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Jussie Smollet Trial

DevilsAdvocate said:
I didn't follow the Rittenhouse case. I was watching the Arbery trial instead.
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Short version: a statute was cited that said in plain wording "under 18 yo may not carry firearms". Then followed a couple utterly nonsensical and literally illiterate qualifiers that swallowed the statute. The charge of Rittenhouse carrying underage was dropped.

From the legal standpoint, some interesting convolutions. Check it out when you have the time.
 
Thermal said:
Short version: a statute was cited that said in plain wording "under 18 yo may not carry firearms". Then followed a couple utterly nonsensical and literally illiterate qualifiers that swallowed the statute. The charge of Rittenhouse carrying underage was dropped.

From the legal standpoint, some interesting convolutions. Check it out when you have the time.
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I see. There is a law against underage people possessing dangerous weapons. But there is an exception for shotguns and rifles of a certain length when in compliance with certain hunting laws. But those specific hunting laws only apply to people under 16. So, someone between 16 and 18 falls into a loophole. It appears it was intended to be a hunting exception but instead of actually saying that it merely references other laws, which in this case then don't apply. The judge was right. The law is wrong. That isn't some weird interpretation of a law. It is a badly written law that explicitly carves out an exception that probably wasn't intended, but that's what the law says.
 
DevilsAdvocate said:
I see. There is a law against underage people possessing dangerous weapons. But there is an exception for shotguns and rifles of a certain length when in compliance with certain hunting laws. But those specific hunting laws only apply to people under 16. So, someone between 16 and 18 falls into a loophole. It appears it was intended to be a hunting exception but instead of actually saying that it merely references other laws, which in this case then don't apply. The judge was right. The law is wrong. That isn't some weird interpretation of a law. It is a badly written law that explicitly carves out an exception that probably wasn't intended, but that's what the law says.
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Now apply that to our battery definition. No assumption s about the intent, now.
 
The cops didn't need the Osundarios to seal this case.

They just came along after they cops said:

1- here is you buying an uber right to the place that Jussie got 'beat up'
2- here is you walking one block away on video
3- here is you texting Smollet about buying red hats and rope
4- And here are cut out magazines from your apartment, matching the threatening letters (FEDERAL OFFENSES BTW) sent to Smollet's studio.
5- Here is Smollett saying you beat him up.

What do you want to do? Help us put this guy away?

You're not a rat, if the guy you were working for throws you under the bus first.
 
Warp12 said:
The defense has already stated their intent to appeal. On what grounds, who knows.
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The MSNCB opinion piece by Zach Stafford over at MSNBC might explain the grounds...


The Jussie Smollett saga may now be technically over after a Chicago jury found the actor guilty Thursday of five of the six counts he faced, but its impact will be — and has already been — felt for years to come. It doesn’t matter if the actor, who starred on “Empire,” really was beaten up by people yelling “This is MAGA country!” and is wrongly being punished or if he did stage an elaborate hoax, as the jury decided he did by finding him guilty of five counts of disorderly conduct.

The indisputable victims of hate crimes will now carry an even heavier burden of suspicion.

Instead, the seemingly never-ending questions over the almost three years regarding the truthfulness of his account means

The only winners found as the dust settles are the members of the right who have declared themselves America’s real victims of hate and discrimination — people who have strategically made the Smollett case their go-to example for how the left operates and how it wrongly makes villains out of Donald Trump supporters.

Meaning Smollett's guilty verdict is their new crowning jewel as our culture wars rage on.
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https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/jussi...hurt-lgbtq-folks-n1285638?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_ma
 
"The indisputable victims of hate crimes will now carry an even heavier burden of suspicion."

Seems to me that the indisputable victims of hate crimes wouldn't carry any burden of suspicion at all, what with their victimhood being, you know, indisputable. It's the disputable victims that will carry a burden of suspicion. Or as I like to call it, "the burden of proof."

And the only reason Smollett's burden of suspicion was so heavy was because his victimhood was so. Goddamn. Disputable.

But yeah, this whinging about how right-wingers must somehow still be the real villains of this story is about what I expected from the progressive wing.
 
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trustbutverify said:
I read the article. Where does he explain the grounds for appeal?
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Me too. It doesn't suggest any legal grounds for Smollett to appeal this verdict.

I feel like Smollett's hoax is just one of the more well-known and egregious examples of people ginning up victimhood stories for attention and sympathy.

The Rolling Stone story "A Rape on Campus" was another example. It's a real phenomenon, and not just an isolated incident. I've seen too many examples of stories like this over the years to not approach them with a degree of skepticism.

The article above is a lament that hoaxes like this make people more skeptical of the stories of real victims, although I really try to approach each case separately and judge it on its own evidence. Of course there are also real victims and real hate crimes, but there's also attention-seekers trying to pose as victims. The trick is to figure out which is real and which is fake.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Maybe a bunch of racists trolls will dance around acting like this gives them an excuse to be racist trolls.

He lied. He got caught. Now he's going to trial. Why didn't happen the way it was supposed to?

It's not like the DA covered it up and we had to have nationwide protests to get him arrested. It's not like it happens every day.

"Lookit everyone the black guy did something wrong! That means I'm really not a racist troll!" isn't a valid message to get out of this.
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You might appreciate Amanda Seales's takeaway:

"Even if it was a hoax… That’s low-key noble."

 
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