Mass murder and hung juries

As we write this, it technically is not a hung jury, under Massachusetts judicial procedure, though the first report by the jury that they could not come to a unanimous decision, the judge could and did send them back to deliberate more. This apparently can be done twice before it is officially a “hung jury.”

A good friend and political commentator just published this graphic regarding the Lindsay Clancy trial. As we noted to Stephen (while on a major project deadline and on the road yesterday, listening to and getting glimpses of news): a lot of people got taken in by fake news: we saw a dozen online headlines stating that she had been acquitted.

Stephen wrote (with this graphic): “I correctly predicted this and posted this before the Jury announcement. It was so obvious that a hung jury was the outcome, the entire trial was irrelevant.”

But was the trial truly irrelevant? Perhaps not.

There is plenty of blame that must go around, starting with those who fail to teach the true Gospel and all of God’s Word to the world. What are some of those? (Even to nonbelievers)

1. The sacredness of innocent human life.
2. That there is always hope.
3. That we are to help one another, and that is is not wrong to ask for help.
4. That evil actions are to be punished, whatever excuse(s) are made.
5. That forgiveness is possible, but it requires (among other things) repentance for the evil actions.

But there is also a lot of blame that must be shared on the purely political level. Some of these:

1. Our various systems of government have and are failing, including education, health, social services, legislature, and court system.
2. Families no longer properly raise their children in practical and moral matters; they depend on a failed education system run by government.
3. Families refuse to cooperate even among blood relatives, perhaps in part because the combination of children without both an active father and mother.
4. Medical authorities are regarded as a nearly-infallible priesthood and pronouncements are treated as decrees of a god, even when there is disagreement. The idea that mental incompetence absolves all guilt (responsibility) and excuses any act is one of those medical pronouncements which has been accepted by legislatures and executives, and implemented by judges and juries.
5. Although the “right” (power) of juries to judge the law, not just the facts, is largely ignored today, the purpose for a jury’s existence and deliberations, seeing that justice is done, is even more ignored. (In this case, the facts are clear and admitted to by the killer: she has confessed to planning and carrying out the killing of her children and attempting to kill herself.)
6. It is no longer taught or practiced that the degree of punishment can be and should be able to be varied by the jury based on the mental condition and other factors impacting the accused, not whether or not they can even be held accountable. Instead, we have the law rigidly defining various degrees of homicide, thus perverting justice.
7. We have a situation in which every action is a reason (or an excuse) for massive political response by all sides. In this case, we see Woke politics striving to warp the matter: many believe this to be part of a growing effort to make infanticide and even the willful killing of older children acceptable, “for the right reasons.”
8. To put it simply, the American system of justice is gone: it is replaced by a court system which denies or perverts justice for victims and for the perpetrators of crimes.

So that the points Stephne made (all very good points) do argue strongly that a mistrial will result. If this hung jury situation is allowed to stand (the prosecution does not try again or tries and fails again), the government of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will demonstrate that they fail the basic test of human government.

For a lover of liberty who is also a follower of Christ Jesus, the ultimate reason is because men think that we are to govern one another, and reject God as the ultimate Judge. That “basic test” was stated in the Bible by the Holy Spirit (through Paul) Is human government (despite its rebellion against Him) any kind of a servant of God? It is not a complex method, and fully compatible with both minarchism and anarchism. Like so many other nations (and local governments!), Massachusetts has inverted (and perverted) the simple requirement to “punish the evildoer and reward those who do good.”

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