Official MTG hearing thread: OMG

[Ms. Toad]

109. You left out a critical part of the question -

based on what you have heard so far. As I noted, if you are at the point of rendering a verdict you are at the stage of the trial AFTER the evidence, summarized by the prosecutor, has been proven.

What the prosecutor appears from your summary to have been asking was - assuming I've provided the evidence I've summarized for you, what is your verdict? That might be guilty, that might be not guilty. (Note: This is not a path I would follow, as either prosecutor or defendant, since a jury composed of lay people generally have no knowledge of the elements that have to be proven.) But the question asked is a thought exercise, not whether you know the defendant is entitled to the presumption of innocence. If the prosecutor had been asking about a legal principle, they wouldn't have put you in the position of hearing a summary of the evidence and then rendering a verdict.

There are a lot of people here who don't understand the law. I haven't listened to these hearings, but there are tons of armchair lawyers here who comment in virtually every legal proceeding which doesn't go our way that any negative verdict or ruling (from our perspective) is the result of bias, and that the only legally correct verdict was the way we wanted it to come out. We saw that most recently in the case against those accused of conspiring to kidnap the MI governor. So I entitrely agree that the general level of legal knowledge on DU isn't much better than the general population - and that we have a tendency to assume that because we dislike someone they must be guilty/liable.

On the other hand, your assertion - that she has not done anything to disqualify her from running may well be incorrect. It goes a bit overboard in the other direction. She has already done whatever it is that she has done. Nothing in this proceeding will change whether she has done something to disqualify her from running or not. The only legal question is whether what she has done disqualifies her under the constitutional standards from holding the office she is running for. (The proceeding will also determine, for purposes of this proceeding and resulting appeals only, factually what it is that she has done.) The outcome will merely allow her to be on the ballot, or not, based on her prior actions. No prior finding of guilt is necessary; she is not entitled to a presumption that she did not participate in an insurrection.