I am a lawyer (an old one & not a criminal lawyer) and I have always believed in jury trials. However, the on-line reactions to the recent killings of two civilians by ICE officers in the USA have given me cause to reflect on this.
I don’t know how many of you are aware of these killings, but the two victims were a woman in a car and, in a separate incident, a young man. Both were shot by ICE officers at fairly close range.
I watched the reactions to both incidents play out on Twitter. There were numerous videos of both incidents from various angles and these videos covered the period from the initial interactions until after the shootings. There may have been altered images shown but I believe the videos I saw were legitimate.
In any event, what I found deeply shocking was how posters viewed what they could see with their own two eyes through their political leanings. So, the Trump supporters “saw” the woman in the car use that car as a weapon and were certain that she drove it at the ICE officers, thus justifying being shot several times at close range. She most definitely did not, and I am sure that any independent witness seeing those videos would agree with me.
When a similar thing happened with the second victim, it dawned on me that we have entered a new period in our history, or perhaps we have regressed into what happened in the distant past. A significant proportion of our populations are either “for” a certain stance or “against” it, and that is affecting their sense of right and wrong and their understanding of who is guilty and who is not guilty. If the ICE officers involved are tried in relation to these incidents, doubtless the results will depend upon the political leanings of the jury members.
We are also at a stage where women’s rights are under attack - and if you don’t believe this, you are not paying sufficient attention. I am no longer satisfied that victims of rape have a realistic chance of obtaining justice in our courts.