Pardon the Insurrection

If Donald Trump is elected president in 2024, there is a near-100% chance he will pardon the January 6 insurrectionists. I think that is effectively beyond contestation. Here are my two questions:

1) If a different Republican (e.g., DeSantis) is elected in 2024, what are the odds that he pardons the insurrectionists? I'd say it's less likely than the near-certainty that Trump would do it; but is it even below 50%? Below 10%?

2) If Trump is elected in 2024, what are the odds that he tries to prosecute at least some of the Capitol police officers who resisted the January 6 insurrectionists (here he is calling one such officer a "thug" and Ashli Babbitt a "hero")?

Scary thoughts.

The Oscar Grant Verdict

As nearly all of you know, Johannes Mehserle, the White BART police officer who fatally shot an unarmed, restrained Black man who was lying face-down on the ground, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter but acquitted of the more serious charges of voluntary manslaughter or second degree murder. Oakland residents reacted with outrage at the perceived lenient verdict, with several riots breaking out.*

It seems difficult to understand how a jury could refrain from judging Mehserle guilty of at least voluntary manslaughter (Having read the jury instructions given for voluntary manslaughter, I'm not longer willing to state that. This, nonetheless, simply raises the level of abstraction when we're talking about injustice). Nonetheless, part of me was surprised that there was a conviction at all. I am, in fact, that cynical. Look at the history. A Texas cop was recently acquitted of all charges after shooting an unarmed Black man, lying face down in his own driveway, because the cop thought he was stealing his own car. Bernard Goetz was acquitted of everything but unlawful possession of a firearm after brutally massacring four Black men on a subway train. And of course, we all remember the Rodney King verdicts. Given these precedents, any form of homicide conviction is at least partial justice. But then, I don't really expect the people of Oakland to settle for partial justice.

* The Root has a good piece on those. Also worth noting is that a significant portion of the rioters were White anarchists. And on that front, I agree with Myca and others in the comments, which is that these folks who just like to use political discord as an excuse for smashing shit are remarkably blind to their own privilege. Not only are they appropriating the miscarriage of justice in the Grant case for their own ideological ends (which I imagine is some ill-thought out version of "smash capitalism"), but even though their faces are White, the media narrative will be all about savage Black folks who run rampant through the streets when the legal system utterly fails them they don't get their way.

Ed Cite Roundup

My weekend begins whenever law review says it begins.

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We've heard this refrain before: It is such a grave injustice when "anti-Israel" rioters are punished for violating the law.

Maryland set to recognize out-of-state gay marriages. The state Attorney General held that the prohibition on gay marriage did not constitute a strong public policy, meaning that gay marriages ought to be placed in the same category as other marriages that Maryland does not perform in-state but recognizes when done out-of-state (such as common law marriages).

If only Blackwater did something really heinous, like registering Black people to vote! Then we'd have 'em!

Some Jewish and Christian organizations were organizing against "Israel Apartheid Week" at York University. Until the school decided to cancel all their events due to "security" concerns. It's nice to see that York cares so much about the safety of its Jewish students.

UNGA poised to urge Israel and Hamas to conduct investigations into the Goldstone allegations, even though Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon already noted that Israel has followed up on every allegation through processes which are identical to those by other Western countries. Whose surprised that the UNGA doesn't care?

It's tough to not sound condescending when your interlocutor a) knows less than you and b) takes great offense at the insinuation that he could stand to learn more.