The prosecution in the Daniel Penny trial on Friday successfully requested that the top charge, second-degree manslaughter, be dismissed during jury deliberations. The jury will now deliberate on the lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide, which holds up to four years behind bars. Since the manslaughter charge potentially holds a far longer sentence, up to 15 years, the dismissal, at first glance, might seem like a good thing for Penny. But as highlighted by some legal eagles online, and, most importantly, the defense, the state’s request is a desperate move to try to secure some sort of conviction in their extremely weak case. As highlighted by The Daily Wire, the defense argued Friday that dismissing a harder charge in the midst of jury deliberations that don’t seem to be going your way is setting a dangerous precedent for prosecutors to overcharge defendants, knowing that they can maneuver last minute. Additionally, defense argued that the state was “coercing” the jury, or illegally pressuring them for, in this case, a guilty verdict. By viewing the jury instructions in this particular case in context with the questions asked by the jury, it’s clear the state realized they were headed for a hung jury, or worse, a full acquittal. Instead of letting that play out, they moved to put the case on life-support, hoping to squeeze out a conviction on the lower charge. CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE In some cases — and in the most likely case — the second charge of criminally negligent homicide can only even be considered if the jury finds a guilty verdict for the second-degree manslaughter charge. Here are the jury instructions (emphasis added): If you find the defendant not guilty of count 1, manslaughter in the second degree, for the reason that the People have failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was not justified, then, you must not consider count 2, criminally negligent homicide, and you must also find the defendant not guilty of that count. As the instructions read, if the jury finds Penny not guilty of manslaughter because the state was unable to prove that his actions weren’t justified, they also have to find Penny not guilty on count 2, rendering a full acquittal. So instead of potentially having both charges acquitted, or end up with a mistrial by way of a hung jury, jurors are considering the second charge without the burdens from the jury instructions that helped the defense. Notably, however, per the jury instructions, the jury could have potentially found Penny not guilty on count 1, but guilty on count 2. That would be because they found Penny not guilty on manslaughter “for some reason other than the lack of justification.” “Look at the instructions Count 2 consideration was contingent on Count 1 deliberations,” Marina Medvin posted. “The decision to allow consideration of Count 2 removes the defense-protective obstacles from the instruction. If Penny is convicted as a result, the defense will have a field day on appeal.” Daniel Penny judge dismissed Count 1, manslaughter, after a hung jury — BUT he is going to allow the jury to consider Count 2, negligent homicide, on Monday. Look at the instructions. Count 2 consideration was contingent on Count 1 deliberations. The decision to allow… pic.twitter.com/ghf75ksjCM — Marina Medvin ?? (@MarinaMedvin) December 6, 2024 Indeed, defense will certainly appeal if the jury comes back with a guilty verdict on count two, with a high degree of likelihood they’ll prevail since the state/judge’s move was so unusual. Related: Defense In Daniel Penny Case Says Prosecution Improperly Signaling To The Jury

'Prop 140 was one of the worst ideas ever to be proposed'

'This raises a question'

'Fox News is pleased'

The Supreme Court on Wednesday heard oral arguments in this term’s marquee case, United States v. Skrmetti. The case, out of Tennessee, nominally involves a state law banning minors’ use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for purposes of so-called gender-affirming care—which, stripped of all euphemism, means genital mutilation and chemical castration. And the justices will indeed have to resolve the narrow legal question before them in this case: namely, whether or not Tennessee’s commonsense protection of vulnerable youth from the predations of the billion-dollar transgender industry offends the 14th Amendment’s injunction that no state “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The straightforward legal answer is that it plainly does not. Fatuous arguments this week from the U.S. solicitor general and an American Civil Liberties Union advocate aside, one simply cannot divorce the issue of medical treatment from the issue of medical purpose. Consider the case of fentanyl. There are legitimate purposes for small amounts of fentanyl, which can be used as a painkiller in a contained hospital setting. There are also myriad illegitimate purposes for fentanyl, as anyone remotely familiar with America’s depressing drug overdose crisis can sadly attest. So, too, can a reasonable person distinguish between testosterone therapy for an adolescent boy with delayed puberty, on the one hand, and testosterone therapy for an adolescent girl with gender dysphoria, on the other hand. Tennessee’s law does treat every “person within its jurisdiction” equally. It simply requires that the remedy for gender dysphoria for all children and adolescents “within its jurisdiction,” regardless of biological sex, is psychological treatment—not irreversible physical damage to the human body. As recently as a decade ago, this would have been considered so obvious as to not even require legislation. Because we live in morally confused and ideologically fervent times, sadly, such laws are now necessary. But the Skrmetti case also entails a considerably more important, and more sweeping, dispute than the technical constitutional issue that is now pending before the justices. More fundamentally, what was presented to the Supreme Court on Wednesday were two diametrically opposed conceptions of anthropology and the human person—of man’s very being and his relation with his fellow man, the state and God Himself. The transgender lobby and the Biden-Harris administration argue that the human person is, in essence, a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book. Under this dispensation, it is not sufficient that free will exists when it comes to making the decisions and choosing the courses of action that define our lives. Rather, “free will” also extends, in a bastardized sense, to the biologically irreducible question of who we quite literally are as Homo sapiens, members of the human race. The result of this pseudo-intellectual sophistry is the bizarre spectacle of Ketanji Brown Jackson, then an intellectually challenged judge and now an intellectually challenged justice, refusing to answer the question of what a “woman” is when pressed during her Supreme Court confirmation hearing. Gender activists hectored us for years that sexual orientation is established at birth, but apparently one now gets to choose whether he is man or woman. On the other side of the civilizational clash, there are those of us who still “get bitter” and “cling,” to use our 44th president’s infamous words, to the norm established by God Himself in the Book of Genesis: “And God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Even holding the Good Book aside, it doesn’t require a Ph.D. in biology or embryology to grasp that human beings (and any number of species of animals) have precisely two possible chromosomal structures: XX for “female,” and XY for “male.” We know from the birds and the bees that human beings are specifically designed with sexual complementarity so that they can, upon the marital union, become one flesh and, to again cite Genesis, “be fruitful and multiply.” These two visions of the human person are in irreconcilable tension with one another. There is no middle ground here. Only one vision can survive. The imperative of the statesman, be he political or judicial in nature, is to choose. It is not statesmanlike—indeed, it is cowardly—of constitutional officers of all stripes, judges included, to simply toss their hands in the air and proclaim their contentedness with letting the chips fall where they may. America’s great antebellum dispute, that over chattel slavery, similarly concerned the nature of the human person. That dispute ended in tragedy, destruction, and mass bloodshed. In order to forestall a similar fate, we need more Lincoln-esque figures in our time—those who, like the Great Emancipator, have the courage to advance forthright moral arguments. Perhaps the Supreme Court can begin by using Skrmetti to declare transgenderism the lie against the human person that it is. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post In Transgender Case, Can Supreme Court Cut to the Moral Heart of the Issue? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Of all the bad takes on President Joe Biden pardoning his son Hunter, MSNBC host and Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart had the worst on Friday’s PBS News Hour. In Capehart’s mind, Biden was justified because Kamala Harris lost and Democrats need “to stop bringing a melon baller to a knife fight.” Host Geoff Bennett ran down the list of reasons why people have criticized Biden’s pardon, from his pledge not to, to his claims that he would protect Justice Department independence, and asked, “Jonathan, in your view, was it justified, and what's the lasting impact?”     Capehart responded and claims that the situation has changed, “Yes, it was justified. When the president said that he would not pardon his son, wouldn't grant clemency, the facts on the ground were completely different. It's the middle of a presidential campaign. He was the candidate for president, didn't want to be viewed as interfering. He's no longer the candidate. His vice president is the presidential nominee.” But the facts of Hunter’s case have not. Still, Capehart continued, “I am almost, 99 percent certain, that President Biden was hoping that Vice President Harris would win and that this would not be an issue. But when the person who won the race won the race by vowing a campaign — through a campaign of retribution, revenge, naming the Biden family in general and Hunter Biden, in particular, as someone or people, groups of people, he wanted to go after if he won election, of course, the president looks at the facts, says, that 'I cannot allow that to happen to my son.'” He then essentially told Democratic critics of Biden to shut up: For some Democrats to be complaining about how ‘you have ruined norms’ and ‘you have given him an avenue,’ have they not been paying attention to who Donald Trump is either during the campaign or during his four years as president the first go-round? And these are the same people who would be yelling at Biden had he not done something and then President Trump took action against Hunter Biden, ‘why didn't you save your son? Why didn't you help your son when you had the opportunity to do so when you were president?’ He's done it. Bennett then took Capehart’s answer and asked New York Times columnist David Brooks for his thoughts, “Donald Trump was very clear about seeking revenge against his perceived enemies, the Bidens chief among them, does any of that change the calculus in your opinion?” Brooks replied that it doesn’t, “Not to me. Hunter Biden has already been convicted. He was about to get sentenced. This is not going to be a Trump thing. That was already happening. I think what happened for Joe Biden, it became less politically painful to do it. So he did it.”     For Brooks, simply bringing up Trump is not good enough, “It's important to me that we have one party that actually does defend those norms, defends legitimacy, and just doesn't go in for a freewheeling nepotism.” Bennett then tossed things back to Capehart, “We have heard Republicans already say that this pardon proves that it's Joe Biden who has politicized the Justice Department, not Donald Trump. Whether that's accurate or not, I mean, it certainly could be politically effective, especially if Donald Trump does what he says he intends to do, and that's issue pardons for the folks who were convicted in connection to the attack on the Capitol on January 6.” A displeased Capehart retorted that “Yeah, he said he was going to do it. He said he intended to do it. He's going to do it. Whether President Biden pardoned his son or not, Trump is going to do it. No one's going to be surprised. And I take your point, David, about the erosion of norms. At a certain point, you have got to stop bringing a melon baller to a knife fight.” Of course, Joe Biden's pardoning of family members is not some attempt by him to play by Trumpian rules. Rather, it harkens back to a Clintonian tradition that predates Trump. Claiming it is, is how you get people believing there is one set of moral standards for Trump and another for Democrats. Here is a transcript for the December 6 show: PBS News Hour 12/6/2024 7:23 PM ET GEOFF BENNETT: Jonathan, in your view, was it justified, and what's the lasting impact? JONATHAN CAPEHART: Well, one, yes, it was justified. When the president said that he would not pardon his son, wouldn't grant clemency, the facts on the ground were completely different. It's the middle of a presidential campaign. He was the candidate for president, didn't want to be viewed as interfering. He's no longer the candidate. His vice president is the presidential nominee. I am almost, 99 percent certain, that President Biden was hoping that Vice President Harris would win and that this would not be an issue. But when the person who won the race won the race by vowing a campaign — through a campaign of retribution, revenge, naming the Biden family in general and Hunter Biden, in particular, as someone or people, groups of people, he wanted to go after if he won election, of course, the president looks at the facts, says, that “I cannot allow that to happen to my son.” And for the — and I understand the criticisms and the brickbats that the president is taking. But for some Democrats to be complaining about how “you have ruined norms” and “you have given him an avenue,” have they not been paying attention to who Donald Trump is either during the campaign or during his four years as president the first go-round? And these are the same people who would be yelling at Biden had he not done something and then President Trump took action against Hunter Biden, “why didn't you save your son? Why didn't you help your son when you had the opportunity to do so when you were president?” He's done it. BENNETT: What about that, David? Did the intervening events, the reelection of Donald Trump, the fact that Hunter Biden would have been at the mercy of a Trump Justice Department, and that Donald Trump was very clear about seeking revenge against his perceived enemies, the Bidens chief among them, does any of that change the calculus in your opinion? DAVID BROOKS: Not to me. Hunter Biden has already been convicted. He was about to get sentenced. This is not going to be a Trump thing. That was already happening. I think what happened for Joe Biden, it became less politically painful to do it. So he did it. I have learned that Democrats have been running against corruption, against nepotism, against all the bad things Donald Trump has done. And to run against those things, you have to have a place to stand. I have to have a place to stand on legitimacy. And I do care about norms. I think our society, our democracy, the Constitution is built on laws. But within the way the government functions, there are norms of behavior upon which our democracy depends. And one of those norms is that we have a pardon. The president gets presidential pardon power, but he cannot abuse it by just taking his family out of the picture. In my view, he cannot abuse it by giving “pre-pardons” to people how haven't been convicted of anything. The way democracies fall is that the practices that make the democracy work get slowly abandoned step by step. And, obviously, Donald Trump is the guy abandoning those norms leap by leap. But it's important to me that we have one party that actually does defend those norms, defends legitimacy, and just doesn't go in for a freewheeling nepotism. BENNETT: There's the defense of norms. And, Jonathan, we have heard Republicans already say that this pardon proves that it's Joe Biden who has politicized the Justice Department, not Donald Trump. Whether that's accurate or not, I mean, it certainly could be politically effective, especially if Donald Trump does what he says he intends to do, and that's issue pardons for the folks who were convicted in connection to the attack on the Capitol on January 6. CAPEHART: Yeah, he said he was going to do it. He said he intended to do it. He's going to do it. Whether President Biden pardoned his son or not, Trump is going to do it. No one's going to be surprised. And I take your point, David, about the erosion of norms. At a certain point, you have got to stop bringing a melon baller to a knife fight.

Unsold inventory has car dealers feeling the pinch — which means there's never been a better time to buy. Before 2020, it was unusual for a new car to sit on a lot for more than 200 days. Now we're seeing cars not move for 500, 600, and even 700 days — thanks to a combination of car supplies returning to pre-COVID levels and rising prices. As a dealer trainer for different brands and dealership groups, I've seen the problems excess inventory causes up close — and it's not pretty. Quite a change from just a few years ago, when many dealerships took advantage of the chip shortage (and the ensuing vehicle scarcity) to charge as much as $15,000 over sticker price. The tables have turned — and no automaker is exempt. Ford, Honda, Kia, Chevrolet, even Ferrari: You name the brand, and you'll find dealerships stuck with vehicles from 2022, 2023, and even 2024. With 2025 models arriving, this is a problem. As a dealer trainer for different brands and dealership groups, I've seen the problems excess inventory causes up close — and it's not pretty. Car dealers purchase vehicles on a floor plan, essentially a revolving line of credit. This can be interest-free for the first 60 to 90 days. Ideally, you sell within that period. If you don't, rates get pretty high, and it all adds up quickly when you're talking about inventory totaling hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. Dealers are highly motivated to get these mobile money pits off of their books. They'll offer incentives (or "spiffs") to the sales team to get them sold. And salespeople will offer potential buyers spiffs of $500 to $1,000. If that doesn't work, the dealership will often simply pay off the car to relieve the debt. Many times the dealer principals will drive an unsold car for a few years, then sell it at auction for a fraction of the price or even donate it to charity. Sometimes taking a loss is the smartest business decision — every so often. But 10 or 20 losses are a different story. Alternatively, the dealership could also use such a car as a demo vehicle or as a loaner car for the service department. Although with this option, rising insurance costs are still a burden. So what does all this mean for you? In short: big savings. Remember: Dealers are highly motivated to sell their inventory. Alway ask for the deal — loyalty or conquest discounts could mean between $500 to $2,500, depending on the cost of the vehicle. You can pay less than MSRP on even the most in-demand models, so look around. And don't be afraid to drive out of state to buy — it could mean saving thousands of dollars. And if you're not picky, look for cars in unpopular colors or trims or older model years. Or consider picking up a demo car or a service loaner. It's a buyers' market, so negotiate with confidence. And that includes dealer fees — they're not set in stone either.

If you've been encountering some problems during the Path of Exile 2 launch, you're not alone. The Diablo 4 and Last Epoch rival has been highly anticipated for some time, and now that it's finally here it unfortunately hasn't launched without issues. Between crashes, queues, and errors when claiming Steam keys, the ARPG's first day was anything but smooth. That appears to have eased off, though, so developer Grinding Gear Games has outlined the biggest obstacles it is now overcoming. Continue reading Path of Exile 2 dev details all the high-priority issues you need to be aware of MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Path of Exile 2 builds, Path of Exile 2 classes, Path of Exile 2 quests

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The Will of Landru