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Posts Tagged ‘rule of law’

Disappeared

Posted in Culture, Politics, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on 17 Apr 2025| 1 Comment »

William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”

Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”

Roper: “Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!”

More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down—and you’re just the man to do it—do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!”

Setting aside my opinions about the real Sir Thomas More, I have always found the above exchange (spoken by characters in Robert Bolt’s play, A Man for All Seasons) to be a powerful reminder on the importance of the rule of law.

It is a particularly relevant exchange, today, when we have this same argument playing out in America. Why allow a terrorist to defend himself? Why allow a criminal the benefit of the law?

You may have heard of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man from El Salvador who had been living in the United States. You may know that he entered the U.S. illegally after fleeing gang persecution in his native country. You may have heard that Mr. Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang. You may have heard that his wife (a U.S. citizen) at one point received a Temporary Restraining Order against her husband. You may have heard Mr. Garcia referred to as a “terrorist.” You may also have heard that Mr. Garcia has always denied being affiliated with any gang, and that he has not been charged with any crime. And you may even have heard that the Trump administration admitted in court documents that Mr. Garcia’s deportation was an “administrative error,” but that they don’t plan on doing anything about it. “Oopsie,” as the president of El Salvador said, with a nod and a wink.

You may have heard all of that. But all of that is irrelevant.

What is relevant is that Mr. Garcia was living within the jurisdiction of United States and was therefore subject to our laws—all of our laws—when he was taken into custody and deported without a hearing, without any charges filed, without a chance to challenge the assertions leveled against him. Based solely on an anonymous tip, he was designated a member of MS-13 (and thus a “terrorist”) and summarily sent to a notorious gulag in El Salvador.

So, why should we care if an alleged terrorist and gang-banger was “accidentally” deported to one of the worst prisons in the Western Hemisphere? Why should we care if Mr. Garcia didn’t get to mount a defense, to challenge the accusations made against him, to have his day in court?

Why should we care if our government has “cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”

Consider this: It was only this February that the Trump administration designated MS-13 as a “terrorist organization,” making members subject (tenuously) to the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. Pursuant to that designation, in March, Mr. Garcia was picked up as an alleged member (and thus, a terrorist), and renditioned without charge or trial to the prison in El Salvador.

Within six weeks, that happened. Also in that time, Mr. Trump has referred to protesters against Elon Musk and Tesla as “domestic terrorists,” and has mused publicly that next he wants to send “home grown” criminals—meaning American citizens—to that same Salvadoran gulag. Do you think, with “the laws all being flat,” that you or I or our outspoken friend or our activist cousin would be allowed our right to due process if we were deemed “terrorists” by this Administration? If anyone—including an American citizen—can be falsely designated a terrorist, would there be any laws left to protect us? Even if that accusation was merely an “administrative error?”

Our Constitution, in its Fourteenth Amendment, guarantees everyone person living within our nation’s jurisdiction—that’s every person, not just every citizen—equal protection under our laws and equal access to due process of those laws.

If it does not apply to Mr. Garcia, the it does not apply to me, and it does not apply to you.

Now, Mr. Garcia may be all or none of the things he’s accused of being. Though I have an opinion, I do not know for sure (and neither do you), because Mr. Garcia has never had a chance to face his accusers to defend himself, and the government has never provided any evidence—inside a courtroom our outside—to prove their assertions.

Mr. Garcia may be the Devil the Trump administration says he is, but I would still give him the benefit of the law.

For my own sake.

k

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With Tears in my Eyes

Posted in Culture, Politics, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 02 Jun 2024| 1 Comment »

There was a lot of celebrating, when the verdict came in, and a lot of gnashing of teeth, as well. I fully expected, given the outcome, to be in the former group. I wasn’t. Nor was I in the latter group, either. Instead, I was somewhere in between.

I was genuinely upset, not because of any imagined “travesty of justice.” I’d been following the trial closely, reading reportage from dispassionate sources, and listening to analysis from those who know the law much better than I, so I understood the charges, was familiar with the testimony and arguments, and understood the basics of the jury’s instructions. While verdicts of guilty seemed likely, I was prepared for a hung jury, because, well, Trump.

But as the guilty verdicts came in, on count after count after count, each one hit me like a gut-punch. I had to sit down, hand over mouth, tears in my eyes. Surprised the hell out of me, if I’m honest.

Why? Because it felt right, it felt correct, but it also felt terribly wrong. Wrong in the sense of, we shouldn’t even be here, we shouldn’t have to do this. We should not have a major political party that is hell-bent on nominating for the presidency a person who is an adjudicated fraud, a proven sexual assaulter, and who now is convicted of using illegal means to cover up payments and avoid election finance laws and thereby hide what would have been, for some, a critical fact concerning his character.

The names Gary Hart, Bill Clinton, and John Edwards—Democrats who suffered various political and civil fallout from their own sexual impropriety—came quickly to my mind. Why them, and why not this one? “It was a different time,” I hear some say. What? Was 2008 (for Edwards) a “different time?” As late as 2016, even after the Access Hollywood debacle, Trump’s Janus-faced surrogates were hounding Clinton for his decades-old antics.

Moreover, it was the nearly unanimous Republican response that felt wrong. No, more than just wrong. Dangerous. From the spectacle of the Red Tie Brigade that came downtown in lockstep to sit behind the accused in court, to the unison mouthing of ill-wrought talking points throughout the media, the country has been assaulted by words like “rigged,” “corrupt,” and “conflicted,” all designed to attack and weaken the judiciary and, critically, to erode our trust in the rule of law.

This is what the former Party of Law and Order has become. To defend the indefensible, they attack. They attack the judge, the judge’s family, the prosecution, and even the jury. The jury. Ordinary citizens, people like you and me, all deemed acceptable by lawyers from both sides, are attacked and slandered, doxxed and made to fear for their lives, simply because the defense’s rusty bucket of an argument didn’t raise a reasonable doubt in face of concrete evidence.

Now, a few days after, the sadness has not left me. I find little cause for celebration, as it has become clear that these thirty-four felony convictions will not make a difference to a large swath of the electorate. They have proven that Trump could, literally, shoot someone dead on 5th Avenue and he would not lose their vote.

And what does that say about us? As a country, as voters, as a population? What sort of respect could such a people enjoy? What sort of leadership could such a nation provide on the world stage? If America’s influence in the world is eroding, it is we who are doing the chipping away. If nations are crab-walking their way toward autocracy, it is in part because we are not bolstering our own democracy.

America has never been perfect. America will never be perfect. But we need to strive toward that goal, toward the “more perfect Union” of which our first Republican president spoke.

We have some little time left. There is a handful of months wherein I hope we, as a population, begin to see past our individual trees and toward the forest that we constitute.

My heart’s wish is that we succeed.

k

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