04/08/2011
Nicholas Garaufis, who VDARE.com readers will remember as the judge in the Vulcan Society case who called the NYFD’s civil service exams discriminatory, has told an Asian-American in New York that she must suffer "indefinite" jury duty because she gave the wrong answers to her voir dire examination. I first saw this at the Volokh Conspiracy, Judge Punishing Juror for Making Racist Comments on Questionnaire?
Eugene Volokh quoted a Daily News Story
An incensed federal judge sentenced a racist Brooklyn woman to indefinite jury duty on Tuesday after she trashed the NYPD and minorities.“This is an outrage, and so are you!” Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis told the woman, holding up her bile-filled juror questionnaire … .
Asked to name three people [the woman] least admired, she wrote on her questionnaire: “African-Americans, Hispanics and Haitians.”
When the judge asked why she answered the question that way, she replied, “You always hear about them in the news doing something.”
She also declared that cops are all lazy, claiming that they sound their sirens to bypass traffic jams … .
She’s coming back [today], Thursday and Friday — and until the future, when I am ready to dismiss her,” Garaufis said … .
Eugene Volokh left out the detail about her being Asian, (mentioned in the underlying story Judge gives 'Juror No. 799' indefinite jury duty after she makes racist remarks on questionnaire, BY John Marzulli, April 6th 2011) which may be important for a couple of reasons, and said
Actually, if this story is accurate, what’s outrageous is the appalling abuse of power by the judge. The woman seems to have reprehensible moral beliefs. This is America, and she’s entitled to possess those beliefs. But government officials are not entitled to punish people for those beliefs, including by requiring them to serve more jury duty as a result of their beliefs.
I don’t think her views are that reprehensible,and neither does Tim Dionisopoulos — Juror Makes Politically Incorrect Statement, Forced To Indefinite Jury Duty, Youth For Western Civilization, April 7, 2011.
Here are some bullet points:
First, the question says "name three people" you don’t like, and the woman answered with three ethnic groups — which would be the answer to "name three peoples" you don’t like, an easy mistake for someone for whom English is a second language to make.
Second, Asians as a group tend to be more racist than white Americans — which I suppose would strike some people a racist statement, but it’s actually an expression of Asian culture. Japan and China are very monocultural, and their people aren’t brought up to think racism is wrong. Rather, they're brought up to think foreigners are wrong.
Third, Asians are often victims of crime and harassment by blacks and Hispanics. A while back I wrote that
There is fierce race hatred against Asians in the African-American community, which leads to frequent violence — see Black Racism, By Ying Ma, The American Enterprise, November/December 1998, and twelve years later, Chinese Woman Beats Black Woman on SF MUNI, January 3, 2010, on Ying Ma’s blog.
In spite of all this, many people, including Judge Garaufis, simply can’t believe that anyone really holds the opinion she expressed.
Garaufis, responding to the publication of this story, has relented. Eugene Volokh reports in an update to his original post:
The judge has now released the woman from indefinite jury duty: “A Federal judge relented Wednesday and commuted the sentence of indefinite jury duty he had slapped on a Brooklyn woman who presented herself as wildly racist and anti-cop.” The story also reports that the judge “made it clear it wasn’t her views that angered him but what he said was her obvious attempt to weasel out of jury duty by lying. ‘My ruling was not based in any way upon whether or not you held any racist views. It was apparent you did not tell the truth,’ Garaufis told the woman. ‘You were the only juror who indicated that you had every form of bias imaginable. You were lying to the court in order to be excused.’”I’m puzzled: There are people out there who dislike blacks and Hispanics. How is it that the judge read her mind and figured out that she was lying, and didn’t really hold such views? Again, what if the juror had written, “I think the justice system is irretrievably racist,” which would also make her highly likely to be excused; would the judge have somehow intuited that she was lying, too? What if the juror had written, “I believe in jury nullification,” which would likewise likely lead to the juror’s being excused; would the judge have likewise concluded the juror was lying?
It’s clear that "racism" — which in this case doesn’t mean anything more hateful than “You always hear about them in the news doing something" — is now so unthinkable that anyone who admits to having these opinions must be lying to get out of jury duty.
No wonder Judge Garaufis doesn’t understand why whites are scoring higher than blacks on the civil service exam.
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