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The Cat in the Hat Comes to Court
WSJ Article on cultural and political strife in jury rooms
(Note: I tried to archive(dot)is the link, but it kept failing. If one of you internet wizards could post a non-paywalled link, I'd
move to dismiss all chargesappreciate it).The article does the best that journalism can do today; it begins with a pretty fucking cringe anecdote (more on that below), then generalizes, then backs up the generalization with some "stats" on jury surveys. In weaves in the beginning anecdote throughout the piece to keep the reader engaged. It isn't deliberately misleading or negligently undereported, it's just sort of ... meatless.
The TLDR is that the post-COVID cultural / political situation is making it difficult for juries to come to agreements when, ostensibly, the should be or previously were able. The plural of "anecdote" isn't data and, thanks to the many law-pilled Mottizens, it's plain to see how, if one wants to, it's easy to cherry pick cases (and jury conduct, I would presume) that are absolutely wild. Does that mean it's a real trend? Perhaps, perhaps not. Some of the "experts" quoted kind of gesture in that direction, but the article fails to make a definitive case.
Back to the fuckery
The opening of the article details how a grown-ass jury forewoman decided to make halloween costumes for herself and other jurors and then, with the help of a Boomer Karen, hen-pecked everyone into showing up in red/black shirts and then posing for a group photo in the "costumes":
The triggering thing here, with those who have eyes to see, isn't some sort of pearl clutching around the "sanctity of being entrusted as jurors." It is that a cross-generational alliance of the worst kinds of women guilt-forced everyone else to perform a MANDATORY FUN TIME kafabe.
This is the same character as HR-led corporate initiatives like "dress up as your favorite supreme court justice! (Note: all costumes must be Ruth Bader-Ginsberg)" or "Office pajama day!" or, of course, the LGTBQ+ month. No, they don't actually force you to take part (unless, you know, they fucking do) but if you don't the passive-agressive, begging-the-question bullying becomes its own special torment. This is the infamous office space "pieces of flair" absurdity transformed into a political purity test.
When posters like @faceh directly and others (....me) indirectly assert that "women aren't the problem, but the problem is with women" this is what we mean. This is jury duty. These people are strangers to one another. That these two women would find no qualms in trying to enforce their own personal tastes and attitudes onto strangers is exactly the kind of hyper-entitlement, women-are-wonderful thinking that seems to be creating serious issues in societal competency and functioning.
I wonder how much of this dynamic infects actual jury rulings. How many "unanimous" rulings have happened because one or two Karens made up their minds and then hen-pecked everyone else into agreeing with them using social tactics instead of logic and reason?
I often compare women's social power to men's physical power. Imagine if a couple of burly men had physically intimidated all of the women into dressing in bikinis or slutty cleavage suits. Would people think it was cute and quirky then? Would people believe that it was a fair and impartial jury behind closed doors?
Many of them, and it's understood to be just fine and part of the process. Jacobson v. Henderson, 765 F. 2d 12 (2nd.Cir 1985) on why post-trial juror statements aren't admissible to attack a verdict:
Anderson v. Miller, 346 F. 3d 315 (2nd.Cir 2003) is a fun read on how far such behavior can go and still not result in a reversal:
There's a difference between something legal and something being good/moral/commendable/encouragement-worthy. The law can't place restrictions on jury-making procedures barring the most clear cut and unambiguous abuses (like actual violence) without slippery sloping itself into corruption and self-masturbatory feedback loops.
I am not the law. I can judge people for being bad and making bad decisions and suggest they are bad people who should be mocked and discouraged from behaving the way they behave. And discourage people from listening to them, because their power is anti-memetic. If obnoxious Karens are actually distorting the law in significant quantities, and people were made aware of this, then people could oppose it by being extra stubborn and stick to their principles when facing obnoxious Karens, with more confidence that their resistance is helping the law and not making them be the bad person the Karen says they are.
I don't think we should make Karen behavior illegal. The law isn't flexible or precise enough to diagnose it and curtail it without horrible overreach. I think we, as people, should call it out and shame it when we find it, across all of society.
Unfortunately Karens, by definition, are the arbiters of shame.
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