A.K.A. "Let me see, if I’m correct, I
haven't had to be a prisoner but I know what it's like one step
removed and it's awful. You want to get out of that situation." ~Judge Matz to Killercop
DARCY SMITH, IF MR. SUTCLIFFE "MADE YOU" HATE THE INTERNET, THEN NANCY GRACE "MADE ME" HATE THE TELEVISION. A.K.A. NANCY HAS NO GRACE.
Grace is the former disgraced Georgia prosecutor who became a television legal commentator, first on Court TV and, more recently, on Turner Broadcasting's HLN cable channel. She's a snarling, angry presence whose habitual sneer is an epic chasm of contempt. Her view of the criminal justice system is flawlessly Manichean. There are good people — police officers and prosecutors — and evil people — defendants and their lawyers. Grace appears to have never met someone arrested who she believed should not be charged, nor anyone charged who should not be convicted.
This cartoon version of the criminal courts is justified by a damp-eyed concern for crime victims that a practiced Grace attributes — at the slightest provocation — to the death of her fiance during a robbery. Her own zealousness as an Atlanta prosecutor was such that the appellate courts three times cited her for failing to meet her ethical responsibilities. In 2005, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote that it agreed with a lower-court magistrate that Grace had " 'played fast and loose' with her ethical duties" as a prosecutor.
Precisely the same can be said of her conduct as a television journalist.
Anyone who had occasion to watch her relentless coverage of the recently completed Casey Anthony murder trial witnessed something quite new to the American news media: a mainstream news organization giving one of its commentators a nightly forum from which to campaign for the conviction of a criminal defendant. It was a campaign that continued after Anthony's acquittal with virtually nonstop on-air abuse of the jurors and defense attorneys. The impact of that torrent of contempt on jurors in future cases that come under Grace's gaze is yours to gauge.
Henry Louis Gates' Contempt Of Cop Emptywheel - At tonight's nationally televised press conference, a reporter asked President Obama a question about the July 16 arrest of famed Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates. Obama set off...
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Contemptible police tactics - Cops raid the home of a licensed medical marijuana provider in Washington, handcuff the fourteen year old son and put a gun to his head, and search the nineteen year old daughter and take the contents of her mickey-mouse wallet.
How To Survive Traffic Stops in America, Submit, Instantly! - What the cops want is immediate obedience and submission. Many cops are ex-military and view the civilian motorists of America about like they viewed the hapless peasants of Iraq and Afghanistan, that is, with contempt, not as fellow citizens deserving of civility and respect. It is a possibly lethal mistake to do anything other than submit, instantly and obey! Or be ready to shoot first. But aim high.
