Union, Justice and Confidence

Louisiana has just abolished conviction by majority verdict.

Introduced in 1890, that provision has ensured that one or two black jurors who had managed to slip through had nevertheless been unable to prevent the conviction of a black defendant.

Of course, it did not say that, or it would never have lasted this long. But that was its intention, and that has been its effect.

Oregon is now the only American state to retain non-unanimous conviction, which cannot, by definition, be conviction beyond reasonable doubt. It is fundamentally alien to the principle of trial by jury.

It is always an instrument of class oppression, and no less so when the oppressor class is at least nominally the dictatorship of the proletariat. 

Or, indeed, the liberal elite class that introduced it here, when the Home Secretary responsible, Roy Jenkins, was cuckolding both Ian Gilmour and Mark Bonham Carter with their full knowledge and consent.

Such is the rule to which today's angry "centrists" would return us. We do not yet know one tenth of the truth about successors of Jenkins, Gilmour and Bonham Carter in the Blair and Cameron years.

Conviction by majority verdict is also almost, if almost, always an instrument of racist violence. If they are no longer prepared to put up with it in Louisiana, then we should no longer be prepared to put up with it here, either.

Another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. That address accepts PayPal. Very many thanks.