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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   19584 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025

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Court opinion with possible culture-war implications:

  • Morales-Torres and Rivera drive to Almodovar's house in Morales-Torres's truck, and do not return. Worried, Morales-Torres's romantic partner drives by Almodovar's house, sees Almodovar with bloodstains on his shirt and Morales-Torres's truck still in the driveway, and calls 911. Several hours later, Morales-Torres's truck is found elsewhere, on fire and with Morales-Torres's and Rivera's bullet-riddled corpses inside it. Almodovar is charged with two murders.

  • Almodovar claims that he only defended himself from an attempt by Morales-Torres and Rivera to rob him of 20 k$ of drug money, and he had a cousin (who later died while committing a robbery) burn the corpses because he thought no one would believe the self-defense story. But the jury disbelieves the self-defense story and convicts Almodovar on both counts.

  • Almodovar appeals, arguing that there was insufficient evidence for the jury to find the "specific intent to kill" that a conviction of murder requires. But the appeals panel affirms.

    Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, as we must, we find that the jury rationally concluded Almodovar's account was false. Almodovar's argument relies on the fact that his testimony was mostly unrebutted. Of course, that is largely because Almodovar covered up the crime. That this case involves a claim of self-defense does not detract from the principle that circumstantial evidence is sufficient to meet the Commonwealth's burden, and Almodovar's argument fails to account for the inferences that may be drawn from his testimony that he covered up the crime. It is well-established that efforts to conceal wrongdoing may be considered as circumstantial evidence of guilt. [Citing a 1988 decision of the state supreme court:]

    Evidence of [the defendant]'s disposal of the body supplied important proof relative to whether she acted with malice. Human experience teaches that persons who commit justifiable homicides, without malice, do not ordinarily feel compelled to destroy the victim's body. Rather, it is those who harbor a guilty conscience, believing their acts not to have been justified, who are most likely to conceal evidence of their deeds.

    Thus, even setting aside the implausibility of Almodovar's testimony of how the shootings unfolded, we conclude that his post-shooting actions are more than sufficient circumstantial evidence establishing that the victims were not the aggressors. Indeed, his concealment and destruction made it impossible to test, for example, the firearm destroyed in the fire. Moreover, the pathologist could not fully test the bodies for evidence like gunshot residue or conduct a complete autopsy. Accordingly, the circumstantial evidence readily supports the jury's finding that Almodovar specifically intended to kill both men.

But is the state supreme court's pronouncement of "the wicked flee when no man pursueth" truly applicable in the modern age? According to a recent poll, in 2023 confidence in the police was only 49 percent among whites and a pitiful 31 percent among nonwhites in the US. Those numbers recovered to 54 percent and 44 percent (respectively) in 2024, but even that is a bit lower than one might expect. Should a defendant's distrust of the police be held against him in court?

The court didn’t find him guilty because he didn’t trust the police. They found him guilty because enacting a coverup makes more sense from a guilty party than an innocent one.

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