In Horrible Decision, Anthony Kennedy Allows Trial Verdicts to be Nullified if Jurors Are Found Insufficiently Politically Correct

This story did not get much coverage, but has the potential to be huge.  It will almost invariably lead to endless appeals and an end to the anonymous jury system, with jurors being investigated after the fact for any beliefs that might exonerate those found guilty of crimes.  It also fits in perfectly with the general left-wing assault on civil liberties ranging from practice of Christianity to freedom of speech to freedom of association.  Now jurors can be publicly excoriated if they are found to have uttered something politically incorrect at any point prior to or during a trial involving some “minority.”

Naturally, “Catholic” Anthony Kennedy sided with the Supreme Court’s left-wing minority to decide the issue.  He is the most powerful man in America by a long shot, and was never elected to so much as dog catcher:

A recent Supreme Court ruling turns criminal justice on its head, putting the jury on trial for political incorrectness and letting the criminals run free. Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado is utter lunacy:

After a Colorado jury convicted a Mexican man of sexual harassment, two jurors signed affidavits that a retired police officer on the jury had expressed racial animus during deliberations. The juror was reported to have stated that “nine times out of 10 Mexican men were guilty of being aggressive toward women and young girls,” among other slurs. The defendant’s counsel sought to overturn the conviction based on racial animus but was denied by the trial judge.[Who declares that statement to be a slur?  It might be wrong, it might be a slur, but it could also be a mere statement of fact.  Who gets to decide what constitutes a slur?  Yet another power acceded to an unelected, unaccountable jurist?]

Civilization has been protected from verdicts being retroactively nullified due to alleged flaws of the jurors for centuries, thanks to the no-impeachment rule rooted in English common law.

As Justice Anthony Kennedy explained in the 5-3 majority opinion this week in Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado, the rule “promotes full and vigorous discussion by jurors by providing considerable assurance that after being discharged they will not be summoned to recount their deliberations” or otherwise harassed. It also “gives stability and finality to verdicts.”

Yet Justice Kennedy joined the Court’s four liberals in Pena-Rodriguez to overturn that standard for accusations of racial bias. [Remember, Anthony Kennedy was the man possessed of the god-like power to peer into the souls of tens of millions of Americans opposed to so-called same-sex marriage, and find nothing but bigotry and blind animus.  This is the creature that decides the fate of hundreds of millions of people.]

What exactly constitutes “racial bias” that should result in the verdict being overturned? The Supremes don’t say, guaranteeing endless appeals on grounds of alleged juror political incorrectness.

Presumably it will still be possible to incarcerate white male heterosexual Christian criminals. All other guilty verdicts are likely to be held up indefinitely while the jurors are retroactively investigated for any indication of ideological impropriety.

The ruling is a step toward corrupting juries with political standards based on the progressive obsessions with race, gender and class.

Beyond that, it is a step toward reducing our legal system to a dysfunctional farce.

Indeed. If there is an extreme imbalance in the failing US constitutional system of checks and balances, it is in the judiciary.  Every single leftist advance in the culture, going back decades, has come from the judiciary, not the people themselves.  Even constitutional amendments have been found “unconstitutional.”  Basically anything a left-leaning judge does not like can be found to be unconstitutional, and rationalized on the most ephemeral of precepts: emanations from the penumbras, and all that.  Amazing.

As far as turning the legal system into a dysfunctional farce, to those who want to see the United States, as it has been, destroyed, this is a feature, not a bug.  Anything that undermines people’s support for the USA That Was is good to them, as they think it will bring forth their much longed for revolution.

Of course, the vast majority of the people longing for revolution today will be among the first lined up and shot should it occur.  Along with millions of other relative innocents.

So now you have another reason to strive to get out of jury duty.