As you know: terror for slaves, women, etc. prevailed for centuries in the American Empire. 2023 is the year in which multiple official (hence notorious) actions (e.g. not one-off wrongful convictions), consistent with and contributing to the increase (from e.g. the year 2000) of lawless policies and behavior, formalized that at any time, any person in the American Empire, regardless of personal words or actions, can be reduced to slavery, and that the government will facilitate direct criminal activity against the general population.
The E. Jean Carroll against Donald Trump case, for which a jury verdict was returned on 9 May 2023, was the official act that certified the end of modern confidence in the civil trial procedure, in which jurors are asked for “preponderance of evidence”, “more likely than not”, and typically with less than unanimous consent and fewer than 12 jurors approving. Several points about this trial stand out as especially egregious (that is not tautological), even in the broken American civil procedural system:
- The plaintiff could not even produce a precise date of the alleged crime, and the filing in court occurred more than a decade after the alleged crime.
- The original complaint was for defamation, for an incident that occurred more than a decade prior, at which point all witnesses’ and even participants’ memories long since have become even less reliable than the questionable accuracy they have immediately after such incidents.
- The New York state government arbitrarily removed statute of limitations protections, allowing additional complaints in this case to be brought.
- The jury somehow managed to find Trump not guilty of rape, yet guilty of sexual abuse, in a case in which there was zero physical evidence, eyewitnesses, etc. that could support the distinction. (One could consider such a distinction were there some evidence in the case, but with e.g. the presentation of a semen-stained dress, the assertion of sexual abuse means that the jury has to disbelieve both Ms. Carroll and Mr. Trump, and yet at the same time take the existence of a 13+ year old dress, and the likely degraded DNA evidence on it, as the truth (which itself never happened, as the mention of this evidence was not allowed for presentation to the jury, though I mention it because the case was tried in the public arena long before it made it to civil court)). (https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/09/jury-verdict-form-e-jean-carroll-defamation-trial-00096059#:~:text=05%2F09%2F2023%2006%3A26%20PM%20EDT%20A%20federal%20jury%20on,a%20department%20store%20dressing%20room%20in%20the%201990s.)
Initially, this cost Trump $5 million USD, which for an ordinary person, reduces them to permanent poverty and the inability to retire, with no practical recourse. Furthermore, the ongoing defamation claims exposed him to even more penalties, as he continued to claim that he did not rape her – therefore, his freedom of speech has been taken. As of this writing, the price has gone up to $88 million USD – for a case in which Trump, even according to the grossly unsupported jury judgment, had justification to deny the rape portion of the allegation (vs. the unspecified sexual abuse).
The civil process in this case is the essence of terror – on the word of one person, to threaten and then to penalize people with no evidence – and the types and size of the penalties, reduce the victim to slavery.
This act was the gross and notorious threshold-breaker of a wide variety of issues in general and on the trend, including, but not limited to:
- Gross abuse of class action lawsuits, e.g. in the Mallinckrodt and others’ opioid cases, in which the distributors were legally forced to perform the actions for which they later were found civilly liable.
- Wildly disproportionate civil punishments, which have escalated in magnitude and frequency from the era of the the Peter Thiel/Gawker-type abuse, into actions such as the $148 million dollar Rudy Giuliani defamation verdict (a number which grossly exceeds that assessed in routine wrongful death actions).
- The Charles Johnson underage rape evidence-free conviction, in which a police officer was sentenced to 32 years in prison in criminal court. (see details below)
- The Paul Haggis verdict, which similarly brought civil penalties on the order of magnitude of $5 million or more, in a he-said, she-said situation.
- A long and painful history of messy divorces in which allegations of domestic abuse routinely play with a similar lack of evidence.
- Various effectively retroactive repeals of the presumption of innocence in marital rape: that is to say, that now your marriage “contract” does not count for exonerating evidence if your wife or ex-wife accuses you of rape.
- The retroactive repeals of statutes of limitations in many different provinces, that mean the New York state abuses are not specific to a certain corrupt or misguided jurisdiction.
- In general the high expenses of lawyers in civil and criminal cases, which make the process the punishment.
- Gross delays in these cases and others, amounting to years before even initial verdicts are rendered.
Hence, this 2023 act against Donald Trump (a notorious criminal himself, to be sure) merely is another taunt of police, judges, lawyers, and the financial system, in their continuously demonstrated dominance over the population. Whether you abuse the civil process or can find a prosecutor willing to abuse the criminal one, no one is safe.
2023 also approximately is the year, in which the refusal of major city and provincial governments, adequately to fund their police and other justice system operations, to provide a means by which police can do their jobs and not go to prison, and in general to protect the public, grossly is contradicted by both the results of the recent past, and by the end of any COVID-related disruption excuses. Numerous cities that had problems in preceding years, including Chicago, persisted in their police understaffing, while cities such as New Orleans had many officers suddenly leave the force, and have not recovered. Meanwhile, a wave of overzealous police-prosecutions (California e.g. Edward Bronstein, D.C. police pretty much anytime, Minnesota e.g. George Floyd), put police in all jurisdictions, in additional fear that a change in the city council or prosecutor, will have them thrown in prison for doing their jobs and trying to come home to their families. Responding to calls with proper procedures, bringing all qualified cases to trial – these things require money and staff, which the local governments aren’t supplying. In addition, neither the generally inadequate law enforcement, nor the trend of overzealous police discipline and prosecution, can give prospective recruits any reason to put their lives at risk for an inadequate paycheck. Often, these jurisdictions aggravate the problem by banning civilian possession of guns.
A concrete example: even though Portland, Oregon, is trying to hire/train/provide more police, they won’t deputize Nike security guards to use force and make arrests, so that Nike can run their N.E. Martin Luther King store in Northeast Portland not at a gross loss. While the point about an understaffed police force, in the short run, might be reasonable (e.g. all other points above that caused the situation in the first place), the failure to deputize citizens is completely within the control of the local government.
This escalation of lawlessness, builds on the formalized leniency for juvenile crime; for example, in the District of Columbia and Maryland, it is routine to see murderers under the age of 18 set free after serving only a few years in prison.
The policies of popular restraint give the criminals some impunity, hence terrorizing the general population, with the predictable result of excess physical and financial harm. The lenient treatments further encourage crime, by making it economically feasible to kill your business partners, journalist critics, ex-wives, etc. by hiring juveniles to do your dirty work.
With the widespread use of the denunciation rule of one, and similarly widespread support of criminal activity, in principle (not magnitude), we cannot say that the American Empire is better than any of its enemies. To fix this, we must re-establish the rule of law – a process that will require many decades of correct behavior. What you read on this site are a lot of the steps that can help with that process. Even so, much of what is on this site is far too advanced for our current state. What we need most are more honest people, willing to use the ballot box, the bullet box, and other means to promptly and completely enforce the just law.
Recently there was the case of Charles Johnson, who was sentenced to 32 years in prison in a District of Columbia court, on charges of child sexual abuse. (Read all the details here: https://eaccess.dccourts.gov/eaccess/home.page.2 , case number 2022 CF1 004048 – which, it was a pleasant surprise to find this many case documents freely available). Long story short, this case was a he-said, she-said between Charles Johnson and his child accuser, with no physical evidence or medical examination findings that supported the occurrence of the alleged acts. The jury was instructed that in the District of Columbia, one witness’ testimony, if persuasive enough, could constitute proof beyond a reasonable doubt. They then proceeded to find Mr. Johnson guilty.
We recognize this as a denunciation rule of one, which is more than sufficient to create general terror. Of course, the District of Columbia government needs to raise the instruction standards regarding proof beyond a reasonable doubt. However, the jury clearly erred in asserting that reasonable doubt was not created by the alternative theory: that a minor, under the control of a jilted mother who had previously lied to the District of Columbia child protection services, was (under the duress of the mother) coached and instructed to accuse the defendant. The well-accepted notion that a child’s testimony can be swayed by authority figures (i.e. the mother) was disregarded, though the jury was presented with evidence that this had occurred in the past. Moreover, the jury had to discount all reports of positive conduct by Mr. Johnson, and the lack of physical evidence, and that the abuse was reported after Mr. Johnson left the relationship. It was not merely that the jury accepted the denunciation rule of one; they also failed to examine the relative credibility of the witness. That is: since the jury disregarded all indications of witness credibility, practically speaking, they would have convicted Mr. Johnson no matter what was presented in the courtroom. To them, he was guilty from the start.