Posted on 02/26/2007 6:57:45 AM PST by PhatHead
A) I think the juror wanted off. I doubt she acquired whatever info was at issue "inadvertently" - it was reportedly read, not seen on TV.
B) Both lawyers reacted against type. Usually the defense will move for a mistrial and the prosecutor will go forward with however many jurors he can get.
C) I doubt the t-shirt incident was indicative of "camps" - it was way before deliberations. I can see her being a person who didn't want to wear a t-shirt. However, that would indicate an independent spirit.
D) Those who are saying she was a "defense" juror and was therefore removed don't know what they are talking about.
The rumor is that she heard a joke about the trial and regaled the room with it first thing. Who knows where she heard it? I doubt, however, it was in the half-hour news hour.
But go ahead and assume it is fact.
Maybe
I was seeing such reports early as well. However, unless she wanted to be kicked off (and why? just vote with everybody else and end it) then the joke scenario makes much much more sense.
And I didn't assume it was fact, Skippy, I cited it as rumor, not even as "reports".
No sir. You are absolutely wrong. The jury, from the time of the Magna Carta to today has the right to determine what the law is and does not have to listen to the judge. Regretfully, the judge no longer has to give the following instruction.
In State of Georgia vs. Brailsford (3 Dall 1), the instructions to the jury in the first jury trial before the Supreme Court of the United States illustrate the true power of the jury. Chief Justice John Jay said: "It is presumed, that juries are the best judges of facts; it is, on the other hand, presumed that courts are the best judges of law. But still both objects are within your power of decision." (emphasis added) "...you have a right to take it upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy".
As recently as 1972, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said that the jury has an " unreviewable and irreversible power... to acquit in disregard of the instructions on the law given by the trial judge.... (US vs Dougherty, 473 F 2d 1113, 1139 (1972)).
Or as this same truth was stated in a earlier decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Maryland: "We recognize, as appellants urge, the undisputed power of the jury to acquit, even if its verdict is contrary to the law as given by the judge, and contrary to the evidence. This is a power that must exist as long as we adhere to the general verdict in criminal cases, for the courts cannot search the minds of the jurors to find the basis upon which they judge. If the jury feels that the law under which the defendant is accused, is unjust, or that exigent circumstances justified the actions of the accused, or for any reason which appeals to their logic of passion, the jury has the power to acquit, and the courts must abide by that decision." (US vs Moylan, 417 F 2d 1002, 1006 (1969)).
You are right about what a serious study of art SHOULD reveal, but I have spend a good portion of my life around artsy people in NYC-Boston-Cambridge (including curators at the Met and MOMA) and have not known one who was not in the limited "progressive" spectrum from liberal to radical left. While the "canon" of recognized great art may not change too much, the contemporary zeitgeist is full of PoMo nonsense, precious sanctimonious posturing, and self-satisfied politically correct babble. We do not know anything about this woman's actual views, for sure, I would not assume she was inclined toward anything other than hanging Scooter Libby without definite evidence....
Sequester the Judge and lawyers, and disqualify them if they get outside news. The jurors should be allowed to weigh all reactions, past and present.
This would speed up trials, and better meet the requirement of justice by your peers.
I'm sure there are bad magazine articles, and fools writing art criticism. Every profession has it's tools. I was really talking about people who study art history seriously, not so much those marketing modern art.
I learned a lot more about Islam from the course I took (in 1979) about Islamic Architecture than a lot of other people in the USA knew until very recently.
Anyway, you are certainly welcome to disagree and hold art historians in low esteem, should you choose. But in my experience the good ones were among the best historians at my university, thoughtful, educated, able to read and write in several languages, and not a flaming lib among them.
You can think what you want, but there is no way to know that. It may well be that she specifically did some research to bolster an argument she was making in deliberations, and got called on it by other jurors when she cited her "source". Who knows?
What is clear is that the deliberations are taking longer than most people thought they would--especially me. I was predicting 98% chance of conviction by Friday morning.
Maybe the jury (or at least one of them) is requiring some actual evidence of guilt rather than following Fitzfong's line of (improper) argument to convict Libby because Cheney is such a monster.
I appreciate your experience: It differs significantly from mine.
What I heard is she repeated a joke about some aspect of the case she heard on late night television to another juror.
That, and a knee-jerk reaction among some on FR to jump with fervor on just about any headline or statement that are irrelevant while ignoring the really important stuff, to me is more disturbing.
I've heard the same. But it has also been said that she read something.
I still say if she is thrown in the river and sinks and drowns, she is not guilty, but if she floats, then she is made of wood and therefore...A WITCH. < /monty python>
Perhaps but that wouldn't explain the desperation by modern historians to rewrite history to reflect a more leftist point of view. I took 3 years of Art History and never did I have one conservative professor, not one. The generally accepted reason artists created religious art was because that's where their funding came from. They were creative within the confines of their society. After the church lost influence (monetary and otherwise) over artists and art, artists branched out beyond religious themes.
Cindie
Perhaps she was contrarian because she's an elitist snob that didn't want to participate in something beneath her, something the common riff raff found "cute". Supposedly, she walked in and told some kind of joke about something she'd heard about the trial on TV. I'm sure she was quite aware that was a no, no.
Cindie
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