>In all, there were 46 potential witnesses to the shooting, including Trena McElroy, who was in the truck with her husband when he was shot. No one called for an ambulance. Only Trena claimed to identify a gunman; every other witness either was unable to name an assailant or claimed not to have seen who fired the fatal shots. The DA declined to press charges. An extensive federal investigation did not lead to any charges. Missouri-based journalist Steve Booher described the attitude of some townspeople as "He needed killing."
Would you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to HN? You've been doing it repeatedly, unfortunately, and I don't want to have to ban you again.
Of course. I think the real measure of who that 0.25% is though, are the ones where if someone McElroyed you, an entire town of 40 people would stay silent about it.
In the south it used to be an entire town of hundreds would show up for a lynching and take pictures and a picnic below the tree.
Emmett Till’s river site memorial plaque had to be replaced by a bulletproof 500lbs one to slow down its vandalism. In 2019. Before that it had to be replaced 3 times, once because it was removed and tosse in the river, and the other 2 times due to damage from being shot at. It had been first erected in 2008.
Jury nullification is very much a two-edged blade, it’s been used against the Fugitive Slaves Act (this sort of acts was a big reason why the south decided to secede) and it’s been used, a lot, to protect racist murderers.
It's really worth noting how much the nature of law in the US changed after the Civil War. So much so that you can think of post-1868 US as a fundamentally different country, legally, than pre-1868. The big change is that the Civil War demonstrated the shortcomings of state-level interpretation of law, and with the 14th Amendment, a wide swath of such interpretation was barred.
And, indeed, plenty of people think the old way was better. Why they think the old way was better is always worth observing with a critical eye.
Just looking at the 20+ number and without further context, we can't say whether he was falsely accused escaped the convictions because the justice system worked for once, or whether he was correctly accused, and escaped the convictions because the justice system had false negatives.
(Looking at the rest of the Wikipedia entry, I am very sympathetic to the latter point of view.)
Doesn't the jury verdict need to be unanimous? If they can't come to agreement, they redo the trial I thought. So one jury member can force a retrial, but can't force a not guilty verdict.
