Given that the judge in the Lindsay Clancy case has called a mistrial, which sets up another bout in the judicial squared circle, the two respective camps — simplified to guilty and non-guilty — are pitching tents and digging trenches while tossing grenades to test the landscape.
Just like elections, court trials are battles fought over ideals, which is a shame since I’d always believed that trials were over facts, probable cause and things falling beyond a shadow of a doubt.
What’s also a shame is how supposedly smart people working in supposedly honorable professions dealing with information have come to spout biased nonsense.
I need to be clear about something here: I write columns for a living, one a week, that contain my opinion. However, my opinion is based on my own interpretations of the facts I’ve been able to gather, and I attack issues, not people.
For many years, all newspapers have for the most part done that. Yes, there have been publishers that have used their clout to shape public opinion, but for the most part that was directed toward politicians, entertainers and political parties, all of which fall into the realm of public figures and issues.
The latest trend, however, has given this once-admirable profession another black eye by attacking a private person, in this case the one juror who is being blamed for causing the Clancy mistrial. The gentleman has been harangued by his fellow jurors for not falling into line, has been excoriated by liberal video people for not taking Clancy’s side, has been investigated by jackleg “journalists” who have a cell phone and a grudge, and the latest, by a newspaper that at one time was at the top of the food chain, has posted an opinion that all of that mistreatment was justified.
The Boston Herald’s latest post — by “opinion” writer Wendy Murphy — claims that the holdout juror deserves all of the negative attention he’s getting.
When I first read that phrase, I was repulsed. When chosen for jury duty, which I have been several times, you are told that this is a civic duty that needs to be taken seriously. When deliberating, the judge gives a set of instructions on how that is to be done, and what is expected — not a verdict, but a process. Even before being chosen, there are videos, questions, and voir dire, where jurors are picked by attorneys based on qualifications and the ability to be non-biased.
With the onslaught generated by harridans bent of forcing their opinions down the throat of people who don’t comply, it will ultimately cause numerous problems for court systems to empanel juries. Why do your civic duty when you will be doxxed, insulted, demeaned and all manner of mean nasty ugly things if you don’t fall in lockstep? You’re told to follow the evidence and vote based on that, but if there are consequences for doing that, it will cause already stressed court systems more problems in getting people to serve.
And when the people tasked with providing information become the chief torchbearers in the persecution of people doing their civic duty, it demeans an already suffering trade that has been found to be ridiculously biased.
Look at the treatment of politicians, particularly those of the conservative bent. Lies, half-truths, and the overuse of anonymous sources are brought to bear to those that don’t toe the party line (yes, before you email, that goes for both sides). Trump is the prime example: he gets no fair treatment.
The difference here is that he essentially signed up to live under a microscope after winning an election (although it should be a fair microscope). A juror does not sign up for that, and for a supposedly professional news organization to hold an opinion that a private citizen of this country deserves to have his metaphorical teeth kicked in simply for doing his civic duty, then that news organization has lost all credibility. Moreover, the consequences will escalate should this continue.
Tony Farkas is editor of the San Jacinto News-Times and the Trinity County News-Standard. He can be reached at tony@polkcountypublishing.com.
