There are other courthouses in other places. They’re not in Washington. They’re the repair shops of the law. They hammer out the dents that result from the collisions of ordinary people living ordinary lives. And they’re where the law comes closest to Atticus Finch’s optimism. They’re where the leveling happens. —Something I Wrote Once

Long ago, I learned a valuable lesson about verdicts in criminal cases. The lesson conforms to the late William Goldman’s classic assessment of Hollywood: Nobody Knows Anything. This is especially true in that tremulous time between when the case goes to the jury and when the jury comes back with a verdict. Once, while covering a political-corruption case at The Boston Phoenix, we killed that time in the best possible way. Somebody got up a poker game in the press room. (Heavens to Hildy Johnson!) At one point, a court officer poked his head in to remind us that gambling in a federal courthouse was, you know, non-legal. “Yeah, right,” we replied. “I’ll raise you a quarter.”

The chatter over the nickels and dimes was all about what the extended deliberations “meant.” This is the oldest sucker’s bet in journalism. Nobody can tell what twelve individual minds can divine from the evidence presented, let alone how they can come to agree unanimously on what that evidence proves one way or another. Nobody knows anything, and only a fool would bet on it. (Brief Historical Note: The jury in that trial came back quickly, and the defendant was acquitted. I came away half a buck ahead.)

When the jury—and, therefore, the System—brought down the ten-pound hammer on the former president* Thursday afternoon, it also shattered much of the instant, freeze-dried speculation. There was no acquittal. There was no hung jury. There was no “mixed verdict.” There were thirty-four felony counts and there were thirty-four guilty verdicts, and it took the jury less than a day to bring that gravid judgment back. I would never call their job easy. There were death threats in the air throughout the trial. There were thick clouds of squid ink billowing from the defense table. And the defendant was formerly the president* of the United States. But when the jury left the courtroom and went in back to deliberate, all extraneous ballyhoo evidently fell away and all the crooked places were made straight. Left alone with the evidence and their own common sense, the members of the jury brought strength and clarity to the proceedings, to themselves, and, one hopes fervently, to the country as well.

The Executive was crooked. The national legislature was inert. And the independent judiciary, at its most common level, stepped up and did its job. This is how that whole “separation of powers” thing was designed to work. Now we can only hope that a good New York jury and a brave New York judge have shamed the Supreme Court into tossing the spurious “executive immunity” claim onto the ash heap where it belongs and that, down in Florida, Judge Aileen (Slow Loris) Cannon will take a lesson from Juan Merchan on what being a judge is supposed to be about.

Donald Trump is a convicted felon. Stormy Daniels is an American hero. And a little porn star shall lead them.

Case closed, motherf*ckers.

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