They Let Me Go
Mon   20 Oct 2008   21:56 by Kevin McGehee 46° and clear in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Asides] [Coweta County] [Courting Disaster]	Went to jury duty as ordered, and was on a panel that included 50 of us—all for a single trial involving two defendants, one accused of murder. » Read more "They Let Me Go"

Twelve Good Men and True

Mon   13 Oct 2008   12:52 by Kevin McGehee in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Coweta County] [Courting Disaster]

Maybe eleven. Plus me. Starting a week from today. I’ve been called to sit in judgment of some poor schmuck who’s run afoul of the law. I don’t know who or how or whether he did it or not. I’ll find out all that next week, but won’t be able to tell you anything about it until it’s all over—if I actually get picked for the jury. If I do get picked, it will be only the second time. The first, in California 17 years ago, was on a DUI case and our verdict was guilty. According to the instructions the judge gave us on that occasion, it “need not” have been, even though we all found beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did drive under the influence. We were told that if we found guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, we “may, but need not” return a guilty verdict. I took that to mean we had the right of jury nullification, if we wanted to exercise it. Nobody was going to be in a position to second-guess us if we returned a repeat DUI offender to the streets. At least, not legally. Of course, none of us objected to the DUI law, so the question never came up. I’ve seen a lot of arguments about jury nullification, and both sides have good points but I think the integrity of the citizen jury is unduly compromised by making a verdict subject to review based on the jurors’ reasons for voting the way they did—especially if the result is acquittal. I may think the system today goes overboard sometimes in tilting the scales in favor of defendants, but there is good reason why we make it harder for the prosecution than for the defense in criminal cases. Years ago when we lived in Fairbanks I became friends with a local fully-informed-jurors activist who was later convicted of jury tampering. How did he commit jury tampering? He took to standing outside the courthouse handing out FIJA pamphlets. He never referenced particular cases, and had no way of knowing which person he spoke to was a juror on any particular case; the only way for him to do so would be to attend those trials, and the authorities were already preventing that. Either the jury-tampering law in Alaska is overly broad (and thus in need of some jury nullification in its own right) or my friend’s trial was an outrageous miscarriage of justice. It left a bad taste in my mouth about the Alaska judicial system’s view of the citizen jury, and it’s probably just as well I was never called to serve while we lived there. I’ll be very interested to learn how jurors are instructed here in Georgia.

5-4?
Thu   26 Jun 2008   18:16 by Kevin McGehee 88° and mostly cloudy in Coweta County, GA 3 comments [Courting Disaster] [Get Offa My Lawn!]	Damn. Five-four!? <long string of profanity> Okay, McCain. You’ve got my vote. You backstabbing, media-whoring son of a bitch.

Doing Their Part to Energize the Conservative Base
Thu   15 May 2008   14:39 by Kevin McGehee 66° and rain in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Our Times] [Courting Disaster]	The unaccountable elites who “safeguard democracy” have spoken in California. Apparently four out of seven California supreme court justices drive a Fiat.

Common Sense Reigns ... er, Supreme

Mon   28 Apr 2008   20:26 by Kevin McGehee 63° and fair in Coweta County, GA 2 comments [Courting Disaster] [Get Offa My Lawn!]

Now the debate over voter photo ID goes back where it belongs: the legislative branch. States can require voters to produce photo identification, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, upholding a Republican-inspired law that Democrats say will keep some poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots. Twenty-five states require some form of ID, and the court’s 6-3 decision rejecting a challenge to Indiana’s strict voter ID law could encourage others to adopt their own measures. Oklahoma legislators said the decision should help them get a version approved. The ruling means the ID requirement will be in effect for next week’s presidential primary in Indiana, where a significant number of new voters are expected to turn out for the Democratic contest between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. The results could say something about the effect of the law, either because a large number of voters will lack identification and be forced to cast provisional ballots or because the number turns out to be small. Supporters of the law say it’s all about preventing fraud. Indiana has a “valid interest in protecting ‘the integrity and reliability of the electoral process,‘“ said Justice John Paul Stevens in an opinion that was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy. Stevens said that Indiana’s desire to prevent fraud and to inspire voter confidence in the election system are important even though there have been no reports of the kind of fraud the law was designed to combat. Evidence of voters being inconvenienced by the law’s requirements also is scant. For the overwhelming majority of voters, an Indiana driver’s license serves as the identification. » Supreme Court says states can demand photo ID for voting Which is not to say those who benefit politically from voter fraud at the polls won’t keep trying to prevent states from adopting standards that meet with the Court’s approval. They’ll lie and grandstand as usual—but at least there they have to convince hundreds of elected and accountable people all across the country, instead of just five lawyers in black robes. I wonder what impact this ruling will have on presidential campaign strategy in those states that have photo ID requirements? Heh. Update: And then there’s California.

Richard Warman Dines from My Cat’s Litterbox
Wed   9 Apr 2008   17:31 by Kevin McGehee 73° and partly cloudy in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Courting Disaster]	Said litterbox-feaster is suing Canadian bloggers for hurting his feelings. Pussy.

Let’s Get This Straight

Thu   28 Feb 2008   12:56 by Kevin McGehee 42° and sunny in Coweta County, GA 4 comments [Courting Disaster] [Get Offa My Lawn!] [Here's Your Sign]

First it was the ridiculous idea that Bill Clinton could become Hillary’s vice-president (in the increasingly unlikely event that she could become president). Now this: The question has nagged at the parents of Americans born outside the continental United States for generations: Dare their children aspire to grow up and become president? In the case of Senator John McCain of Arizona, the issue is becoming more than a matter of parental daydreaming. Mr. McCain’s likely nomination as the Republican candidate for president and the happenstance of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 are reviving a musty debate that has surfaced periodically since the founders first set quill to parchment and declared that only a “natural-born citizen” can hold the nation’s highest office. Almost since those words were written in 1787 with scant explanation, their precise meaning has been the stuff of confusion, law school review articles, whisper campaigns and civics class debates over whether only those delivered on American soil can be truly natural born. To date, no American to take the presidential oath has had an official birthplace outside the 50 states. “There are powerful arguments that Senator McCain or anyone else in this position is constitutionally qualified, but there is certainly no precedent,“ said Sarah H. Duggin, an associate professor of law at Catholic University who has studied the issue extensively. “It is not a slam-dunk situation.“ » McCain’s Canal Zone Birth Prompts Queries About Whether That Rules Him Out There is nothing in Article II of the Constitution that requires a presidential candidate born after the formation of this country, to have been born within the national boundaries of the United States. The qualifications are as follows: at least 35 years of age, a natural born citizen of the U.S., and resident within the U.S. for no less than 14 years. ...to me, a simple layman who has a passing understanding of the English language, the interpretation is simple: if you were a U.S. Citizen at the moment of your birth, either through your presence within the United States or by dint of having at least one American parent, you are a “natural born citizen.“ If you had to petition to become a citizen, you are a “naturalized citizen.“ To my mind, the universe of citizens is broken in to two parts: natural born and naturalized. » Natural born citizen Exactly. I never wanted John McCain to be president. I don’t want him to receive my party’s nomination at the convention later this year. But as far as the U.S. Constitution is concerned the only concern with McCain is his demonstrated lack of respect for the First Amendment (McCain-Feingold). But there isn’t even anything in the Constitution that says a candidate who has written unconstitutional legislation is ineligible to be president. John McCain is therefore eligible. The question of whether he should be elected is entirely a political matter. As it should be.

Call Them What They Are: SAFETY-Free Zones

Thu   6 Dec 2007   21:59 by Kevin McGehee 43° and partly cloudy in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Our Times] [Courting Disaster]

Like Instapundit, I haven’t posted here about the Omaha mass murder—but I think I’m pretty much in sync with Prof. Reynolds: But it’s worth noting—since apparently most of the media reports haven’t—that this was another mass shooting in a “gun-free” zone. It seems to me that we’ve reached the point at which a facility that bans firearms, making its patrons unable to defend themselves, should be subject to lawsuit for its failure to protect them. The pattern of mass shootings in “gun free” zones is well-established at this point, and I don’t see why places that take the affirmative step of forcing their law-abiding patrons to go unarmed should get off scot-free. In a similar vein, I’m cheered somewhat by this development of local importance: The Georgia Court of Appeals has overturned a Coweta Superior Court decision and ruled that Coweta County’s ordinance prohibiting guns in parks is preempted by state law. The Court of Appeals ruled unanimously Tuesday to overturn a decision by Judge Jack Kirby. In June, Kirby ruled in favor of Coweta County in a suit filed against Coweta by Ed Stone and gun rights group Georgia Carry. Stone, a Coweta resident and president of Georgia Carry, had appeared before the Coweta County Board of Commissioners earlier this year. He told the commissioners that the rule forbidding guns in county parks was preempted by state law. When the county refused to change the rule, Stone and Georgia Carry sued. [...] Georgia state law states that “no county or municipal corporation, by zoning or by ordinance, resolution, or other enactment, shall regulate in any manner gun shows; the possession, ownership, transport, carrying, transfer, sale, purchase, licensing, or registration of firearms or components of firearms; firearms dealers, or dealers in firearms components,“ according to the opinion. “The plain language of the statute expressly precludes a county from regulating ‘in any manner… carrying… of firearms,‘“ according to the opinion. “Under these circumstances, the preemption is express and the trial court erred in concluding otherwise.“ » Gun ban in parks overturned Plain language should be interpreted as though the legislature meant the meaning to be equally plain. The county had argued that the county may “enhance” state law, but that’s a general rule that is clearly and explicitly superseded by the state law in question. When the state law says, “no county or municipal corporation, by zoning or by ordinance, resolution, or other enactment, shall…“, that doesn’t mean, “unless they really really want to.“ I’m always in favor of courts reading the law to mean what it plainly says. It’s just too bad it’s so newsworthy when it happens.

God Hates Haters

Thu   1 Nov 2007   7:54 by Kevin McGehee 50° and sunny in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Courting Disaster] [Get Offa My Lawn!] [Wackadoodle]

Baltimore—A grieving father won a nearly $11 million verdict Wednesday against a fundamentalist Kansas church that pickets military funerals out of a belief that the war in Iraq is a punishment for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality. Albert Snyder of York, Pa., sued the Westboro Baptist Church for unspecified damages after members demonstrated at the March 2006 funeral of his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, a Marine who was killed in Iraq. The jury first awarded $2.9 million in compensatory damages. It returned in the afternoon with its decision to award $6 million in punitive damages for invasion of privacy and $2 million for causing emotional distress. [...] Earlier, church members staged a demonstration outside the federal courthouse. Church founder Fred Phelps held a sign reading “God is your enemy,“ while Shirley Phelps-Roper stood on an American flag. Members of the group sang “God Hates America” to the tune of “God Bless America.“ » Anti-gay church must pay Marine’s father $11 million Every so often our justice system actually lives up to its name. These birds have no redeeming value, even as compost.

Still So Right It’s Embarrassing

Thu   4 Oct 2007   14:55 by Kevin McGehee 81° and cloudy in Coweta County, GA 1 comment [Courting Disaster]

Years ago, something dawned on me in what might very well be my first genuine blinding flash of the obvious. Back then, a favorite slogan among gun owners and others who support the individual-right interpretation of the Second Amendment was, “What part of ‘shall not be infringed’ do you not understand?“ Always quick to react, the collective-right side came back with, “What part of ‘well-regulated militia’ do you not understand?“ I’d never seen it anywhere else, so for all I know I was the first to come up with it: “What part of ‘the right of the people’ do you not understand?“ If the Second Amendment’s “right of the people to keep and bear arms” isn’t an individual right, it’s the only one of several so labeled in the Constitution that isn’t. GWU law professor Jonathan Turley, no friend of the NRA, agrees: The right of the people to keep and bear arms is stated in the same way as the right to free speech or free press. The statement of a purpose was intended to reaffirm the power of the states and the people against the central government. At the time, many feared the federal government and its national army. Gun ownership was viewed as a deterrent against abuse by the government, which would be less likely to mess with a well-armed populace. Considering the Framers and their own traditions of hunting and self-defense, it is clear that they would have viewed such ownership as an individual right—consistent with the plain meaning of the amendment. None of this is easy for someone raised to believe that the Second Amendment was the dividing line between the enlightenment and the dark ages of American culture. Yet, it is time to honestly reconsider this amendment and admit that ... here’s the really hard part ... the NRA may have been right. He’s not the first liberal law professor to come around to this view in the last ten years or so, only the latest. H/t: Dean Esmay.

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