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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   10691 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 14, 2026

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It's a little rough because the actual facts for the actual conviction are genuinely messy.

Johnson's conviction for the robbery and homicide of Kenyatta Smith depended heavily on Ozzie Clark's testimony identifying him, and if you actually look at the transcript, that identification is genuinely pretty shaggy as testified. Charitably, Clark did genuinely have reason to fear retribution had he immediately pointed at a murderer, and at court received not-very-subtle intimidation in the court room, so him claiming to have no idea who the shooter was the day after the murder could plausibly just that. It's also a lot of impeachment material for a witness. The jury had the information, and the supposedly prejudicial hearsay was just a police officer saying the other accused guy pointed to Johnson, so I can't judge too critically by just reading transcripts. I can at least see it, though, where some of the others are just clearly guilty people.

Even the misleading statements during the concession aren't that misleading, at least by the standards of defense attorneys and activists. I'm pretty pessimistic on what that means, so we're fully in damning with faint praise space, but you don't have fabricated quotes or completely made up claims. Clark did genuinely say he was motivated to provide testimony now because of "civic duty"/"civil duty" after claiming something entirely different before, and did genuinely say he had "not visual" identification. But he also claimed during the trial he "I didn't need any problems by getting involved in all this" (aka feared retribution), and that he'd seen Johnson very shortly before the shooting, had known him for a long time, and had heard his voice, and none of those things made it into the concession. That's the sort of stuff that's a central case of what 'duty of candor to the court' means in a classroom, and also the sort of failure of candor that ends up polluting widespread pleadings.

But the actual behavior in the review office is hilariously bad. "Stiegler Schemes to Blame Mason" sounds like a partisan judge editorializing, until you read the section:

At this time, Stiegler “lobbied” Ernst and Napiorski. Early on June 5, Stiegler told Ernst that Mason “had purposefully inserted the false facts into the response,” and that “this was one hundred percent her fault, zero percent his fault.” Stiegler suggested that the DAO “file something with the Court preemptively before the hearing explaining that we had gone through Ms. Mason’s cases, that we found mistakes in other cases too, and that, therefore, this was all her fault.” Ernst responded that if there were errors in Mason’s other cases, this would only show a pattern of poor supervision by Stiegler. He nonetheless persisted:

[W]e have to get out ahead of this. Because if we get out ahead of it, then the Judge will view this as one rogue ADA—well, an ADA who went rogue basically. And whereas if we don’t, then he will think of this as this was all Matthew Stiegler’s fault. Stiegler made the same suggestion to Napiorski: “to look through old filings or old documents that Ms. Mason prepared and find more mistakes and to kind of paint her as a rogue actor.” Yet, Stiegler testified before me that Mason was an “experienced” ADA, “one of our strongest ADAs in the [U]nit.”

And then later:

Mr. Krasner’s actions are more troubling. He did not simply learn of the Stiegler proposal; he urged the Law Division supervisors—who serve at Mr. Krasner’s pleasure—to implement it and to present a false narrative to the Court. Mr. Krasner directed that the DAO stay involved in Johnson “to protect the office”—which Napiorski believed also meant protecting Mr. Krasner himself—and that the Four “not do any investigation”. “[Mr. Krasner] didn’t want people poking around in what occurred.” (Id. at 126:2 (Wildberger).) He thus sought to direct the very lawyers obligated by law to correct the Concession’s errors to do just the opposite. Even worse, when told that the Four believed they had to alert me, Mr. Krasner responded that “there would be consequences for Ms. Ernst if she alerted the Court to the conflict issue,” and that there would be consequences “if anyone did.”

This is three stooges shit.

Now, to be fair, this is one judge's summary of affidavits, where pretty much everyone involved has strong incentive to cover their ass and sell someone else up the river. But everyone there is a lawyer, so however you shake out the properties, somebodies lying. My gutcheck has Stiegler and Krasner at the worst side of the line, for what it's worth.

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