Race Based Judicial Virtue Signalling By Ian Wilson LL.B

     The actual facts of the US case before the Supreme court is not too important for us, but rather the judicial dynamics. In Flowers v. Mississippi, Kavanaugh wrote majority opinion overturning a sixth conviction of a cold-blooded murderer who was convicted of killing four people 23 years ago. We should remember Kavanaugh as the Trump appointment that drove the left crazy because they thought that he was going to just like Black Judge Thomas, a literal constitutionalist and conservative. But this judge is just another white liberal. In Flowers, there was no doubt the defendant was guilty, but Kavanaugh was convinced that the jury was “racist.” The judgment was so unhinged that Justice Thomas, a Black man, in dissent called this out as virtue signalling:
  https://www.conservativereview.com/news/thomas-dissent-rips-kavanaugh-scotus-opinion-racial-politics/

“Justice Thomas shot back in his dissent and noted that not only does he disagree with the underlying premise and recent precedent (in Foster v. Chatman) that such facts would be grounds to overturn a conviction, but he disagrees with the notion that there was discriminatory intent. “The only clear errors in this case are committed by today’s majority,” wrote a clearly irate Thomas, who is getting tired of these cases. Confirming that we never should have taken this case, the Court almost entirely ignores—and certainly does not refute—the race-neutral reasons given by the State for striking Wright and four other black prospective jurors. Two of these prospective jurors knew Flowers’ family and had been sued by Tardy Furniture—the family business of one of the victims and also of one of the trial witnesses. One refused to consider the death penalty and apparently lied about working side-by-side with Flowers’ sister. One was related to Flowers and lied about her opinion of the death penalty to try to get out of jury duty. And one said that because she worked with two of Flowers’ family members, she might favor him and would not consider only the evidence presented. The state courts’ findings that these strikes were not based on race are the opposite of clearly erroneous; they are clearly correct.

In Thomas’ view, “Today’s decision distorts the record of this case, eviscerates our standard of review, and vacates four murder convictions because the State struck a juror who would have been stricken by any competent attorney.” Thomas accused the court of granting appeal “because the case has received a fair amount of media attention” and charged the majority with replacing careful trial records of the facts with “entertaining melodrama” that will result in “the litigation and relitigation of criminal trials in the media, to the potential detriment of all parties.” He concluded, “Any competent prosecutor would have struck the jurors struck below. Indeed, some of the jurors’ conflicts might even have justified for-cause strikes.” Thomas went on to say that under the Batson v. Kentucky (1986) precedent of invalidating convictions based on charges of discriminatory intent by the prosecutor in jury selection, the standard the Supreme Court must use is “whether the state courts were clearly wrong.” Thomas believes the answer is “obviously no,” based on a wealth of counter-evidence he cites in his lengthy dissent. “Yet the Court [majority] discovers ‘clear error’ based on its own review of a near-decade-old record. The majority apparently thinks that it is in a better position than the trial court to judge the tone of the questions and answers, the demeanor of the attorneys and jurors, the courtroom dynamic, and the culture of Winona, Mississippi.”

Thomas ended his dissent by essentially accusing the majority of ignoring the facts in order to engage in race-based virtue-signaling: “Although the Court’s opinion might boost its self-esteem, it also needlessly prolongs the suffering of four victims’ families.” Justice Gorsuch joined this part of the dissent, which once again demonstrates that we only have two originalists on the court, not five. Yet, still, Thomas stands in a league of his own. He seems to be the only one willing to consistently follow the Constitution. Gorsuch did not join “part IV” of Thomas’ dissent, in which Thomas declares his disdain for the entire premise “that a duly convicted criminal go free because a juror was arguably deprived of his right to serve on the jury,” in Thomas’ words, established in the “sacred” Batson v. Kentucky case. Thomas believes that Batson was “a departure from the previous century of jurisprudence” causing the court for the next few decades to move “its focus from the protections accorded the defendant to the perceptions of a hypothetical struck juror.” He accused Batson of disregarding “Article III’s limitations on standing by giving a windfall to a convicted criminal who, even under Batson’s logic, suffered no injury” and of forcing “equal protection principles onto a procedure designed to give parties absolute discretion in making individual strikes.” What’s the bottom line for originalists? We only have one solid originalist on the court. Gorsuch is a very reliable ally of Thomas in most cases, but he often won’t go as far in rolling back existing bad precedent, depending on the issue. Alito has become unreliable on many issues, even as he remains quite solid on others. In this case, he indicated that while he normally doesn’t like overturning such convictions, he felt this case was “likely one of a kind.” And Kavanaugh is the new Roberts. The Left has successfully enmeshed its entire agenda into racially sensitive jurisprudence, wrapping its abortion, election law, immigration, sexuality, and criminal law agenda in an identity politics juggernaut that only Thomas seems to be willing to confront head-on. If you think for a moment that there exists anywhere near a majority to stop the expansion of bad precedents – especially when they intersect with race-baiting politics – you are living in a conservative dream world.”

     This is how bad it has got, and the situation in Australia is far worse, as “our” High Court has totally abandoned originalism, since almost the very beginning:
  http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/SydLawRw/2008/15.html

     The Left in America have been ranting about the racism shown against the Central park rapists; here are two articles by lawyer/journalist Ann Coulter which demolish this white guilt:
  https://vdare.com/articles/ann-coulter-on-the-central-park-rapists-who-you-gonna-believe-netflix-or-the-evidence
  https://vdare.com/articles/ann-coulter-the-wilding-of-linda-fairstein-and-the-guilt-of-the-central-park-5

     Contrast this to the treatment of white nationalist James Fields, who on top of his conviction for hitting and killing Heather Heyer in his car, pleaded guilty to Federal “hate crimes” to avoid the death penalty, and received life plus 419 years! You can read an amazing deconstruction of this case by Jewish American Nicholas Stix here, who accepts that Field is a neo-Nazi, but still has rights, and he coolly addresses the legal points, which is what constitutionally should be done, making a case for a clear miscarriage of justice. Fields did not receive a competent state funded defence, and Stix shows this. Maybe Stix will do a pro bone appeals case for Fields. I note parallels with the sound logic of Justice Thomas here.
  https://vdare.com/articles/neither-justice-nor-mercy-for-james-fields-and-it-s-his-lawyers-fault?scroll_to_paragraph=13