You’ve gotta respect the creativity.
The post Republican Talking Heads Do Their Best To Make Hunter Biden Trial About Black People Subverting Justice appeared first on Above the Law.
Hunter Biden has been a frequent favorite to dunk on by the right for the last few years now. He recently pleaded not guilty to what looks like an open-and-shut case about him filing a false form so that he could get a gun. Guns are a weird talking point for the right — if we were talking about Trump or anyone else falsifying a form so that he could have a gun, we’d probably be having some conversation about how ATF form 4473 is unconstitutional, but alas. So, how do you make a cut-and-dried gun ownership case about a guy you don’t like interesting? Same way you always do, find a way to pin it on the Blacks:
I get if they were to limit the risk of nullification to “Oh no, Biden is a likeable guy,” but their rationale here is clearly race baiting. If this feels familiar, it’s because this is the same strategy used immediately after a certain bridge in Baltimore got hit by a boat:
Now, Fox is Fox and is on record for asking if the nation should be offended by something as simple as saluting with a latte while Black, but it isn’t like a respected source would add legitimacy to the notion that Black people are the potential hang-up to Hunter Biden seeing justice, right? In comes Jonathan Turley:
Jury nullification arguments have long been banned or discouraged in many courtrooms. Nevertheless, jury nullification has its advocates. For example, Georgetown Law Professor Paul Butler has called for Black jurors to refuse to convict Black defendants of drug crimes. Butler has said that “my goal is the subversion of the present criminal justice system.”
Hunter Biden is obviously not the primary concern of Professor Butler in the impact of drug prosecutions on the Black community. However, he has also argued that “jury nullification is just part of an arsenal of tools to end the failed “war on drugs.”
The Butler nod is such a non-sequitur that even Turley has to add the “obviously not the primary concern” verbiage as a caveat. He should have went further, perhaps an “obviously I’m not insinuating the average Delawarian is so influenced by this particular Yale Law Review article from ’95 that we should treat the possibly that a significant number of them will be influenced to decide based on it,” but maybe that would have cut too much into Turley’s word count.
While the ultimate outcome of the case is uncertain, one thing is for sure: Somehow, all of this is Black people’s fault.
Is Hunter Biden Pursing A Jury Nullification Strategy? [Johnathan Turley.org]
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.
