District Attorney Fani Willis has opened up a website to sell merch, particularly on "Fani Friday." You too can have your very own Fani T. Willis fan club t-shirt.
The case against Jackie Johnson is extremely dumb. When Ahmaud Arbery was murdered, she decided not to bring charges. For that she is being charged with obstruction and violation of oath of office.
She was dead wrong. But take ten seconds to think about this case. /1
The claim is that she was showing favor to Gregory McMichaels, a former investigator in her office, by not proseucting him.
But DA's use their discretion like this all the time, and in a hundred different ways. Veterans, young people, people with substance abuse. /2
The last thing any fan of criminal justice reform should want is a fucking guillotine over every DA's neck if the AG disagrees with their decision not to charge, /3
Mifepristone ban
Tariffs
Nutty district and appellate judges
Ending support for Ukraine
Insane deficit spending
Conservative SCOTUS basically forever
Bad stuff that could happen:
Repealing CHIPS act
Federal vaccine skepticism
Increasingly bold censorship efforts from State AG's
Some stuff that might not be totally shit:
Not completely opposed to CJ reform.
Section 230 reform probably off the table now that tech companies favor conservative viewpoints
Corruption and poor hiding of corruption eventually becomes hilarious?
Ok, so let's go through the 2005 affirmance of Marcellus Williams prosecution.
According to the Supreme Court of Missouri, the evidence against Williams was:
1. His girlfriend 2. His cellmate 3. Items in the girlfriend's possession that belonged to the victim.
Williams' defense was that his girlfriend was a prostitute turning him in for a 10k reward who had actually been the person to rob the victim, and that she had lied about him giving her a ride because his car didn't work.
I think a reasonable juror could discount the testimony of the snitch and the girlfriend, but tough to get past the possession of the victim's items without some good evidence that the girlfriend committed the crime.
There are not a lot of people who can just wander into a diner or a donut shop and instantly connect with the people there. Retail politics is hard!
If I were going to offer some advice, try asking questions that have more open-ended answers. Not "how long have you worked here" but "what's the best donut here?"
Whenever I go to a small town courtroom, I inevitably start a conversation with someone about the best place to get lunch. Everyone has an opinion and it's a good chance to build a rapport.
Cities can be sued for the civil rights violations of their police officers when those violations are the result of a policy. Either official (mass arrest orders) or unofficial (looking the other way when bad stuff happens).
/1