Tucker Carlson, Roger Stone, and Judicial Bias

In a recent episode of his evening talk show, Tucker Carlson used the Roger Stone case to shed some light on the inner workings of our criminal justice system.  Tucker’s analysis was very informative; however, his viewers should know that the legal absurdities he identified aren’t limited to Federal judges gunning to take down Trump’s supporters.  Instead, the problems he exposed are ingrained in our state courts as well, and they are ruining the lives of ordinary Americans in run-of-the-mill cases.

To begin, Stone is charged with lying to Congress, which Carlson observed is “bitterly amusing, given that congress cannot be charged with lying to you, which it does constantly.”  This double standard infects our state justice systems, too.  In Wisconsin, for example, it is a crime to lie to the police; in fact, obstructing an officer is a commonly charged crime.  Yet the police are free to lie to us.  The difference is that their lies are completely legal and, worse yet, are now the norm.  Police deception cost Brendan Dassey his life (as I wrote about in this book); police trickery also entraps many other Americans on a daily basis throughout our country (as I wrote about in chapter 4 of this book).

But Tucker Carlson raised an even bigger issue in the segment: judicial bias.  He described how Roger Stone’s judge, Amy Berman Jackson, “rolled her eyes and snorted at Stone,” suggesting he was guilty before his trial even began.  Once again, this is the norm in our state courts.  Judicial bias against defendants and defense lawyers is so common that I recently wrote an article about it to help defense lawyers combat the problem.  Judges behaving badly includes the aforementioned eye-rolling and snorting; there’s also sighing, hostility, screaming, criticizing defense counsel in front of the jury, and even playing the prosecutor-in-chief to help the government win at trial.  My favorite example comes from a Maryland case.  As I wrote in my article:

At the jury trial, the opportunities for pro-state advocacy are near limitless. One judge, during defense counsel’s cross-examination of a witness, told the prosecutor, “I will sustain if I hear an objection,” thus prompting defense counsel to ask, “Judge, do we have two prosecutors here?”  Then, whenever the prosecutor declined the invitation to object, the judge would simply “sustain objections never made[.]”  How is that even possible from a logistical perspective?  In the middle of defense counsel’s questions, the judge would simply interrupt by blurting out, “Sustained.”

In another form of judicial bias, Carlson reported that during jury selection, the judge in Stone’s case allowed a juror to remain in the box even though she had “friends in the federal prosecutor’s office which is trying the case,” and her “husband works at the Justice Department which is prosecuting Roger Stone.”  Despite this, the juror was allowed to remain on the panel.

Absurd?  You bet.  Unusual?  Not at all.  In fact, Wisconsin can top that.  In our state, a potential juror is allowed to serve on the jury and convict the defendant even when that juror is employed by the same prosecutor’s office that is trying the case!  How’s that for stacking the deck in the state’s favor?

In closing, Carlson argued that Stone’s judge should be “disqualified from the bench.”  If his description of the judge’s conduct is accurate, I’d certainly agree.  But in that case, we’d probably be disqualifying the majority of state court judges as well. 

Drain the (judicial) swamp!