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So I'm sitting on this but I can't stop being angry with Ellis in this case. To be clear, I'm only going to post the ballotpedia article on him because frankly everyone else is too incensed politically that it's getting skethy out there:
https://ballotpedia.org/T.S._Ellis
Indictment: https://www.politico.com/story/2017/...ictment-244307
Manafort statement of offense: https://www.politico.com/story/2017/...ictment-244307
Closest document I could find for what specific charges were actually convicted in this round: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...r-trump-russia
TL;DR - what legitimacy can the Court System claim, if political appointee judges adjudicate in a purely political manner?
We are talking about a person who already plead to conspiracy against the United States and then ALSO had these charges after he broke the terms of the plea. I have no problem with the Jury hanging on 10 counts nor do I even have a problem with the criticism of Proprietorial motivation as pressuring someone to flip is a normal and accepted practice in the US court system.
When we think of John Roberts siding with the Liberal side of the court, you do have to begin to wonder - is it because he realizes the "obstruct and cram" approach of appointing litmus-tested, activist judges is so endemic that he realizes should he not comport himself beyond reproach, he sees the very risk of the US Court System itself losing all semblance of legitimacy. I know what Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Ginsburg, Kagan, and Breyer are going to vote every time regardless of specifics on wedge issues. If we extrapolate this is more prevalent as we go down (as people are actually closer to political pressure), well I'm not going to say you have to wonder... you have to say what are we going to do about it? That as an institution is not a brake on tyranny. It's Tyranny's lubrication.
That is - if we all accept that Judges are in fact there to support party (once legally abstracted we're just talking about premises in regards to how they build their legal opinions being set and party orthodox) over state, then the question is have they outlived their usefulness as a bulwark against tyranny?
https://ballotpedia.org/T.S._Ellis
Indictment: https://www.politico.com/story/2017/...ictment-244307
Manafort statement of offense: https://www.politico.com/story/2017/...ictment-244307
Closest document I could find for what specific charges were actually convicted in this round: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...r-trump-russia
TL;DR - what legitimacy can the Court System claim, if political appointee judges adjudicate in a purely political manner?
We are talking about a person who already plead to conspiracy against the United States and then ALSO had these charges after he broke the terms of the plea. I have no problem with the Jury hanging on 10 counts nor do I even have a problem with the criticism of Proprietorial motivation as pressuring someone to flip is a normal and accepted practice in the US court system.
When we think of John Roberts siding with the Liberal side of the court, you do have to begin to wonder - is it because he realizes the "obstruct and cram" approach of appointing litmus-tested, activist judges is so endemic that he realizes should he not comport himself beyond reproach, he sees the very risk of the US Court System itself losing all semblance of legitimacy. I know what Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Ginsburg, Kagan, and Breyer are going to vote every time regardless of specifics on wedge issues. If we extrapolate this is more prevalent as we go down (as people are actually closer to political pressure), well I'm not going to say you have to wonder... you have to say what are we going to do about it? That as an institution is not a brake on tyranny. It's Tyranny's lubrication.
That is - if we all accept that Judges are in fact there to support party (once legally abstracted we're just talking about premises in regards to how they build their legal opinions being set and party orthodox) over state, then the question is have they outlived their usefulness as a bulwark against tyranny?