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Either The Post Millennial is providing a skewed version of events, or a defense attorney just defeated Andy Ngo's civil case against two of his attackers through blatant juror intimidation. I tend to assume the media takes things out of context, especially openly partisan media, but it's hard for me to believe that a lawyer wearing an "I am Antifa" t-shirt every day in court, rather than formal attire, is anything other than a breach of protocol. Maybe the "I will remember all your faces" line was taken out of context, and she was just talking about her photographic memory. Maybe the Post Millennial was exaggerating when they said that the arguments were all ad hominem attacks. Or maybe this really is as bad as it seems.
Regardless, I'm surprised that the Motte isn't talking about the case.
Why would it be a surprise that a Portland jury acquitted antifa types? Next you'll tell me you were shocked when a jury of black women acquitted OJ Simpson of killing his white wife. Jury trials inherently limit justice to things that the median jury-selected resident of the locale in question considers criminal behavior. Your average Portlander probably does not consider beating up right-wing activists to be criminal. When some BLM activists tore down a statue of the slave trader Edward Colston, captured on video, they might have known they'd be acquitted by a jury in the left-wing city of Bristol.
In the end, jury trials are impossible in fractured societies. We already have extensive data on this, see here from the UK:
The same is obviously true for political ideology and worldview. In India, jury trials were famously abolished after a naval commander killed his wife's lover, and was acquitted 8-1 for murder. In Malaysia, they were abolished after the government got worried that a 'witch doctor' who killed and dismembered a politician who had sought her advice might go free.
Conservatives often defend jury nullification, so can't be shocked when it's used against them. You either have a law that's vibes-based, in which jurors decide whether they feel like someone has done something wrong, or you have a law that's fact based, in which professionals determine whether somebody committed a crime. Mixing the two is a recipe for problems, often even in homogenous societies, but especially in diverse ones.
"Jury decides based on what someone did, that they shouldn't be punished" is jury nullification. "Jury decides, based on the jury being threatened with physical harm, that someone shouldn't be punished" isn't.
Does what the defense attorney said legally count as jury intimidation?
How could it possibly not?
In a trial where somebody talks about how a group called Antifa tracked him down and physically assaulted him for his political opinions, the defense attorney wore a shirt saying "I am Antifa" and then directly told the jury that she'd remember their faces and that it's a good thing that antifa beats up people who disagree with them. The only way I could see this not counting as jury intimidation is if she gets the charges decided by a jury consisting solely of antifa members.
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