Stefanik's attack on jurors is wrong

Congresswoman speaks from ignorance

I’m glad Elise Stefanik is not a lawyer, because we need more non-lawyers in Congress.

But this is supposed to be a nation of laws, so respect for the law should be a prerequisite for serving as a representative of the people from any district.

Stefanik and others have shown a disqualifying disrespect for the country’s legal processes, and she has joined the mob again with her response to the indictment of Donald Trump.

Stefanik’s rhetoric, although it intends to be outrageous, reads like a tantrum that has been scripted and rehearsed.

The first sentence of her statement says, “The unprecedented election interference from corrupt Socialist District Attorney Alvin Bragg is a political witch hunt and a dark day for America.”

Add an exclamation point and it’s a parody, with its inaccurate buzz words and incorrect capitalization. It does capture the way she talks, though — in breathless bullet points.

Despite not being a lawyer, Stefanik must be aware, at least in a rudimentary way, of how the system works.

She must know that New York grand juries comprise 23 ordinary citizens, who hear the evidence compiled by the prosecutor, can question witnesses themselves and even call for witnesses not called by the prosecutor to be brought before them.

She must know it is the jurors who decide whether charges will be brought. 

She must know the grand jury system functions “as a sword and a shield” — a sword to be used against criminals and a shield to protect the innocent against unfair prosecution.

If Stefanik has evidence the women and men of this grand jury are corrupt, she should reveal it.

Tell us why she believes these 23 people engaged in a witch hunt. Explain how they suppressed “the will and voice of the American people,” as she charges in the second sentence of her statement.

The handbook given to grand jurors says, “The grand jury is an arm of the court. It is not an agent of the prosecutor or the police.”

State law says, “The grand jury is the exclusive judge of the facts with respect to any matter before it.”

Is it plausible that 23 citizens drawn from across Manhattan conspired inside the grand jury room to bring an unjustified indictment against an ex-president?

Politicians used to emphasize their respect for our system of justice — especially for jurors — even when they were unhappy with a particular result.

Now the entire system gets attacked by operators like Stefanik whenever a decision goes against them.

Bragg is doing his job as the Manhattan prosecutor, as were the citizens on the grand jury. Trump’s many lawyers will now have the opportunity to do theirs.

If only Elise Stefanik would do her job and be a constructive, if sometimes critical, part of our democratic system of government. At this point, she doesn’t even know what the charges are against Trump. She speaks from ignorance, as we all do when we pick a side to support, no matter the facts.

Readings

Shown above is a house once partly rented by James Joyce’s great aunts that he used for the principal setting of the story...

I’ve been reading classic stories and just reread James Joyce’s “The Dead.” One of the amazing things about the story is the way Joyce describes without an awkward or confusing moment the complicated movements of several characters as they arrive at a wintertime house party, move around, eat dinner and depart. It seems for awhile that bringing this party to life and describing the character of this community is the point of the story, and it will end when the party ends. But there is another whole story to be told, brief and beautiful, that leads into the famous poetic ending: 

“A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”