Jussie Smollett - does this define justice in America?

[Jon]

No doubt you have heard of this case in America, where Mr Smollett allegedly staged his own hate crime. There were 16 different charges with sufficient evidence according to a grand jury, but the prosecutor decided not to prosecute and then sealed the paperwork so no one could find out any of the details. She put it down to a clerical error and also that she wasn't sure of getting a prosecution. But no one is sure of getting a prosecution, that is why you go to court.

This stinks of corruption. What do you think?

 

[The_Doc_Man]

In the sense that she was paid off in cash, probably not. In the sense that a black prosecutor decided to not bring a black man to trial because his crime was to highlight racial injustice, I might infer some impurity in the case. In particular, I believe she should have recused herself IF she sympathized with Mr. Smollett. But for what it is worth, the controversy continues here in the USA. We have heard calls from both sides of the issue and it is possible that Ms. Fox, the assistant district attorney who declined to go forward with the case, might have to step aside. She DID say that she would welcome an investigation into her actions. Which tells me that since she is a lawyer, EITHER she believes that what she did was prudent, OR she believes she has buried all the evidence she needed to bury. I did hear on our national news that she commented about using the limited resources of the state to put away violent offenders as opposed to headline seekers who hurt no one else.

Corruption? Maybe a bit strong. Muddy thinking? I'd bet on that one in a heartbeat.

 

[Jon]

I will be interested in the outcome of all this. The FBI are now investigating what happened, and I am sure they would not do so unless they suspected something maybe amiss. [The Trump investigation is excluded from the no-smoke-without-fire argument since that was due to corruption in the FBI at the top level, with a dossier paid for by the Clinton campaign to slur the president, getting the information from a UK spy who got it from Russian sources. Russian collusion from the Dems.]

Miscarriages of justice are everywhere. In the UK, we had a young lady stab her date in the leg but was effectively let off because it would ruin her potential career as a top doctor. She was at Oxford university. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...oyfriend-appeals-suspended-jail-sentence.html

In Oz, a lady stabs her boyfriend to death during a domestic dispute and only spends 7 years in jail. I know little of the case but it came up in my Google search for the UK case. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ath-sent-jail-having-secret-relationship.html

This all very much saddens me.

 

[Bee]

We hear about the cases where justice appears not to have been served. We rarely hear about the cases where the law is applied as we would expect it to be.

Fact is, violence shouldn't be tolerated. Whether that's male to female, male to male, female to female, or female to male (or any other permutation).
Moreover, it should be punished and when it isn't we have to ask why.

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

I always ask why? There must have been some benefit to doing this, now the obvious benefit is it's a way of becoming famous which leads to money, although Fame itself is enough for many. But then, why this? I wondered, if I were black and constantly harassed as I suspect many are, we can suppose underlying this is a prior harassment, something that went unnoticed, no photographers, no police involved, or possibly the police dismissing it as nothing. In other words prior cases of harassment leaving the guy feeling aggrieved. He wants to invent an harassment case which he can control and record to bring attention to it. Now to me that sounds more reasonable than going for the money.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I am reminded of the Tawana Brawley case (you can Google it), which turned out to be a ploy for highlighting the "black" experience in the USA, masterminded (perhaps) by the Rev. Al Sharpton. She claimed rape and degradation by a group of white men, including being smeared with feces. However, it was later found to be an elaborate ruse. She and Al were trying to "make a statement" about being black in white America. Mr. Smollett may have been trying to point out that there is still a race issue. Unfortunately for him, there are now SO many divisive issues that he is lost in the shuffle of daily events.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Follow-up: Ms. Foxx, the assistant DA, has formally requested her own state's Inspector General, to look into her handling of the Smollett case including her decision, since it appears even to her that some people think something shady was involved. In essence, she is ASKING to be reviewed. While I still think there were mistakes here, I begin to wonder if part of the problem might have been her own inexperience?