Jury Duty

 First a discussion with Pastor Christopher Thoma concerning the upcoming conference he sponsors.
His conferences often have leading national figures.

Then a discussion with prominent attorney David Kallman about the abuse of the jury system, the bedrock of our judicial system.

Transcript:

Ed Bonderenka

Joining us now is Pastor Christopher Thoma of Our Savior Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hartland, Michigan. You've heard him on air a number of times. He's an author. He's written a few books, the Angels Portion series, the Cruciform Way series, a couple of kids books, Christ Before Caesar, and most recently a detective novel, Ashes to Ashes. And we might get into talking about that, but he's also the host of the annual The Body of Christ and the Public Square meeting at Our Savior. And I wanted to talk to him about this event and promote it because I think it's important for people to gather in churches to listen to and discuss ideas like I said earlier. First, let's have Chris tell us about himself. Welcome to the show, Chris.

Chris Thoma

Hi, Ed. Yeah, it's good to be back. It's been a while since I've been with you. Yeah, so I'm the senior pastor at Our Savior Lutheran Church and School in Hartland, Michigan.

 As I said, I'm the senior pastor there of about 650 Christians. We are what you'd call a confessional Lutheran congregation. We hold to the historic rites and ceremonies as the best form of worship. We have a school, as I said, a preschool through 8th grade school. It is a tuition free school, which means we offer it to the community at no cost to them. And it doesn't matter if you're a member of the church or not. It's something that we hold very dear. Christian education is very important to us. I've been at Our Savior since 1999, serving there. I'm coming up on, actually I'm 30 some years into public ministry. So And I don't know. I mean, like you said, I've written a lot of different books. A recent one is this Ashes to Ashes. It's more, I'd call it more of a thriller than a detective novel, that's for sure. And it gets pretty crazy. But yeah, I love to write. And of course, there's our conference that we have every year. Actually, we have a couple of conferences a year, typically a major, a larger annual conference and then a couple of smaller ones. So anything else you'd like to know?

Ed Bonderenka

I remember going to one a few years ago and that being on Saturday, it kind of interferes with my.

Chris Thoma

With your show.

Ed Bonderenka

Yeah, live. But I remember going to one back during COVID days, I believe it was. And I heard you on the radio and I thought, this is a guy I want to get involved with, want to hear what he has to say. So I went to your conference and I think actually Candace Owens spoke there and I forget who else. I don't know if Charlie Kirk was at that one.

Chris Thoma

Charlie Kirk would come anytime I invited him. Yeah, he was a friend of the congregation. I'd known him early on. So he was somebody that was always willing to connect with me, and I would connect with him when he was in town. But he would, it's not like I try to be clear. It's not like we were besties, but we were friends. And he, yeah, he was with us quite often. Yeah, I remember Candace came one year. She came, Charlie was here that same year that she was here. But we've had, we've had all kinds of folks. We've had Trey Gowdy was with us last year. Chloe Cole was here. Riley Gaines has been with us. I don't know, Matt Walsh, Dinesh D'Souza, Ben Shapiro. Dennis Prager has been with us a couple of times. We've had Tim Ballard, Louie Gohmert has been with us before. Kyle Mann, you know, from Babylon V. Also Seth Dillon from the Babylon Bee, he's been here. Jack Phillips, he's a friend of the congregation. Dr. James Lindsay has been with us several times. So we've had...

Ed Bonderenka

What I like about your presentation, your, what would you call it, meeting or assembly or I don't know.

Chris Thoma

Well, it's a conference. It's not, you know, it's not a, it's not a showboating thing. It's not also, it's also not a vainglory thing. We take the job of educating people very seriously. And the people who partner with us, like the Ben Shapiros and the Matt Walshs and those kinds of folks who come are the same way. So I'm not interested in putting on a show and entertaining anybody. The relationships that we have and that we have formed and the efforts that we exact are meant to be just that. They're educational. We're A 501. The conference has actually become its own 501c3 now, apart from the church. And our job is, the way I see my job leading this as the executive director is we are a 501c3 feeding people to the 501c4s, the people who are actually in the trenches. We want to teach everyone. I want to bring in expert witnesses on all kinds of different topics. And I don't necessarily care if they're Christian or not. I mean, James Lindsay's an openly agnostic guy, and he happens to be a good friend of mine now. But he's an expert witness when it comes to things like Gnosticism, when it comes to wokeism, when it comes to those kinds of things. So when those topics are something we need to know about relative to something that's going on, he's somebody I call and say, hey, can you come to the conference and speak this year? So that's what we're about. I want to educate people so that they know what it means to be a Christian in this world and how to navigate it with information and then also know what groups to connect with that are worth their time. We vetted these people and we were willing to partner with them. We think they're good folks and we want to connect people to them.

Ed Bonderenka

That's similar to what I want to do with this show. It's not to hear myself talk, although I talk too much sometimes, but to bring interesting people with different points of views or different points of view like yourself and expose people to them. And then they can go on and think about what they've heard or in some events call in and ask questions. And one thing about your conference is that somebody will give up, they'll get up, they'll give a talk, and then they'll take questions and answers from the attendees. I don't want to say congregation.

Chris Thoma

Well, this is an opportunity. Yeah, that's a big part of it. You know, a lot of the people that we bring in are people that you only see on TV. in this case, this year, there are people you see only in movies. Neil McDonough is coming to speak. He'll be a keynote at the end of the day. Nick Freitas is coming. Father Calvin Robinson, he's a friend. He'll be back again this year. Timothy Gaeglein, vice president of government relations for focus on the family. Yeah, he'll be there. I'll also speak. I speak every year. I give a paper of some sort. But this is an opportunity for people to interact with personally folks that they usually see from a distance. And while it can be somewhat of a celebritous experience, That's not necessarily the goal. I call up and I ask people to come and speak because they are expert witnesses on a certain topic. So for example, Neil McDonough, I reached out to him. Basically have made some friendships through this whole book thing, but I reached out to him to come and speak on what it's like to be a Christian who holds the line navigating in Hollywood. I've always wanted that kind of discussion. And he's willing to come and do that.

Ed Bonderenka

Is he going to play the priest in your movie?

Chris Thoma

Probably not. That's Jim Caviezel's job. He's the one that's getting that one, I think.

Ed Bonderenka

Well, that would be great. Man, I really, there's another guy who stands up for the gospel's sake, right? But, you know, after Band of Brothers, I always wondered what happened to Neil McDonough. I said, this guy's a powerful actor. What happened to him? And then basically, similar to Patrick McGuhan, who was offered the role of James Bond ahead of Sean Connery, Patrick McGoohan, Secret Asian Man. He turned down the role because he wasn't going to play a womanizer. He was a staunch Catholic and had high morals. And he said, I'm not going to do that. And so he didn't take the role. And Neil McDonough said pretty much the same thing to Hollywood, right? And that kind of got him blacklisted.

Chris Thoma

Yeah, and it got him typecast. So he's typically only gets, he only ends up in a villainous role. So, which, whatever. He's still holding the line. He's been married for forever and very faithful. He's got a wonderful family, but he's very open about his faith and what he will and what he won't do relative to scripts and to roles. And it's not like he's a B-list actor either. He gets the stuff he wants to get, but he holds the line and he's successfully navigated that world. And it's that's not an easy world to navigate. In fact, it's probably one of the hardest in America culturally. And he's doing it. So and he's willing to come and sit and talk with a gymnasium conference full of people and willing to talk to them about it, you know, take questions. People from the floor can go to the mic and talk with them. And there's an opportunity even to get a photo with them. You know, there's a VIP ticket that can be purchased.

Ed Bonderenka

Yeah, you know, I remember in this in the gymnasium, where there were tables set up and there was a lunch served. And we sat at a table with like-minded people and not so like-minded people. And there were some good discussions, met people, kind of networked a little bit. And I enjoyed the sense of commonality there, congeniality. And finding out who other people were that were there and what make them tick too, besides the attendees on the platform.

Chris Thoma

Yeah, and mutual edification. people are able to build one another up. And like you said, come at different topics from different angles and learn from one another. And there's plenty of that opportunity during the conference. Of course, there's a lunch that's served. You know, it's, and the speakers will sometimes participate in that. I leave it open to them. But, you know, typically, like when Charlie would come. He would just wander around with everybody. he'd wait in the lunch line. he wouldn't wait for anybody to bring him food. He'd just come out and be a part of it. He'd sit out there and watch. Dinesh, when he comes, he sits right off to the side and just he gets involved. Dennis Prager, when he was here, it's been a while, but when he was here, he did the same thing. He went out and just sat in the back table next to some folks. And when it was time for him to speak, he got up and came to the stage. So it's very much an opportunity to be one-on-one with folks. I'm not guaranteeing that Neil McDonough is going to do that, but I know he's a very down-to-earth guy and he wants to engage and wants to be a part of this. So does Nick and so does Calvin and all those other folks.

Ed Bonderenka

Yeah, I trust people know who Nick Freitas is. He was a assemblyman in Virginia. I think he just stopped doing that this January. But he's got a lot of popular shorts and videos on Facebook and YouTube. And he's a hilarious guy, but he's a real thinker, too, and brings things out that need to be said in a way that's, you know, just abrupt. And in a sense, it's like, oh, wow, that's important. And it is not a lightweight. That's I personally would like to meet the guy, I'd like to interview him on this show. Maybe you can hook me up. I haven't been able to get through to him.

Chris Thoma

I'll see what I can do.

Ed Bonderenka

Oh, great. Thanks. You're also going to have a guy, Father Calvin Robinson, and I didn't know he was preaching in Grand Rapids now, but I remember when he hit the news maybe a couple years ago about what was going on. I mean, There's a guy that's been bounced out of, like myself, bounced out of a number of churches for what he believes.

Chris Thoma

Right, Yeah, he first came on the scene a couple of years back for a debate he did in the Oxford Union over in England. And his issue was with poor theology, essentially woke theology infecting the Church of England and infecting the whole of the country. And He had already been on a roll with, he had a TV show and a radio bit or a blog bit that he was doing where he brought out all kinds of topics. And so eventually he left England. I mean, he gave up the place and he came to the United States. He was called to a congregation in Grand Rapids and he accepted that call and he's been serving there now for, I want to say, maybe three or four years. So He goes back to England on occasion, but he lives here now in Michigan.

Ed Bonderenka

Yeah, that's interesting. Well, at least you don't have to pay a lot of travel fees to get him to the club.

Chris Thoma

Well, yeah, and you know, when he's around too, we can smoke cigars and drink whiskey and do what we do as thinkers.

Ed Bonderenka

Once again, there's probably somebody I'm going to have on the show soon. It's a very interesting guy. He left one denomination, basically was kicked out of another, and a man who's standing up for his principles. And man, I didn't know there were so many. I mean, I'd recently found that there was an Anglican church in North America. I have a couple of friends, disparate friends, who were in that. I didn't know they were each in it. And then there's the Anglican Catholics of North America or something. There's obviously the Episcopalians that, are, to my knowledge, are no longer a Christian organization. There's things going on in major, well, I think you're seeing that in the Lutheran Synod you're in too, aren't you?

Chris Thoma

Well, we see it in the ELCA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, for the most part, is a very biblically conservative denomination. In fact, we're one of the last in a lot of ways. But we've had our issues. I mean, we're slow in a lot of ways. There was some controversy this summer at our convention relative to Charlie Kirk overtures that I wrote and submitted and had some fights there, but in the end got some things through, which was nice. But for the most part, the Missouri Synod, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod is about as conservative a denomination as you can still find. in the United States. And that, so I'm proud to be a member of it. I'm proud to be a pastor in that denomination. Glad to be.

Ed Bonderenka

Yeah, I frankly, my wife and I had to leave our church a couple, three weeks ago. Very conservative Protestant denomination, but for some reason we ended up with a woman pastor. And I was going to let that slide. I don't see that in scripture, but I was going to go for the ride. And immediately after being installed that afternoon, after her first sermon, presentation, whatever you want to call it, she posts a feminist screed on Facebook, which come on. And my wife saw that says, OK, we got to find some other place.

Chris Thoma

Yeah, that's too bad. That is too bad.

Ed Bonderenka

It happens. So And you're also going to have, like you said, Timothy Gaeglein on there from Focus on the Family. So if you're going to have an interesting presentation, when is it?

Chris Thoma

When is the best presentation of the group, you think?

Ed Bonderenka

Is that what you think? Oh, no, When is the Body of Christ?

Chris Thoma

Oh, okay. Yeah, October 3rd, October 3rd, Saturday, October 3rd. And if anybody's interested in registering, you can just go to BOCPS.org. B as in boy, OCPS.org. That'll take you right to the Body of Christ Public Square website and there's a link. I'm right at the top. You'll see the images of the speakers and there's a link to register.

Ed Bonderenka

You are a pretty prolific writer and author and I don't mind telling you, sometimes I'm overwhelmed by your posts on Facebook. Oh my goodness, I gotta get another coffee.

Chris Thoma

Yeah, I write A lot.

Ed Bonderenka

You also have your newsletter that I enjoy. I get that into my inbox and my e-mail. And you've written some books that, frankly, I'd like to have you back to talk about the, one about the cruciform, cruciform life.

Chris Thoma

Oh, cruciform way. Yeah.

Ed Bonderenka

Way. And I mean, it's, and there's also one you have about Christ before Caesar, Christianity before Caesar.

Chris Thoma

Christ, yeah, Christ before Caesar. It's a religious liberty volume.

Ed Bonderenka

Exactly. And those are.

Chris Thoma

It's based out of my, it's built on my doctoral work in that field.

Ed Bonderenka

Oh, good. Because one thing I've known about you for a long time is that you are a very conservative Christian and somebody who gives it a lot of thought and basically comes out on the right side and I we need Christian leaders like that not those that are going to shrink away I was recently asking a pastor we were in a church and it's a great church and then he had an after after service meeting now would you like to ask questions I said yeah if the if the state told you to shut down your church would you he said well I'd have to ask my spiritual leaders in the local district board or something. Look, you can't make that decision yourself, Sorry. It's just, yeah, it's, no, you have to have allegiance here to Christ before the state. And it shouldn't, it shouldn't take a lot of thought, frankly. Are you going to assemble yourselves together or not? And so that's.

Chris Thoma

Well, the Lord mandates it. The scriptures mandate it. And you can't, you know, when the Caesar comes in and imposes things upon the church that are foreign to the holy scriptures, the church has to refuse. She can't say yes. So when you're going back to the COVID days, even little things like masks and social distancing and things like that for a church to even try to tiptoe and let's say accommodate the state and make those into requirements, even staying open, but making those into requirements is to infringe upon the first tablet of the law, the first table of the law, you can't put, you can't, I can't tell anyone according to the scriptures, according to the Ten Commandments, I can't tell anyone, you can't be in the presence of your God for worship unless you wear a mask or unless you, I'm putting, I'm imposing on the scriptures something that's foreign there. And pastors who did that or do that and still subscribe to that, I would argue will be held accountable. for that. But I agree with you. I think when it comes to the church in that sense, we are obligated to faithfulness to Christ, not obligated to faithfulness to the government. We respect and we honor, yeah, but we must obey God rather than men.

Ed Bonderenka

Amen. Yeah. So you've written this book, Ashes to Ashes. We only have a couple minutes. Do you want to describe that book?

Chris Thoma

Yeah, so the best way to describe it, it's more of a vigilante thriller as quickly as I can. The best way to tee it up is to say, Reverend Daniel Michaels, he's a pastor of a little congregation. And actually it happens in my hometown, Linden, Michigan. It all happens there. It happens in the surrounding area, Fenton and Brighton and Howell and places like that. But he's a pastor there in Linden and one of his parishioners is murdered and he He receives some information from this person before she's murdered that shows him that there's a network, a trafficking network going on, essentially. But he doesn't know who's compromised and who isn't. And in the end, he takes it upon himself to clean up the mess, essentially. Now that's jumping from point A to point W, you know, really, really quickly. But for anyone who's interested, he goes from, he is a man who is true to his word. He's a faithful man who loves the Lord, but he also loves his parishioners more than anything in the world. In many ways, I'm describing myself how I feel about my congregation. But here it is in summary. If he comes and he sits down in a room with you and he says to you, I'm here for your confession, you're going to die and it's going to be messy. It is going to be messy.

Ed Bonderenka

I know a number of people who are looking forward to reading that now. So yeah, once again, we're talking to Pastor Christopher Toma of our Savior Evangelical Lutheran Church in Heartland, Michigan. And his conference is coming out, Body of Christ in the Public Square.

Chris Thoma

One more time, where can they find that? Bocps.org. The letter B as in boy, ocps.org. And it's October 3rd, Saturday.

Ed Bonderenka

All right, thank you very much. All right, thanks for joining us. Thanks, folks. Stay tuned for the next segment. It's going to be good.

Welcome back to the last segment of Your American Heritage Today. And today's a special day. Today is time for the David Kallman Report. So Dave is joining us today because I asked him to. And the reason I asked him to was because we recently saw this hearing on Lindsay Clancy. And she was the, I believe she was a nurse who admittedly killed her children and then sought to get off on an insanity appeal. And I wanted to talk to Dave about it because there are some ramifications for this to our judicial system. There's some interesting, there's a legal term for it. Dave, what's a legal term for when law set precedence? OK, good. Thank you. Oh, that makes more sense. Good. So yeah, I mean, a defense, an insanity defense goes back from what I'm reading back to the 1840s. Have you looked into insanity? Have you ever had to use an insanity defense for yourself or one of your clients?

Dave Kallman

No, I never have, but it's something we've studied, you study in school. And plus, I've been involved in some cases where I wasn't attorney, but I may be essentially consulted, that sort of thing. And insanity defenses, you could make the argument that every single person who kills someone is kind of in a murder is insane. I mean, so you might as well do away with the murder laws then and just put everybody in insane asylums if that's the standard. It's not the standard. The standard for insanity is whether or not you know the difference between right and wrong. You can have a crazy person, but they still know the difference between right and wrong. And if they do, they're not legally insane and they don't get off the hook for their heinous acts. And so I think that's what's getting lost here in the Clancy case. Now, look, I'll say obviously you and I did not sit and listen to all the evidence and the testimony and the witnesses and the exhibits and everything in the seven weeks of trial that they had. And so I'm really in no position to opine on what was given to the jurors to review. But from the way you listen to some of these jurors and some of them are now being interviewed, it sounds to me like they didn't know what they were doing, honestly, the jurors.

Ed Bonderenka

Well, there are people I see on Facebook who claim they've watched the whole trial and they've come to the conclusion the husband did it.

Dave Kallman

That's idiotic. I mean, the wife, Ms. Clancy admitted she did it. He wasn't there. I mean, that's kind of ridiculous. But when you look at some of the stuff, I mean, these are things that are uncontroverted. She planned and premeditated these acts. She set it up for her husband to go out on an errand that she sent him on and then proceeded to methodically kill the children one at a time. and had everything set up and the instruments and things she used to commit the crimes. I mean, these are not the acts of somebody who doesn't know the difference between right and wrong. Now, again, it's not to minimize whatever she was going through and that sort of thing. But that doesn't justify brutally killing three young children the way that occurred in this case.

Ed Bonderenka

There's reports that her browser history showed that prior to committing the crime, she actually Googled insanity defense as if she was preparing ahead of time for an insanity defense. You got to be insane to think that they're not going to look at your browser. So maybe she was insane, right?

Dave Kallman

Yeah, it could be. I mean, who knows? But the other problem you've got here is Massachusetts has kind of a weird law. It's the reverse of just about anywhere else in the country. where the prosecutor had to prove she was not insane. Normally, the burden of proof is on the defendant to prove she is insane. That's a huge difference, and it puts the burden of proof on the prosecutor of Massachusetts. And honestly, what an idiotic law. I mean, that's just stupid to put the burden on the prosecutor to prove somebody's not insane. That just, I don't understand how a law like that could get passed in a state, but that's Massachusetts standard.

Ed Bonderenka

I was looking up the history of the insanity defense. It turns out like in the early 1800s, this guy shot the prime minister of England's secretary, and then he claimed to have an insanity defense. And this, I guess this is the first time it was applied, at least in England. And the guy got off and the public was so outraged they wanted a tightening up of this insanity defense and how that's going to be used. It was called the McNaughton rule. And that goes that at the time of committing the act, the accused was laboring under such a defect of reason from disease of the mind as to not know the nature and quality of the act he was doing. Or if he did know it, they did not know that what he was doing was wrong. And then there's been some, other narrowing down of that widening back up. There was, I guess it was addressed when Hinckley shot Reagan, that there was a narrowing down of the insanity defense at that point. The Insanity Defense Reform Act is what came up. But as you said, you have to be insane to kill your kids. And I guess the question I have is, and I was posing this to my son earlier. So I claim I'm insane. I was insane when I killed my kids. Even I was on all these heavy medications. And so through this fog of not knowing right and wrong because of all these heavy medications and postpartum this and that, I killed my kids. But hey, I'm not on those drugs now. I'm good to go. Should she be good to go? I mean, how do you keep somebody in an insane asylum if they're now provenly not insane?

Dave Kallman

Right, that's the problem with these verdicts where a defendant is found guilty or not guilty by reason of insanity. Typically they go to an insane asylum or to a mental health hospital and for treatment. And if at some point in the future a psychiatrist finds that they are now cured, and they are no longer insane, then technically they are allowed to be released. It's definitely a big problem in the way the system works. But look, under these definitions, I mean, Manson, Dahmer, Gacy, I mean, pick out your serial killer or people who have just been awful human beings, all of them would be deemed insane and would be let out. I mean, it's ridiculous. I'll tell you the main problem I had with the case, though. Again, I have to put a caveat here. I didn't watch everything. I don't know all the evidence that was presented. So I'm not really here to opine on whether or not she should have been found not guilty or whatever. But my concern was some of the actions that I saw, especially from the defense attorney and the jurors after the fact, who were clearly acting in ways that they were not following the law. they kept saying this one holdout juror was not following the law. He was not obeying the judge's instructions. Really? Because he disagreed. He's not following the judge's instructions. I mean, that's silly. Especially the defense attorney was really undermining the whole jury system. and the use of juries in our criminal justice system. I mean, according to him, what do we need juries for anymore? Let's just, you know, let's have a judge do it. Because if jurors don't do exactly what a judge tells them to do, then therefore it's somehow illegitimate. I mean, that's the whole basis for the jury system is jurors have the right to make their own decisions, regardless of what the judge says or thinks or anything else. It doesn't matter. If a judge disagrees with a jury, the jury has the right to make its own decision. That's where you start getting into jury nullification and issues like that.

Ed Bonderenka

Before we go much further, I wanted to say I just remembered Hinkley got off about four years ago. Hinkley is out of prison now after having tried to assassinate the president. You know, normally he would have gotten life if he'd been found guilty for not being insane. But because he wasn't sane, now he's a judged and he's a free man. But going back to this 12th juror, I mean, a number of people have made the allusion to 12 angry men with Henry Fonda, about one holdout juror changing the mind of the rest of the jury. One thing I like about that movie is that the opening shot shows this arch into the courthouse. And there's a quote from George Washington over it, etched in granite. The due administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government. You know, in the 80s, I had an opportunity to be on a federal jury trial. It's an amazing thing that happened because I'm sitting, I wanted to be on a jury trial. I was getting paid by GM. I didn't care if I was sitting there. I wanted the experience. And boy, did I have one because I'm watching this trial and you know me, I'm not an attorney, but I play one in my mind. And I'm watching the proceedings go on and the prosecutor looks absolutely flustered, like he's new at this and doesn't know what he's doing. At one point, the judge speaks to him directly and gives him guidance on how to proceed and alarms are going off in my head. You don't do that. That's, you know, that's.

Dave Kallman

Well, it's showing a bias by the court that they're not supposed to put their finger on the, or their thumb on the scale for sure.

Ed Bonderenka

And it was a case of this guy had a drug house and he was a convicted felon and he was being charged with being possession of a handgun. but nobody brought a witness that saw him with the handgun. And so we get back in the jury room and the, 11 of us are like, let him go. And, this 12th guy, he's being, as far as we're concerned, he's being an idiot. Well, the cops wouldn't lie. You know, the government wouldn't lie. I'm like, are you kidding me? You've been living under a rock. And, but it got to the point where he was just in transit. And finally, I asked the jury foreman, would you ask the judge exactly what constitutes possession of a firearm? And the judge sends a note back to us. And I asked this question, you know me. And the judge sends a note back and says, if the defendant can tell someone in the room to get the gun for him and reasonably expect them to go get the gun and bring it to him, then he is in possession of the gun. And the whole thing turned around. And we went, guilty. All 12 of us. He's guilty. We know that for a fact. Then the judge asked us back into his chambers. which is, that's unreal. He didn't just dismiss us. Would you like to come and talk to me and the prosecutor and the defense lawyer and the DEA agent? Yeah, of course. And we're all back there. And he says, anybody got any questions? And I turned to the prosecutor, says, is this your first case? He started laughing and the judge started laughing. And what happened is there was a co-defendant and that guy had skipped bail. And he was going to turn state's evidence, but he skipped bail and it killed the whole case. And then so then I turned to the defense lawyer and I said, isn't it true that the judge gave you cause for retrial here? And he says, yeah, the judge says, oh, I most certainly did. I says, oh, well, he says, you're going to do it? He says, are you kidding me? I'm working free here and not for that scumbag. He's guilty as hell. Let him figure it out in prison. But there again, one juror changed the whole flow of that, even as whacked out as he was.

Dave Kallman

Yeah, well, it really was pathetic. And you're hearing a lot of lawyers around the country in unison saying this defense attorney for this mom in Massachusetts was way out of line. I mean, he should be brought up, frankly, on charges to their, grievance, the Attorney Grievance Commission in Massachusetts. You don't make comments like that and attack a juror, especially while the case is going on, you know, and claiming that they're not following the law. I mean, how does he know what's going on in the jury room? I mean, he doesn't know what's happening in there. At least he's not supposed to. Is somebody telling him something or what's going on there? And to attack a juror, people are acting like an 11 to one decision and so a mistrial. Oh my goodness, this has never happened in the history of the United States. I'm like, what planet are you people on? I mean, 11 to one, 10 to two decisions, split juries happen every single day of the week in this country. That's part of the greatness of our system is that then it shows that maybe the prosecutor does have a weak case. Or maybe the defense has a, and people, look, we trust the average common person to come in and listen to the evidence and come to a common sense decision. But boy, I'll tell you, after listening to a few of these jurors, these ladies who are testifying or coming out and talking to the media now, it kind of shakes your faith in the jury system. I'll tell you, they were not, they were the ones not following the law when you listen to them. It was just amazing. But that whole thing was just a travesty. Now, again, maybe it is a weak case and now maybe the prosecutor will offer a deal and maybe they'll work something out and they won't have a retrial, but they can have a retrial. And now I think the prosecutor has a better idea of where they were weak and what they need to do. And it's not uncommon to have a second trial or even a third trial and then have the defendant be convicted. So That sort of thing happens quite often.

Ed Bonderenka

That weeding out process, that's called for deer.

Dave Kallman

Yes, for the jurors, yeah.

Ed Bonderenka

You just look at this and say, wow, nine women and three guys, and it's, well, that's a jury of your peers, you know, that's nine women, but.

Dave Kallman

And one of the women who was interviewed by the media said she was in agreement with the gentleman who was the holdout and she was in agreement with him. And yet the other jurors attacked her and browbeat her so much, she finally just threw up her hands and said, whatever, okay, I'll vote with you. Well, that's not what a juror is supposed to do. I mean, the guy that held out did the right thing. If he has an honest conviction and he believes based on the evidence that he saw that his decision the correct decision, he should dig in his heels and say, no, that's what I believe. I'm not changing my mind. You can yell at me and threaten me all you want. That's what I believe, and that's the way it should work.

Ed Bonderenka

And once again, that's where you see those dynamics between the jury members in the jury room, like in 12 Angry Men. It's a great movie, especially when it comes to reasonable doubt. That's gone over quite a bit in that movie, and it's very, very well done. I'm not quite sure I understand this thing, the attack on him about, well, he didn't understand or he wasn't following. He understood, but he wasn't following the judge's direction. What's so difficult about reasonable doubt? I could understand. And they're saying, well, earlier he had reasonable doubt and he changed his mind. It's like, oh.

Dave Kallman

Okay, so what? I know. I just don't understand it either. I mean, the attacks on this poor guy are so ridiculous and undeserved. I hope, you know, at least so far from what I've seen, his name has not gotten out there and he's not, you know, I hope he doesn't get attacked by people or whatever. But I was telling you, sure saw some strange stuff at that trial going on. All the women who were outside the courthouse, in support of this mother who killed her kids, and there, I don't know, I don't understand it. That's almost more troubling than what the jury actually did.

Ed Bonderenka

There are people, I was telling my son earlier, my mom could probably sympathize with Clancy. My mom had once said, I thought I was gonna have children. I'd have my three sons instead. I had my three sons from hell. And there were times my mom got abusive. There's no two ways about it. My mom got out of hand with us. And yeah, I could see where a mother could get angry with her kids. But to cold-heartedly plot their murder the way this woman did, Basically, I think all these women in support of her are part of the abortion culture, that that's what it's come down to. Children's lives.

Dave Kallman

Yeah, you don't have the same reverence for human life anymore. I mean, look, in Massachusetts, they just passed a law that you could have an abortion right up to the moment of birth. So you could have a life, I mean, who in their right mind is going to argue that 2 minutes before the birth, that's not a baby, that's not a human being. And yet Massachusetts just passed a law that you can abort and kill that child and kill that human being. I mean, when you live in a society or a culture that believes that sort of thing, man, you really got to wonder about the safety of everyone. And so really, honestly, logically, what is the difference between a child that's three months old or eight months old versus one that's one day from being born? What's the difference? One's breathing the air and the other one's not. I mean, that's about it. And they're totally dependent on the parent than the mother. And so if they can kill them two days before, why not kill them eight months after? What's the difference? Logically, what's the rationale? So argue you should not kill the live child. I don't, you know, I'd be interested in hearing these people on how they would defend that.

Ed Bonderenka

Exactly. I don't think I'm going to try and get them on this show to talk about it though. But I wanted you on because I didn't want to really talk about her case or not. I wanted to talk about the ramifications like we were talking about. I mean, I'm reminded the treatment of this one juror and the treatment of the concept of, well, let's just eliminate 1 juror and go with 11 is very much the same as, hey, we're not getting out of the Supreme Court what we want. So let's go to, 13, 14, 15, 19 jurors, or rather jurists, I should say, you know, in order to get what we want out of the court instead of following the system. And this is an attack on our heritage. Our, you know, Amendment 6 gives us, doesn't give us It recognizes our right to a speedy trial, which we don't often get, and a trial by jury in criminal matters. Right.

Dave Kallman

I mean, people don't realize the jury system has been, I mean, we fought our initial revolutionary war, war for independence. This is one of the main issues. was the right of a defendant to have a jury of their peers because Britain did not allow that. And so that was one of the reasons it's in the Declaration of Independence for why it's so important to have a jury doing this.

Ed Bonderenka

You just reminded me.

Dave Kallman

Look at all of the things. There are times jurors have done things that I didn't like. There have been, think back in the 60s and 70s, especially in federal court. All kinds of people were being prosecuted for using marijuana. all kinds of defendants. Tons of them got off. Jurors just released them because they weren't going to convict anybody for using marijuana. Not because the law was clear, they should have been convicted, but juries said, no, we're not gonna do that. Look at the civil rights movement back in the 50s, 60s, a lot of those jury trials. Juries would let people off all the time who definitely committed the crime they're charged with. But because of other circumstances, the jurors looked at it and said, no, we're not going to convict the person. That's the point. Juries act as a bulwark against the government. And it cuts both ways. It can cut a liberal way. It can cut a conservative way.

Ed Bonderenka

Exactly.

Dave Kallman

It cut this way.

Ed Bonderenka

Well, by that rationale, these jurors let off someone they sympathize with is what I'm thinking happened, pretty much like you were alluding to. And yeah, the whole thing was that the British subjects had the right to a trial to a jury, but the colonists were under maritime admiralty courts. And that's one of the, that was a big reason. You're absolutely right. Jury trials are amendment six in the constitution and a trial by your peers.

Dave Kallman

Right, right, exactly. And so it's a lot of time people refer to it as jury nullification, that a jury has the right to nullify the law if they feel a higher purpose, a higher cause, a higher law compels them to disregard that particular law and to find in favor of the accused. It's jury nullification. It's never talked about much. Attorneys are not allowed to argue it to a jury, but juries can make their own decision and they do not have to follow the judge's instructions. That's another thing about this whole thing. They're crying, oh, he didn't follow the judge's instructions. Well, I'm not so sure that's true in this case because I think he did. But even if he did not follow the judge's instructions, he doesn't have to. Juries are their own animal and they can do literally whatever they want. They have the right to do it. They are the jury.

Ed Bonderenka

Exactly. Hey, you know, it's what I find interesting too is this lawyer for Clancy actually appealed to Trump for a pardon over a state issue. They need to be disbarred for stupidity, right?

Dave Kallman

Yeah, that was ridiculous. I couldn't believe it when I saw that in the media. I just saw that today, as a matter of fact. I couldn't believe it.

Ed Bonderenka

Oops, there's Derek with the 30-second signal. All right, folks, we've been talking to Dave Kallman of Great Lakes Justice Center and the Kallman Legal Group. And we've been talking about juries and about our American justice system. And what we need to do to protect it, we need to watch out for stuff like this. Thanks for joining us. Thanks, Dave, for joining us. Your American Heritage.