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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026

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I think that the fairness of a trial is a sliding scale rather than a boolean quantity.

One of the nice things about a trial is it cuts through all the shades-of-gray stuff and provides a result. There's a verdict, guilty or not guilty. If you say to the unjustly convicted man that his trial was only somewhat unfair, most people will realize you're talking nonsense.

However, this does not mean that justice is better served by not having them tried, though I concede that there exists some level of unfairness where a guilty verdict is assured, and I would not want to send anyone to such a court (at least if I was not very much convinced of their guilt).

An assured guilty is "[s]ome level of unfairness", sure. A very high level of unfairness.

For the ICE shooters, I think the biggest difference from SOP would be that they would not get the cop bonus from prosecutors and juries. This does not automatically mean that they are found guilty.

I do not believe that. A Minneapolis jury will absolutely convict. Both in the Pretti case AND the Good case.

If you say to the unjustly convicted man that his trial was only somewhat unfair, most people will realize you're talking nonsense.

I think your binary justly convicted vs unjustly convicted only covers a minority of cases, generally the ones where there is a dispute of fact -- did he do it or not to the act.

For more cases, there is some sliding quantity differentiating legal conduct from criminal behavior. Having sex with someone who can not consent due to being blackout drunk is illegal, having sex with someone who had half a glass of wine is legal, so there is some grey area in the middle where you are less than 100% guilty but also less than 100% innocent, and a jury might reasonably reach either verdict. Likewise for killing someone while going over the speed limit.

I do not believe that. A Minneapolis jury will absolutely convict. Both in the Pretti case AND the Good case.

That does not mean that it is unfair. If the jury would also convict if Pretti had shot first, injuring an ICE officer, then I would grant you that there is no justice to be found from them.

As it is, the shooters -- particularly in the Pretti case -- are not clearly innocent. "We heard a gunshot and then we put ten rounds into some nearby person we thought was armed" is a pretty big fuckup. Even normal cops might go to jail for that if it was caught from multiple cameras. Regular citizens or gang members will definitely go to jail for it. The case against the Good shooter is weaker, but also something where I would not call it a miscarriage of justice if it a guilty verdict was delivered for a similar case in resulting from a neighborhood argument.

"A jury will absolutely convict [for particular cases]" is not an argument that a trial is unfair. Few people were surprised when Charles Manson was found guilty of murder -- the known facts would have made any other outcome unlikely. The test is if they would also have convicted him of unlikely charges like invading Poland, shooting Lincoln, or using witchcraft to cause stillbirths. If jury would have been willing to convict him of these, then I would concede that he did not get a fair trial.

As it is, the shooters -- particularly in the Pretti case -- are not clearly innocent. "We heard a gunshot and then we put ten rounds into some nearby person we thought was armed" is a pretty big fuckup. Even normal cops might go to jail for that if it was caught from multiple cameras. Regular citizens or gang members will definitely go to jail for it.

That isn't a fair summary of the Pretti case -- and it's a summary that could be used (unfairly) for the Rittenhouse case as well, which you may note ended in acquittal. The cops who shot Pretti may well be guilty, but I don't believe the outcome in a Minneapolis case would depend on their guilt.

The case against the Good shooter is weaker, but also something where I would not call it a miscarriage of justice if it a guilty verdict was delivered for a similar case in resulting from a neighborhood argument.

So a woman is intermittently blocking the road with the car, two random guys object to this, she drives right at one of them, he shoots as he is struck, he should be found guilty? No, if those two guys weren't ICE agents, there'd be little question of the validity of their self-defense cse.