Honestly if you’re female and you’re called for jury duty and during the elimination process you’re asked if you’ve ever had any adverse experience with a man (harrassment or rape or any other male violence) just fuckin lie and say no. Then vote that fucker guilty
Women survivors are barred from serving on a jury but rapists are not even questioned. There can be no doubt that this is a major reason rapists walk free. Men have never played fair. It is time for women to start beating them at their own game. Our lives depend on it.
As someone who wants to be a prosecutor one day… I agree.
OK NO. NO NO NO NO NO. I am a defense attorney. I am a woman. I am also a sexual assault survivor. THAT BEING SAID I HAVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT THIS POST ALL WEEK AND IT’S SOOOOO FUCKING WRONG ON SO MANY LEVELS.
It’s wrong not for any bullshit rape apologist shit, btw, it’s wrong BECAUSE THIS SHIT WILL LITERALLY FUCK YOU OVER AND FUCK OVER ANY RAPE VICTIMS TOO. Here’s why:
(bear in mind this advice is gonna be MD specific since that’s where I practice)
1) FIRST THINGS FIRST. Don’t fucking lie. Don’t you dare fucking lie when you’re being questioned at jury duty. Why? OK well first: you’re swearing to tell the truth under penalty of perjury. What that means is yes, you will face criminal charges. Criminal charges which, btw, will keep you off of any juries in the future.
Here’s the thing, people (the law enforcement authorities and the defense counsel) WILL be able to find this out especially if you have ever filed a formal police report and/or spoken publicly about it. Yes, even on facebook. This ALSO means that if the fact that you lied about this is found out mid-trial it’s grounds for a mistrial with prejudice, if not a straight dismissal. Which means that hey, look, EVERYTHING HAS TO START ALL OVER AGAIN, THIS TIME WITH NEW JURORS.
2) The second thing is this: in many states, you don’t just get dismissed after answering affirmatively. The voir dire process in MD works like this:
A) prosecutors and the defense come up with a list of questions to ask potential jurors. These are typically a combination of blanket questions you would ask at any trial (ex: have you ever been convicted of a crime in this jurisdiction) and specific questions tailored to the hearing in particular (like the question above). Both attorneys get the chance to view each other’s questions and object to any particular questions that the other team may have.
B) So we’re at jury selection. Both attorneys argue preliminary whether or not questions get to be asked or not, submit the questions to the judge, and decide how to do the striking. (all at once submitted on paper, or alternating).
B1) “striking” means asking to get rid of a juror. A strike can be peremptory, i.e., you can strike for whatever reason you want and don’t have to justify it, automatically. Or you can have a strike FOR CAUSE. There are a limit to how many peremptory strikes/challenges you can have, depending on the jurisdiction, and the type of crime. And you may or may not have to justify those strikes and turn them into “for cause.”
B2) generally if, during a question, a juror answers in the affirmative, the judge will ask you to go up to the bench to privately discuss it with the judge, and both attorneys. In this case they will ask if you or somebody you know was a victim. They will also ask if the incident occurred in the same jurisdiction and possibly involved the same arresting officers. They will THEN ask you if you feel so strongly that it will affect your ability to be IMPARTIAL–that is, will you still be able to only consider the facts presented to you in the court, and be able to judge something as proven beyond a reasonable doubt or not, or will you be biased?
B3) If you say “I am so biased” then yeah, the judge will excuse you right away. But if you say “No I think I can do it. I can be impartial.” you’ll be asked to return to your seat.
C) The questions are now done. The attorneys then go through their strikes. Like I said, they have a limited number of the peremptory ones. And there are other limits too. You can’t strike jurors on the basis of a “protected class” (i.e.: race, gender, religion etc.) and anything that SHOWS that an attorney is doing so a can be objected to by the other attorney. There doesn’t have to be a “pattern” but that helps (i.e. striking three women in a row). Every time a juror gets called and somebody requests a strike, the other attorney can either object or not. So it’s up to each attorney to protect the jurors they want (and btw other than the questions, in MD, the info you get as an attorney is the juror’s name, age, job, and where they live, and their spouse’s job). If there’s a disagreement then the judge will hear arguments either way. If it’s a protected class argument, the attorney who has been striking has to come up with a different reason to justify and that’s got to be something UNRELATED to the protected class (ex: if you struck two Black guys in a row you can’t say “oh well I didn’t want THESE Black guys I wanted the other ones” because that’s still BASED ON RACE).
————
3) SO HERE’S WHY IT’S SO FUCKED UP TO EVEN SUGGEST THIS SHIT AS A WAY TO “SOLVE THE PROBLEM”
A) as I said above, you don’t want to fucking lie.
B) also BEING A CONVICTED FELON, BTW, AND OTHER TYPES OF CONVICTIONS, DISQUALIFIES YOU FROM BEING ON THE JURY. So…convicted rapists? yeah, they can’t actually serve. THIS IS LITERALLY A QUESTION ON THE JURY DUTY FORM AND IS A QUESTION ASKED AT EVERY STAGE OF SELECTION.
C) ALSO, in a couple of the posts I’ve seen they’ve mentioned this question was only asked for women. I’m not sure really if I, as an attorney, would have phrased a question in a gendered way like this SINCE IT’S BASICALLY BEGGING FOR A CHALLENGE AS A PROTECTED CLASS OBJECTION. So fine, if it’s asked gender neutral? That’s OK, but as I said, you won’t get dismissed instantaneously (at least not in MD) as it’s not one of those automatic questions the court asks (i.e.: are you a citizen etc.). And so (again, in Md, Idk about other states) If you say “yes I can be impartial” then fine. Sit your ass down and wait for an attorney to strike you.
D) so if you DO have an attorney striking you, I would ABSOLUTELY object to any attorney who systematically struck ALL THE WOMEN from a jury panel. Because fuck that that’s a protected class that fucking SO DEMONSTRATIVE of a violation of the law. IT’S GENDER BASED. Whoever the prosecutor was who allowed a defense attorney to get away with that shit just wasn’t doing their fucking job.
E) And in terms of this post? about nobody caring? Fuck that if I was a prosecutor I would absolutely ask if any person (”PERSON” DAMN IT NOT JUST MEN BECAUSE THE WIVES/SISTERS/MOTHERS etc. OF MEN WHO ARE ACCUSED OF RAPE ARE ALSO FUCKING BIASED) had ever been accused of rape or sexual assault or knew somebody who did etc. That’s just good lawyering. It’s sloppy not to do so.
F) And as a defense attorney, NGL, I would want to know the answer too, in order to make sure to challenge those strikes.
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I get it. I fucking get it. And some of these things will depend on how fucked up your judge is and how good the other side is. But this shit about “OH HEY JUST LIE” FUCK ME NO. DO NOT FUCKING DO THIS.
I’m so fucking furious that people are spreading this like it’s a good damn idea and something that will work. Honestly this is so fucking stupid and dangerous to me that I’m suspicious–is this for real? Or is this somebody trying to false information troll people?
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT DO THIS. Answer your questions truthfully and let the lawyers do their damn job. Yes, it sucks, but at the end of the day, people in this country are INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY. And your job, as a juror, is to ASSESS ONLY THE FACTS AND ARGUMENTS PRESENTED TO YOU, AND TO SEE IF THE STATE WAS ABLE TO PROVE THAT THIS PARTICULAR SUSPECT DID IT. AND THEY DID IT BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT.
THe fact is, not all rape cases go to trial. And the ones that do, DISPROPORTIONATELY charge men of color (in particular, Black and Latino men). You cannot believe in equality, fight against racism, protect the constitution AND ALSo try to do this shit. It’s fucked up and completely inconsistent and yet another way to fuck with the justice system. doing this will probably allow more alleged rapists to go free than it will allow for equality in jury selection.
TL;DR: this shit is really fucking bad advice and not the way to actually go about doing things. stop giving people legal advice IF YOU AREN’T A LAWYER. ESPECIALLY IF THAT LEGAL ADVICE that will actually put them in jail, people.
George Lucas: This beloved character, Boba Fett, with a massive fanbase and iconic design, is a Maori man. Yoda is co-leader of the Jedi with a black man named Mace Windu, based on the original concept of the Jedi in the first draft. General white audiences: You can’t do this to us, George. Boba is supposed to be mysterious. How can he be mysterious if we can’t pretend he’s white. Also, Samuel L Jackson as a wise sage? How bad of a writer do you have to be to make Samuel L Jackson not yell all the time and swear in every sentence? J.K. Rowling: Nagini was a Korean woman the whole time! Also, Dumbledore is gay. Like, never on screen, but believe me, he’s gay, alright! General white audiences: Our queen is back again! Hooray! Like, what on earth? (Moth)
I know Charlie Chaplin. You, Rian Johnson, are not Charlie Chaplin.
So now we can randomly put what people consider are N*zi parodies in movies that we otherwise consider serious, let this character still have a serious position and let him slap a black man who’s in his knees bc then suddenly he’s not a parody anymore, huh? This is what RJ and also TLJ stans don’t get: this isn’t a parody, this movie is meant to take itself and its universe seriously to a certain degree. If you do half serious and half weird meta commentary on society you end up with this garbage. But then I’d also like to know how playing most things related to Finn for laughs fits into this? Should we at this day and age ridicule black men?
Translation: It can’t be a super-important scene if characters of color are central to the action and also I need to soothe my fear that my mass murdering patricidal fave is not in fact the male lead of the franchise.
This is also why the whole “we support Loan Tran” rings so freaking hollow from this crowd. Because guess who else isn’t in yesterday’s photos?
Yeah that would be Loan. Looks like Daisy isn’t there either. (It may or may not be her stunt double in the pics. It’s so damn grainy it’s impossible to tell, but it definitely isn’t Daisy.)
So while whatever is going on in the scene shot yesterday on that hillside, Rose and Rey might be off somewhere doing something together.
Which would not only mean that it just got increasingly likely that Rose will be more than a small, tangential role in IX. (I’m glad JJ included her and I see it as auspicious that he decided to do that at all, but I’ll remain worried about the treatment and plot significance of all the characters of color until I actually see the movie.) Furthermore it might mean we’ll get a Star Wars movie who not only passes the Bechdel test (which like half of them so far doesn’t do) but do so more than by the skin of its teeth (which is the rest of them).
But instead they go and make it about the white, genocidal Nazi I am unsurprised but this is why I can’t take the “we support Loan Tran” claim serious from most of that crowd. There might a few legit supporters among them, but the majority doesn’t give a flying fuck about Loan or any of the other actors of color, unless they can use them as support for their ship.
The author of the upcoming Padme book: Kylo Ren and Darth Vader are both evil and are fascists. Woobifying Kylo is bad because you’re trivializing his fascist ideologies and acting like they’re not as bad as they are.
Reylos: Wow what the fuck there is no way this person can be trusted with writing a book about Padme. We need to get her fired!
(From the start of Chapter 8 in the TLJ novelization)
The TLJ novelization continues to have these little irritating moments. Why would Leia be a mentor to Kes OR Shara? They were similar in age, I think Kes and Shara might actually have been older, and Shara partook in missions along with both Luke and Leia. They outranked her and she took orders from them, certainly, but that’s a far cry from being a “mentor.”
ANYWAY Kes was the ONLY PERSON IN THE REBEL ALLIANCE who Han
100%
respected besides Leia, Chewie, and maybe Luke or Lando depending on the day. Like. If anyone mentored anyone, it would have been Kes mentoring Han.
As for the Confusing Womenfolk who Rilo Totally Respects Because He Wrote A Feminist Film That Absolutely Stands Up To Feminist Critical Readings And Isn’t At All Objectifying, Minimizing, Ridiculous Bullshit –
Shara literally saved Leia’s ass anD THE ENTIRE PLANET OF NABOO. As the only truly battle-trained pilot in the air during the fail-safe kill-switch genocide that Palpatine had set up meant to destroy the entire planetary system, climactically, which, yk, one would think would make it pretty hard to fly.
Like, yes: it seems from Leia’s condolence letter to Kes after Shara’s death that the two families were probably in contact, at least casually (and probably politically, since the Damerons settled on Yavin IV and afaik the main group of colonists who’d settled there prior were the last remaining Alderaanian refugees under Evaan, and Leia probably had interest in how things were going on Yavin IV in general?) but how the FUCK does that suggest either Kes or Shara needed MENTORSHIP?
I adore Leia with my heart and soul, but she… doesn’t share any skillset with either Kes or Shara that they’d look to her for mentorship, unless we’re going to learn about Shara’s life settled on Yavin IV as a junior senator or something, but like, one would… think that in a franchise, we’d’ve… heard that by now… then again, it’s Star Wars and she’s a woman, so. But like??
She isn’t a Pathfinder. She isn’t a fighter pilot.
What does Leia know about ranching??? Like, I GUESS she has experience with agriforming a settlement because of her work resettling the Wobani refugees on Alderaan but again, that would be more between Leia and Evaan than Leia and either Kes or Shara. Kes and Shara are independent ranchers. They’re competent and self-sufficient adult human beings who were married with a kid while Leia was still yelling at Han in icy hallways.
THEY WERE JUST ADULT EQUALS AND AQUAINTA-FRIENDS, DAMMIT.
So basically, “why do you care about Black people?” Do I really have to ask you to take the “Black” out of that sentence to see why it’s ridiculous? Black people are like… people, and they get shat on and shut down to ridiculous degrees so I call it like I see it when these arguments cross my path. Furthermore anti-racism is the fight of ALL decent people, and antiblackness is the hinge on which white supremacy turns so it affects everyone.
Obviously that doesn’t mean I’m leading any kind of battle, running some shitty little SW blog does not make me an anti-racist leader lmao. I’m just trying not to pile on the crap that gets piled on Black people and help out when I can. What, I’m supposed to join y’all in dismissing and shutting down all conversations about racism, or stand on the sidelines to be “neutral” because it’s not my fight, or I’m a white knight? Fuck outta here.
What is the accusation here, is it that I love Black people? You wanna call me some kind of lover next? Like, don’t think you’re the first condescending assnugget who’s told me I shouldn’t side with Black people. The attempts to divide and pit Black and Asian people against each other are endemic and a lot of Asians actually fall for it because they’re stupid enough to think they’re ever going to be accepted as white lmao.
As for racism, in a world where the Reverand Jesse Jackson has talked about his internalized racism (link) I suspect that no one would be left to talk about racism or do something about it if a complete squeaky-clean record on racism is required. It… doesn’t… work like that. It’s not racists on one side and good people on the other. The actual divide is more between people who are willing to recognize the problem of racism, including within themselves, on the one hand and on the other, people who want to distance themselves from the problem to maintain their self-image of moral purity.
what in the world? I didn’t know you can’t be against racism if you aren’t black. Like what, as an asian I’m only allowed to hate my people being wronged and fuck everyone else??? We’re only allowed to care about injustice and discrimination when it happens to us? What kind of white nonsense is that? What kind of world does anon want to live in where nobody cares or extends empathy to anyone else?
I am unsurprised but this is why I can’t take the “we support Loan Tran” claim serious from most of that crowd. There might a few legit supporters among them, but the majority doesn’t give a flying fuck about Loan or any of the other actors of color, unless they can use them as support for their ship.
L.J.'s Obsessions 