The jury that convicted Ghislaine Maxwell on five of 6 counts associated to sex trafficking for her late previous boyfriend, billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, is the most recent example of the U.S. jury system showing its worth– where district attorneys stopped working.
Recall that Epstein managed to reach a sweetheart handle federal prosecutors in 2008 under which he avoided federal charges for sexually abusing underage women, and pleaded guilty to state charges instead, facing a relatively brief sentence.
Once the judicial process was enabled to work, nevertheless, and facts were prepared to a jury, justice was seen to be done.
As this author kept in mind at Breitbart News recently:
If 2020 was the year of the riot, 2021 was the year of the jury trial– the year when Americans quietly and anonymously asserted the rule of law in the most direct style possible: by considering the realities, and pronouncing regret or innocence.
Juries had been under rhetorical and political considering that attack since the launch of the Black Lives Matter motion in 2013 and 2014, when activists raged that a jury in Florida declined to found guilty George Zimmerman for the murder of Trayvon Martin, and a grand jury in Missouri declined to arraign law enforcement officers Darren Wilson in the death of Michael Brown– who was not, it ended up, shot in the back as he raised his hands in surrender, however rather as he attacked Wilson for the second time.
…
In sum: the year saw several jury trials in which the result, while in some cases controversial and surprising, were typically accepted by all but the left-wing activists who had actually targeted the jury system for many years. And in the end, even the [Al] Sharptons of the world discovered factor to be satisfied, sometimes, that justice had actually been done.
Through all the political turmoil of the past few years, this peculiar feature of the American system of federal government has actually proved its long-lasting worth. Long might it continue.
There are those who argue, as Maxwell’s defense lawyer did, that she was largely being prosecuted as a proxy for Epstein, who passed away in custody in 2019 following his re-arrest. The jury, nevertheless, appears to have focused on the truths: rather than just returning a guilty verdict on all charges, it acquitted her on one of them, recommending that it participated in careful considerations.
Few are applauding the district attorneys, who seem to have left out witnesses and information, prompting accusations that the trial was used as a cover-up. And the judge has actually left much about the case under seal, keeping a lot of Epstein’s secrets hidden.
Yet as 2021 draws to a close, Americans can take heart that the jury system, while flawed, is working well, against the odds.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday nights from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the current e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His current book, RED NOVEMBER, informs the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative viewpoint. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.