Trust Juries

 That's the title of this op-ed I wrote for the Messenger.  The intro:

Twitter and cable news is the land of the hot — and often, very bad — take. Need to know why the submersible lost contact with the surface? Just check Twitter and find out from @Steve054327, who joined in March 2023. Want in-depth analysis on the student loan case in the Supreme Court? Just tune in to the new cable “news” station five minutes after the opinion was released and get a quick hit from someone who has never filed a brief in the Supreme Court but who supposedly was able to digest all the argument — and nuance — made in multiple pages of the opinion.

And do you want to know how a Fort Pierce, Fla., jury will decide the case against former President Donald Trump? Well, apparently the internet is chock full of experts, most of whom have never tried a criminal case in Florida, let alone in Fort Pierce.

And the conclusion:

Our nation is no stranger to high-profile, politically charged cases — from the British soldiers represented by John Adams (six were acquitted and two convicted of lesser charges) to the Chicago 8 (convictions reversed on appeal) to the more recent trials of Sen. John Edwards (acquitted and hung counts dismissed) and Gov. Rod Blagojevich (convicted on most counts after a hung jury). What the lawyers in each of these cases would tell you is that until the verdict was read, no one had any idea what the verdict would be. That’s why in the recent case of the Parkland resource officer, which some said was political, the defendant sobbed when the verdict was read after a lengthy deliberation. He had no idea whether he would be going to prison or set free until the verdict was announced. 

The bottom line is that we must trust the jury in Mr. Trump’s case to reach the right result. And we must live with that result, no matter whether we personally disagree with it or not.