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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 22, 2025

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Here I thought I was about to pay for my sins of not doing my due dilligance on the Motte, but;

Gretchen Whitmer: Michigan governor kidnap plot case collapses

Fox and Croft were the two I was thinking of. Not acquited, but a mistrial. I find it telling that the initial court for those two were ruled as a mistrial, only to be convicted after a second trial(of cource) and both were given very heavy prison terms - again, of cource - and then denied appeal by a panel of Judges, as noted in your second link.

Of. Cource.

Perhaps I'm being very uncharitable, but I find it difficult to do so in such a case as this one.

While mistrials can be declared for a bunch of reasons, your article is very clear on why there's a mistrial:

Mr Harris and Mr Caserta were found not guilty, but the charges against Mr Fox and Mr Croft ended in mistrial.

The government had argued they targeted Gretchen Whitmer, 50, in a 2020 plot.

Jurors began deliberating this week after 14 days of testimony and had indicated earlier on Friday that they were deadlocked on some of the charges.

They ultimately reached no verdict against Mr Fox, who was alleged to be the group's ringleader, and Mr Croft, both of whom were also facing an additional count each of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction.

They didn't find Fox and Croft not guilty, they were unable to decide whether they were guilty or not, which means a hung jury, that mistrial status, and generally a retrial: this was a pretty high-profile case, it would be very surprising for the courts to say "eh, we don't really care about this enough for two trials, let it go". Their co-defendants Harris and Caserta, who the jury did acquit, did not have a second trial, and if Fox and Croft had managed that they wouldn't be getting a second trial either.

You can argue that the courts stacked the deck to make sure the second trial had a better chance of finding them guilty, but that was clearly a reasonable possibility even in the first trial, or the jury would have just acquitted as they did for Harris and Caserta.

Still no judge overturning the convictions: Fox and Croft were still in the indistinct "haven't resolved this in a court" status after the first trial, a second trial found them guilty (still by a jury), and then the appeals court decided the jury's decision was from a trial that was performed adequately and didn't need reexamination.