Letter to the Editor:
Justice requires that judge and prosecutor follow the standard of law whether they like the person or not. A judge must put aside his personal enmities and be a neutral mediator between the prosecution and the defense, focusing on his duty to protect the rights of the defendant. The principle of lenity requires that the judge rule for the defendant where there is a dispute about the law
American defendants are to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. This is the standard of God’s law (which required at least two witnesses for a serious crime) and the standard of the American justice system. A prosecutor who runs a campaign on “get Trump” or anyone else violates that principle, which derives from Biblical principles and English Common Law.
The Fourth Amendment mandates that defendants have the right to call witnesses on their behalf –Judge Marchan refused to allow Trump’s lawyers to call an expert witness on federal election law thereby suppressing exculpatory evidence,
The first amendment requires that government guarantee the right of freedom of speech. Read the Founders Constitution which shows that freedom of speech particularly protects the right to criticize the government. You have the right to complain about your prosecution, a traffic ticket, your taxes, how your tax money is spent, and about public officials giving themselves huge raises on your back. The only people the judge can put a gag order on are the jurors and court employees —and that only until the trial is over. (A defendant would have to literally call out people to come attack the courthouse or go to the houses of or harass the judge or jury or prosecutors in restaurants as Maxine Waters and Chuck Schumer did a few years ago to Republicans and Supreme Court Justices, for a gag order to be justified. If anyone should have been gagged, it should have been those who hyped the criminal connotation “hush money” implying that the porn star (who had already signed a written statement that there had been no affair) had seen Trump commit a crime. She didn’t and he hadn’t. A Non Disclosure agreement is a standard innocuous legal document; many of us in more wholesome occupations sign NDAs routinely.
It is a judge’s duty to keep the jury as impartial as possible. If publicity is out of control , the routine remedy is usually a change of venue or a postponement of the case until media latches on to something else. Even terrorists who have killed many people can ask for a change of venue. O.J. Simpson was tried—in LA city, not the high tier community in which he and Nicole lived. (Dismissing the case is also an option when publicity is prejudicial against the defendant.)
Was Trump judged by a jury of his peers? The historical origin of peers would mean he would be judged by rich ex-Presidents. But based on what is available, let’s look at the jury pool. Being tried by a DA whose campaign slogan was to “get Trump,” should not only have invalidated Bragg for office but gotten him disbarred. The judge had a responsibility to require any prosecutor in his court protect the Constitutional rights of the defendant and be above reproach. The fact that Bragg got elected on an openly stated refusal to abide by our foundational legal principles reveals the intense bias of the jury pool and the need for a change of venue as well. Thanks to this case, rich businessmen are pulling businesses out of New York City or deciding that the legal system in New York is so poisoned that they will not bring their businesses here.
Let’s look at the jury pool—90% of New York City is democrat and so far left that they voted for the second generation communist Di Blasio twice. Marchan further narrowed the possibility of a juror being sympathetic to Trump by holding court on Friday, thereby eliminating Orthodox Jews, who would be unable to attend. But a judge is supposed to be impartial and rule in favor of the defendant when there is doubt. You’ve made your case when you can prove to jurors inclined to be favorable to the defendant that he or she is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. (A change of venue to Long Island or Westchester County, still majority democrat but less hostile would have been appropriate and shown a good faith effort to draw a more balanced jury.)
The burden of proof is on the prosecution–whose two major witnesses were shown in court in this case to be lying. One was jailed for perjury in a previous situation, the other was adjudged by a court over a year ago to pay Trump over $300,000 in legal fees because she lost when she sued him for defamation. She hasn’t yet paid a cent and insists that she will continue to disobey the court order and spoke openly about hating him.
What was the crime? In violation of the Sixth Amendment , the charges were not given to the defense—or even really to the jury. Jury instructions essentially allowed the jury to “find a crime” without being unanimous on any particular charge or crime–which the law requires. Legally, you can write anything you want on your check notes–it’s your check. The jury instructions were pure Stalinist Lavrenty Beria, “Show me the man and I will find you a crime” marxist lawfare. So Trump signed a personal check You could note “ransom” every time you pay your property , business, or income taxes. If you drive into Manhattan and pay congestion pricing by check, you might write “extortion.” or something else that expressed what the cost was to you. If Trump wrote “thief lawyer and money-grubbing porno slut,” he’d likely have been charged with defamation for calling them as they are. We have the right to note our checks in whatever way is meaningful to us–it is our property. How many of us have paid a parking ticket or traffic ticket that we knew was wrong because we didn’t have the time to contest it and knew the fix was in? I usually write PVB robbery on it, but that’s just me.
Amendment 6. “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.”
Speedy trial. The pretext for Trump’s prosecution happened so long ago (and was declined prosecution at every level at the time) that the statute of limitations–limiting how long a prosecutor has to bring a case on a nonviolent crime–expired. What happens when something expires? It’s over. Dead. No longer applicable. It is illegal to prosecute something when the law has run out. Would we prosecute someone because their great great grandmother helped a runaway slave and violated the Fugitive Slave Act? Or someone in New York who married a homosexual couple prior to July 24, 2011, or performed a third trimester abortion prior to 2019?
When the rule of law and the Bill of Rights is not adhered to by every judge and prosecutor, everyone and anyone can be prosecuted for virtually anything if some DA or AG does not like them or has a racial marxist agenda to get “rich white men” or “purple haired women“ or some other group they do not like. That is tyranny and any judge or prosecutor with that motive must be removed and possibly prosecuted and disbarred.
The Constitution and the Bill of Rights were written to protect OUR rights and restrain government, specifying some of the many things government MAY NOT do. Most Americans have been talked out of understanding how public officials at all levels must protect our rights. We have allowed political creatures to foster their own agenda when they should be constantly fighting for the rights of the individual, which are given to us by God and governments are formed to protect. We have allowed government to run wild and must demand and restore the mindset of defending individual rights and watchdogging government until we have public officials at all levels who truly live their lives doing so.
Did President Trump “get what he deserved?” He deserved, as we all do, an impartial jury of his peers, a judge whose commitment and sole focus was to protecting our (including his) rights as American citizens and a media that actually understood and communicated our foundational rights.
To learn more about our rights, read Essential Information For Understanding Why Trump’s Appeal Will Succeed By Ted Noel in American Thinker, June 3, 2024 and Get Trump: The Threat to Civil Liberties, Due Process and Our Constitutional Rule of Law, by Alan Dershowitz., visit www.ashbrook.org , To learn more about justice and judgment and wisdom, study the book of Proverbs. It was written for that purpose.
Judith N, Yonkers
