US Politics - Hot takes from my cold dead hands

[Rippounet]

4 minutes ago, Mister Smikes said:

I'll happily be convinced I am wrong if you can provide a remotely analogous example.

It's probably not remotely analogous, but the case of Marissa Alexander is often cited.

Edit: as an example of double standards that is.

[DMC]

9 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

Why is this interesting? 

Well, first, because as far as I'm aware, Chauvin (a white defendant) facing a jury whose racial makeup is significantly more diverse than the jurisdiction's is quite rare.  Second, because I think it's a well-founded prior that an all-white jury is going to be more sympathetic to a white defendant - especially in a racially charged case - than a significantly more diverse jury.

[Mudguard]

5 minutes ago, DMC said:

Well, first, because as far as I'm aware, Chauvin (a white defendant) facing a jury whose racial makeup is significantly more diverse than the jurisdiction's is quite rare.  Second, because I think it's a well-founded prior that an all-white jury is going to be more sympathetic to a white defendant - especially in a racially charged case - than a significantly more diverse jury.

Is there anything from the Rittenhouse trial that suggests that the jury was racially biased?  Race was at best a very peripheral factor in the Rittenhouse case.  Rittenhouse was white and the three people he shot were also white.  I don't see how you can conclude that they are racists and would have let Chauvin go based on letting Rittenhouse go.

[Week]

1 minute ago, Mudguard said:

Is there anything from the Rittenhouse trial that suggests that the jury was racially biased?  Race was at best a very peripheral factor in the Rittenhouse case.  Rittenhouse was white and the three people he shot were also white.  I don't see how you can conclude that they are racists and would have let Chauvin go based on letting Rittenhouse go.

Re-read DMC's post. 

[Varysblackfyre321]

17 minutes ago, Mister Smikes said:

Perhaps the problem is not that Rittenhouse is white, but that he has the wrong politics.

Probably more so yes.

[DMC]

8 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

Race was at best a very peripheral factor in the Rittenhouse case.  Rittenhouse was white and the three people he shot were also white.  I don't see how you can conclude that they are racists and would have let Chauvin go based on letting Rittenhouse go.

I am so tired of people acting like race wasn't a major issue in this case simply because the victims were white.  If you want to ignore the fact race is an obvious contextual factor that's your own deal. 

And I didn't call anyone racists, but again, it's well-founded that white juries tend to be more lenient to white defendants than black defendants.  Now, that's another reason I think the Chauvin hypothetical would be an interesting discussion - more diverse juries have equally low(er) conviction rates regardless of the defendant's race.  So the Rittenhouse jury on the Chauvin case would be an interesting test of the inverse.

[Mudguard]

Just now, Week said:

Re-read DMC's post. 

Even if I agree that an all white jury is going to be more sympathetic to a white defendant in a racially charged cased than a more diverse jury, I thick it's idiotic to conclude that an all white jury would likely have ignored the overwhelming amount of evidence presented in the Chauvin trial and let him go just because they were white.

What exactly is there to discuss that make the analysis of the case interesting to him or you?  An analysis of the case simply on the composition of the jury without considering any of the facts presented at trial is idiotic to me.  I think it could be relevant in a close case, but the Chauvin case wasn't close.

Do you or DMC think the Rittenhouse jury would have let Chauvin go?  Just because of the composition of the jury?

[Mudguard]

6 minutes ago, DMC said:

I am so tired of people acting like race wasn't a major issue in this case simply because the victims were white.  If you want to ignore the fact race is an obvious contextual factor that's your own deal. 

Race was not a factor in any of the self defense claims.  It's relevant to why Rittenhouse was there, but that isn't relevant to the self defense claims.  People keep discussing all sorts of facts that are completely irrelevant to the issues at trial.

[DMC]

Just now, Mudguard said:

Race was not a factor in any of the self defense claims.  It's relevant to why Rittenhouse was there, but that isn't relevant to the self defense claims.  People keep discussing all sorts of facts that are completely irrelevant to the issues at trial.

And you know why I do?  Because I live in the real world where these legally "irrelevant" issues are actually quite relevant to human behavior - including, yes, jurors.

4 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

Do you or DMC think the Rittenhouse jury would have let Chauvin go?  Just because of the composition of the jury?

I think the Rittenhouse jury would be significantly more likely to acquit Chauvin than Chauvin's jury, yes.

[Mudguard]

3 minutes ago, DMC said:

And you know why I do?  Because I live in the real world where these legally "irrelevant" issues are actually quite relevant to human behavior - including, yes, jurors.

I think the Rittenhouse jury would be significantly more likely to acquit Chauvin than Chauvin's jury, yes.

And for good reason, these irrelevant facts are excluded from the trial.  Maybe that's part of the reason you and others find it so hard to accept that the jury bought Rittenhouse's self defense claim.  The jury was only allowed to consider the evidence presented at trial, which excluded much of the facts you find very relevant, because they weren't legally relevant to the charges presented at trial.  

If you let in these irrelevant facts to bias the jury in your favor, sure, it can work out in your favor some of the times.  But in others cases, if you let in these irrelevant factors, you'll get unjust results.  The jury's job is already hard enough for people to start dumping in whatever they want to try and bias and confuse the jury from the real issues at trial.

[HoodedCrow]

Did you see the Robert Durst series? He was let off from killing a guy because he claimed self defense for shooting his victim and then “ panicking” so much that he dismembered the body and dumped it. He was already in hiding for an alleged murder, but the defense claimed that Robert Durst was being unfairly prosecuted by fancy pants lawyers from New York. It sold the Texan jury. He was convicted, eventually, of a different murder!

[A Horse Named Stranger]

11 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Why do that there?  When all of them were watching?

Where else was he supposed to do it? CNN or NBC wouldn't touch him five a 5 yard pole. Like I said he is radioactive atm. That was the biggest and best stage available to him. 

About closing doors. Money talks. Any employer that hires him would at least face a shitstorm on the internet with calls to boycott it. This hire would not be worth it. I'd like to see the reaction of student groups on campus, if news came out that their college had just accepted Rittenhouse. I don't think there's much of a place for him there, except for Falwell's bible college maybe. And he wasn't exactly a dean's list candidate either, if I am not mistaken. Wasn't his dream career going into law enforcement? So which PD would hire that guy? 

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Mudguard said:

And for good reason, these irrelevant facts are excluded from the trial.  Maybe that's part of the reason you and others find it so hard to accept that the jury bought Rittenhouse's self defense claim.  The jury was only allowed to consider the evidence presented at trial, which excluded much of the facts you find very relevant, because they weren't legally relevant to the charges presented at trial.  

LOL!  Yep, that's exactly my point.  You, as many lawyers tend to do, like to preserve this legalistic fantasy that such obvious but "legally irrelevant" factors do not play a role in decision-making among all people including jurors.  The logical conclusion of your position here is the racial composition of the jury would not ever play a role in their decision - only "the facts."  Which is of course absurd based on the entirety of American history and basic common sense.   

[Mister Smikes]

33 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

It's probably not remotely analogous, but the case of Marissa Alexander is often cited.

Edit: as an example of double standards that is.

It is not analogous.   If that is the best example anyone can come up with, I have no reason to change my opinion. 

It was, at least until the first conviction, a low-profile case.  And there was no video evidence proving Marissa's version of events.  It seems the jury did not believe her story either.  I did not read the trial transcript, so I have no opinion on whether the jury got it right. 

[Week]

20 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

Even if I agree that an all white jury is going to be more sympathetic to a white defendant

https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/127/2/1017/1826107

Quote

We use a research design that exploits day-to-day variation in the composition of the jury pool to isolate quasi-random variation in the composition of the seated jury, finding evidence that (i) juries formed from all-white jury pools convict black defendants significantly (16 percentage points) more often than white defendants, and (ii) this gap in conviction rates is entirely eliminated when the jury pool includes at least one black member. The impact of jury race is much greater than what a simple correlation of the race of the seated jury and conviction rates would suggest. These findings imply that the application of justice is highly uneven and raise obvious concerns about the fairness of trials in jurisdictions with a small proportion of blacks in the jury pool.

 

[Centrist Simon Steele]

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I agree with Sologdin that is plausible. However, there are jobs and colleges within the Trumpanista sphere that will now be closed to him by embracing BLM while his statement is unlikely to open doors already closed.

I just think, where the country stands currently, you still risk losing more by being a Trumpanista--while we do see their kind creating new universities and all, I'd imagine saying you're pro-BLM is a safer approach to a stable life.

I'm surprised by this turn of events though as I think he could've made bank off his story--but his potential "fans" are done with him now.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

12 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Where else was he supposed to do it? CNN or NBC wouldn't touch him five a 5 yard pole. Like I said he is radioactive atm. That was the biggest and best stage available to him. 

About closing doors. Money talks. Any employer that hires him would at least face a shitstorm on the internet with calls to boycott it. This hire would not be worth it. I'd like to see the reaction of student groups on campus, if news came out that their college had just accepted Rittenhouse. I don't think there's much of a place for him there, except for Falwell's bible college maybe. And he wasn't exactly a dean's list candidate either, if I am not mistaken. Wasn't his dream career going into law enforcement? So which PD would hire that guy? 

No clue.  

[DMC]

15 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Any employer that hires him would at least face a shitstorm on the internet with calls to boycott it. This hire would not be worth it.

Perhaps this is simply an indication he doesn't want his job prospects to be limited to interning for either Matt Gaetz or Paul Gosar.  And who can blame him?

[Mudguard]

6 minutes ago, Week said:

https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/127/2/1017/1826107

 

Sure, as I stated in one of my posts above, I think it can play a factor if the case is close.  If the case is close, it could tip the jury one way or the other.  But for a case with an overwhelming amount of evidence, like in the Chauvin case, I think it's unlikely that racial bias would cause the jury to ignore the evidence.  It's possible, because anything is possible with jury, but it's not something I would assume.  

[Martell Spy]

1 hour ago, 1066 Larry said:

True, speaking of which, I notice you haven't specifically condemned the riots and all the associated damage.

I'm against riots I think it's unproductive and gives racist jerkwads a reason to come murder protesters.