that this court doesn't care about legal precedent or stare decisis. If they can overturn the 50 year old "Roe v. Wade" then why not the 125 year old "Wong Kim Ark?"

The McMartin Trial

I just finished watching an HBO movie about the McMartin trial in Southern California and it terrified me.

Basically the McMartin's ran a child care center and they and teachers working at the center came under suspicion of molesting the children under their care. Questionable techniques used by a social worker led to an avalanche of stories by hundreds of children.

The thing just mushroomed after that with accusations getting wilder and wilder, parents understandably ready to keel haul the accused, the media hyping the sensationalism of the charges without really considering the probability of the accusations and the prosecution under enormous pressure to get convictions.

After seven years and some $15 million spent by the state of California all charges either ended in acquittals or were dropped. Of cou rse the lives of all of the accused were essentially ruined.

How easy it can happen.

Accusations are not convictions. Innocent until proven guilty has to be the basis of our legal system or we might as well go back to mob rule.

This is the danger I see in the feminist #MeToo movement. Yes, jackasses that rape or molest women should be dealt with but it's too easy for this to become hysteria where accusation equates to guilt.

Either the system works or it doesn't and if it doesn't, then we damn well need to fix it.