I know the other case is front and center due to nearing its end but holy shit some of the garbage coming out of the defenses mouth about Black Pastors.
“If we’re going to start a precedent starting yesterday where we’re going to bring high-profile members of the African-American community into the courtroom to sit with the family during the trial in the presence of the jury I believe intimidating, that’s an attempt to pressure… or influence the jury,” Gough told the judge.
“The idea that we’re going to be serially bringing these people in to sit with the victim’s family, one after another — obviously, there’s only so many pastors they can have. And if their pastor’s Al Sharpton right now, that’s fine. But then that’s it. We don’t want any more Black pastors coming in here — Jesse Jackson, or whoever was in here earlier this week — sitting with the victim’s family, trying to influence the jury in this case.”
Gough then started to dig himself into an even deeper hole, saying, “If a bunch of folks came in here dressed like Colonel Sanders with white masks sitting in the back…”
But Judge Timothy Walmsley interrupted the lawyer, stopping him mid-sentence. “The fact that nobody even noticed that [Sharpton] was in here means that everybody compiled with this court’s rulings,” Walmsley said, adding that he wasn’t going to “blanketly exclude members of the public.” Gough admitted during his rant that he hadn’t realized Sharpton was in the room until later that evening.
This isn’t Gough’s only strange statement in this case. During jury selection, Gough claimed that older, white Southern men were “significantly underrepresented” in the jury pool, from which the eventual jury was to be selected.
This one is going to be the powder keg. Not the Rittenhouse case. These Good Old Boys are going to walk if the South has its way.