Exploring Trollope Country: A Progress Report

Just peeking my head up to say, I'm still writing, and have invested in a copy of Michael Sadleir's indispensable Trollope: A Commentary (my old one went missing in a move ten years ago) to help me keep straight who's who, who lives where, and who's Ralph the Heir, anyway?

The manuscript is now just about as long as Michael Cunningham's "The Hours" and is nearing the break part between Part I and Part II. I'm writing that just because I am in something of a state of shock at how it's flowing. No doubt much painful editing and pruning to follow, and much rewriting, and I need to see if I even have something worth a reader's time...but the pleasure in breathing life into a fictional world and its denizens, yes, it's extraordinary.

It doesn't hurt that in playing in Mr. Trollope's sandbox, I am dealing with the work of the writer who is, simply, to my mind the gold standard of character-building. To quote Nathaniel Hawthorne's estimation of Trollope:

It is odd enough that my own individual taste is for quite another class of works than those which I myself am able to write. If I were to meet with such books as mine by another writer, I don't believe I should be able to get through them. Have you ever read the novels of Anthony Trollope? They precisely suit my taste,—solid and substantial, written on the strength of beef and through the inspiration of ale, and just as real as if some giant had hewn a great lump out of the earth and put it under a glass case, with all its inhabitants going about their daily business, and not suspecting that they were being made a show of.

Trollope quotes this estimate in his Autobiography, and comments that "the criticism, whether just or unjust, describes with wonderful accuracy the purport that I have ever had in view in my writing. I have always desired 'to hew out some lump of the earth' and to make men and women walk upon it just as they do walk here among us." (Autobiography, 145).

So, to the extent that writing a sequel to a long-dead author's work is stealing (We-ell, P.D. James might beg to differ), I am stealing from the very best.

Proprietary Angst

This interview reflects a stunningly proprietary attitude toward Jesus:



As Aslan's publisher summarizes his thesis:

Two thousand years ago, an itinerant Jewish preacher and miracle worker walked across the Galilee, gathering followers to establish what he called the “Kingdom of God.” The revolutionary movement he launched was so threatening to the established order that he was captured, tortured, and executed as a state criminal.

Within decades after his shameful death, his followers would call him God.

Sifting through centuries of mythmaking, Reza Aslan sheds new light on one of history’s most influential and enigmatic characters by examining Jesus through the lens of the tumultuous era in which he lived: first-century Palestine, an age awash in apocalyptic fervor. Scores of Jewish prophets, preachers, and would-be messiahs wandered through the Holy Land, bearing messages from God. This was the age of zealotry—a fervent nationalism that made resistance to the Roman occupation a sacred duty incumbent on all Jews. And few figures better exemplified this principle than the charismatic Galilean who defied both the imperial authorities and their allies in the Jewish religious hierarchy.

Balancing the Jesus of the Gospels against the historical sources, Aslan describes a man full of conviction and passion, yet rife with contradiction; a man of peace who exhorted his followers to arm themselves with swords; an exorcist and faith healer who urged his disciples to keep his identity a secret; and ultimately the seditious “King of the Jews” whose promise of liberation from Rome went unfulfilled in his brief lifetime. Aslan explores the reasons why the early Christian church preferred to promulgate an image of Jesus as a peaceful spiritual teacher rather than a politically conscious revolutionary. And he grapples with the riddle of how Jesus understood himself, the mystery that is at the heart of all subsequent claims about his divinity.

Zealot yields a fresh perspective on one of the greatest stories ever told even as it affirms the radical and transformative nature of Jesus of Nazareth’s life and mission. The result is a thought-provoking, elegantly written biography with the pulse of a fast-paced novel: a singularly brilliant portrait of a man, a time, and the birth of a religion.

This is not particularly radical stuff; some of this traces back to Robert Graves's King Jesus and, absent the hint of armed rebellion, has been developed by John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg. I don't say this to detract from Aslan's scholarship and originality; I haven't read his book, and I'm only looking at the précis. (I will read it, though, because it sounds quite interesting.) Rather, I think that Aslan's claim that he is well within the scholarly mainstream (or, at any rate, within one camp thereof) is entirely correct from what little I've read.

(Now, I'm in a funny position defending Aslan's vision of the life of Jesus,as I would be in defending Borg's or Crossan's--or, for that matter, Bernard Shaw's--because, while I think there is much truth in it, it misses the whole truth. You either accept, for whatever reason, the Gospel's theological historical claims or you do not. For reasons that I will spare you at present--a large part summarized best for me by Charles Gore, with the caveat that the exact nature of certain of the acts of Jesus recorded may be lost to time, but their effect, the emotional and spiritual effect they had, are not, and represent as close as we can get--I do.)

But because he is a Muslim, his work is, the Fox interviewer suggests, inherently suspect, in a way that Borg's or Crossan's is not? That is simply appalling. I wonder if a Christian scholar writing about Islam would face such suspicion, or one writing about Judaism.

And if the answer is no, then the question must surely be, why then should Aslan?

The bigotry and ignorance undermining the interview is, to quote Emily Nussbaum (uh-oh! Is she qualified to have an opinion?), "absolutely demented."

Christians should be thrilled that non-Christians want to learn more about Jesus, and study the import of his life; an "Amen chorus" preaching only to the converted is the first sign of a dead movement.

The Appearance of Impropriety

I have to say, Clarence Tomas's wife's political activism has long presented, and continues to present, a significant problem for any notion that her husband is even interested in complying with judicial ethics:

In late 2009, Thomas founded the political advocacy group Liberty Central, which would later become a fierce player in the opposition to health care form. Detractors pointed out that Liberty Central was a potential vehicle for people with interests before the Supreme Court to make anonymous donations that might influence her husband.

The group was formed with a $500,000 anonymous donation that came as the Supreme Court was considering Citizens United, a case that ultimately resulted in loosening the restrictions on corporate giving to political campaigns. The anonymous donor was later revealed to be Harlan Crow, the Texas real estate developer. Crow was also a friend of Clarence Thomas', and he was later linked to a scandal involving the justice's failure to publicly disclose gifts from the developer and trips aboard his private jet. (It didn't help that Justice Thomas had also failed to include his wife's $150,000 annual salary from Liberty Central on his financial disclosure forms, which he later had to amend.)

****

The recent revelations about Thomas' role in Groundswell will no doubt resurrect the debate over whether her advocacy causes conflicts for her husband. Gun safety, immigration, voting rights and voter ID, environmental concerns—all of these issues have been covered by Groundswell, and all of them are subjects that regularly come before the Supreme Court.

Justice Thomas will almost certainly deal with any conflicts arising out of his wife's role in Groundswell the way he did in relation to those arising out of Liberty Central: ignore them, and then vote on cases on which she was paid to advocate.

Suddenly Abe Fortas is looking better, hmm?

"I Have a Cunning Plan..."

Let's be charitable and hope that this falls into the "swing and a miss" category.

The Archbishop of Canterbury announced to the press that it is targeting payday lenders:

he archbishop of Canterbury has told Wonga that the Church of England wants to "compete" it out of existence as part of its plans to expand credit unions as an alternative to payday lenders.

The Most Rev Justin Welby said he had delivered the message to Errol Damelin, the chief executive of Britain's best-known payday lender, during a "very good conversation".

"I said to him quite bluntly 'we're not in the business of trying to legislate you out of existence, we're trying to compete you out of existence'," he told Total Politics magazine.

****

In June, Wonga raised the standard interest rate it quotes on its website to 5,853% APR, leading to renewed calls from poverty campaigners for a cap on the cost of short-term credit.

Someone borrowing £200 for a month from Wonga will typically pay back £270.

Welby, who has served on the parliamentary Banking Standards Commission, said he wanted to create "credit unions that are both engaged in their communities and are much more professional – and people have got to know about them."

Huh. Sounds like a plan, right? I mean, non-coercive, just opening a campaign on the social justice front, and making a better way available--it's a conservative response, but one which (unlike anything the American GOP has suggested in opposing the President's agenda, for example) has the virtues of (1) acknowledging the problem; and (2) proposing a solution.

Or perhaps not. As Felix Salmon notes:

Welby didn’t really announce anything, there is no real plan in place for anybody to compete with the payday lenders, and in fact, if you read what he says carefully, it’s good news, not bad news, for those he is criticizing. According to Welby, when he met the head of Wonga, the biggest payday lender in Britain, the bishop said to the businessman that “we’re not in the business of trying to legislate you out of existence, we’re trying to compete you out of existence”. Which must have been music to Wonga’s ears — since competition from the Church is the last thing Wonga is worried about. The big risks, for Wonga, are legislative.

The fact is that Welby’s plan “to fight capitalism with capitalism”, in McDermott’s words, is doomed to fail. I’m a big fan of credit unions and of non-evil alternatives to payday loans, but the only way to beat Wonga, and the payday lenders more generally, is to make their actions illegal. You could set up a credit union at every church in the country, offering vastly better deals than anything available from Wonga, and Wonga wouldn’t bat an eyelid — because the first thing you learn, when you study payday lenders, is that they don’t compete on price.

Payday lenders do compete with each other, quite aggressively, but they do so on convenience first, and friendliness second. If you want to be successful in payday lending, you have to be convenient above all; that means having welcoming storefronts which are open very late and at weekends, and it also means — in the case of Wonga — being incredibly easy to use from any smartphone. The way that the competition works is that they start with someone who needs cash; the company which can get that person the cash in the quickest and easiest manner will be the winner.

Moreover, as the Guardian has reported, the Archbishop's free market competition idea could take the wind out of the sails of a real effort at regulation:

The Office of Fair Trading has referred the payday loans market to the Competition Commission, saying there are deep-rooted problems with the way competition works and that lenders are too focused on offering quick loans.

The regulator said variable levels of compliance with credit laws and guidance meant firms that invest time and effort to comply were at a competitive disadvantage.

The referral follows a year-long review of the sector which exposed widespread evidence of irresponsible lending and breaches of the law, which the OFT said were causing "misery and hardship for many borrowers".

Although lenders say their high-cost loans are designed to be taken out over short periods and that annual interest rates of often more than 4,000% are not a fair indication of the cost, the regulator found companies were making up to 50% of their money from customers who extended or rolled over loans or incurred late payment charges.

***

The OFT's chief executive, Clive Maxwell, said: "Competition appears not to be working properly in the payday lending market, allowing firms to profit from making loans that cannot be paid back on time. We have seen evidence of financial loss and personal distress to many people.

"The Competition Commission can now conduct a detailed investigation to get to the root causes and, if necessary, use its far reaching powers to fix the payday lending market."

The fact that the Church of England "holds a more than £1m investment in one of the main financial backers of Wonga" might encourage a cynic to conclude that the Archbishop's plan is more cunning than it seems--that it is designed to protect the Church's stake for the "decade long" period Welby said the credit union option would take to set up and really compete with Wonga, but I don't want to presume bad faith here; the Archbishop has disclaimed knowledge, and he has been in place so short a time that he quite reasonably could not know. That said, as I pointed out over three years ago, the Church of England has previously invested in "predatory equity," and really should get to work on formulating and following an ethical investment policy.

And, as Salmon points out:

Welby is in fact a legislator: he sits and votes in the UK parliament, where he has an important voice. If he’s decided that he doesn’t want to legislate payday lenders out of existence, then he has basically decided that he’s OK with them continuing to gouge the very Britons who can least afford such things. Because there is no way he’s ever going to be able to effectively compete with them.

Let's hope that the Archbishop rethinks this cunning plan, and comes up with something more pragmatic.

"Frankenstein Never Scared Me. Marsupials Do."

I've been in Washington DC for the past six days, at a conference, hence the absence of posts. While I was here, I had a great opportunity to rekindle old friendships--two of my favorite people form my high school years were in the City (one's a resident) and we got a chance to catch up a bit. In particular, my friend who lives in DC really laid himself out for la Caterina and myself; he took us around the City, ferried us to destinations unknown to the non-resident (you can get first rate sushi in DC!), and was able to make time to hang out.

My other friend was more busy--he was hosting a large, complex conference, and when I was unavailable the night we had dinner planned, generously invited us to attend a festive reception, where his band played--and did a fantastic job. My old friend sang lead vocals on several Springsteen songs, and, as they say, killed it.

Later in the week, my friend who lives in the city and I had a great, long rambling conversation, during which we talked about (among many other subjects) acting and our own youthful theater days. My friend slipped into an epic Christopher Walken impression at one point, which led him to refer me to this classic.

I also learned more about the death of one of our friends back in 1996, a talented actor who had been among those most welcoming to me when I joined the school drama group. May he rest in peace; we are poorer for his loss.

Finally, in addition to all this, I have been obsessively working away at my current writing project. I have no idea if it's of publishable quality, but I'm having fun with it. By which I mean, I can't stop working on the bloody thing. So let's hope it is of publishable quality, hmmm?

It's a novel, and when I first tried my hand at fiction back in the late 80s-early 90s, I was able to come up with characters readily enough, but all my projects dried up after 10 or 15 pages. I could write a short story or two, but lacked the vision, the depth of imagination to sustain the thing for more than that. My imagination was not thickly forested enough to bring an extended narrative to life. So when the idea for a novel occurred to me about six years ago, I wrote a few chapters (three to be precise), which la Caterina read and really liked, and then I promptly dried up. Then, back in April, I announced I would have another go at it, and slowly got under way again.

This time, I have not had the drying up problem that debarred me from trying to write fiction all those years ago. I didn't even write an outline until I had first drafted Chapter Twelve, and that was really just to work out how to get to the halfway point, where I want to break between Part One and Part Two. One concern I had was making the parts appropriately long for a Victorian novel (if you didn't follow the link, it's a historical political novel in the Trollopian manner) without making unsustainable demands on the reader. So I looked into word length, and have been using this helpful ready reckoner. As of a couple weeks ago, I had passed Animal Farm and then yesterday Viola Canales' The Tequila Worm,and was closing in on Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and The Crying of Lot 49. Well, we'll see how long the flood continues--but I certainly hope it does.

Because the big, seemingly daunting Frankenstein of finding a story to tell doesn't scare me; the fast, darting marsupial of getting it all to gel on the page does.

O Tempora! O Mores!

If you are, as I am, a lawyer of a certain vintage, this scene is one you will remember:



Teh point of it, of course, is that while Hart thinks he's being a free spirit, Kingsfield thinks he's violating the contract between them and all the members of the class--to engage together in study and discussion, as orchestrated by Kingsfield. (I think it's fair to say that, while the novel and the film, to a lesser extent, side with Hart, the subsequent series draws ever nearer to Kingsfield's viewpoint.)

Which brings me to this rather extraordinary little story:

J.K. Rowling's initial regret at the revelation of her secret identity as a critically acclaimed debut crime novelist has now turned into anger. It was her lawyers whodunnit.

Just days after she was outed as Robert Galbraith, author of the Cuckoo's Calling, the author revealed that a partner at Russells law firm was the cause of the disclosure by telling his wife's best friend who Galbraith really was.

The novel, billed as the first of a series of mysteries to be unravelled by private investigator Cormoran Strike, was published in April but the nom-de-plume of the bestselling author of the Harry Potter books and the adult novel The Casual Vacancy only emerged after the The Sunday Times followed up a message posted on Twitter by a user called JudeCallegari.

Rowling, who initially spoke of the "liberating experience" of adopting an alias, said in a statement: "I have today discovered how the leak about Robert's true identity occurred. A tiny number of people knew my pseudonym and it has not been pleasant to wonder for days how a woman whom I had never heard of prior to Sunday night could have found out something that many of my oldest friends did not know.

"To say that I am disappointed is an understatement. I had assumed that I could expect total confidentiality from Russells, a reputable professional firm, and I feel very angry that my trust turned out to be misplaced."

Russells told Rowling's agent when the truth emerged. The company said in a statement: "We, Russells Solicitors, apologise unreservedly for the disclosure caused by one of our partners, Chris Gossage, in revealing to his wife's best friend, Judith Callegari, during a private conversation that the true identity of Robert Galbraith was in fact JK Rowling.

"Whilst accepting his own culpability, the disclosure was made in confidence to someone he trusted implicitly. On becoming aware of the circumstances, we immediately notified JK Rowling's agent. We can confirm that this leak was not part of any marketing plan and that neither JK Rowling, her agent nor publishers were in any way involved."

(My italics.)

Seriously? Her lawyers breach confidentiality and then have the face to blame the person whom one of them told--a person who herself has no duty of confidentiality--for the resultant exposure?

Speaking as a lawyer, that is, quite simply, breathtaking in its abject lack of professionalism.

Kingsfield would have let him just walk out.

The Verdict and the Law

This is a post that I have no desire to write. But the reaction to the acquittal of George Zimmerman for shooting Trayvon Martin is, to my mind, completely understandable, and I confess to a good deal of frustration about the response to it by some of my fellow lawyers, whose reactions seem at best blinkered and disconnected. The breaking point for me was this exchange involving Jonathan Turley, whom I usually admire:

JUDY WOODRUFF: Let me try to broaden this out.

Jelani Cobb, does this verdict speak in any way to the ability of minorities in this country to get a fair trial?

JELANI COBB: Well, I think this verdict doesn't tell us anything about race and the justice system that we didn't already know.

And what's disturbing about this is, you know, regarding Professor Swain's previous comment, is we have said that the amount of crime in African-American communities somehow or another works against someone, that's endorsing the very logic of racism.

Like, no amount of white crime would allow us to simply make a blanket prima facie assumption that a white person is a criminal.

And so each individual is supposed to be regarded on their own merits. I thought that is what was key to the Constitution and its guarantee of individual rights.

And so in endorsing this kind of profiling, this kind of blanket profiling, the only thing that we will be guaranteed of is more incidents like Trayvon Martin's tragic death in the future.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Jonathan Turley, you're shaking your head here.

JONATHAN TURLEY: No. Where I disagree is, is that once again, we seem to be detached from what the evidence was.

This jury at the end of this process knew nothing more of what happened at that fateful night than at the beginning of the trial. There were no witnesses to tip the balance. Essentially, the situation was in equipoise. You had two narratives that had support from different witnesses.

The jury is not there to make a guess and it's certainly not there to make social judgment calls. They didn't have enough to convict. And I know people are frustrated by that. But the system worked. This was a fair trial.

JELANI COBB: May I please respond?

JUDY WOODRUFF: Yes, go ahead.

JELANI COBB: Well, so this wasn't a situation of equipoise, because the fact of the matter is, whatever the conflict was, it was precipitated by Mr. Zimmerman.

The police -- the dispatcher told him not to get out of his vehicle. He proceeded to get out of his vehicle. This is a person who followed someone by car and on foot. And if there was a conflict, if there had been a physical conflict that evolved out of that, it would have been because Mr. Martin felt threatened, which is a justifiable, reasonable presumption.

If anyone is walking down a dark street at night in the rain and someone has followed them in a car and on foot, you might presume that you are actually at risk.

And so if Trayvon Martin struck him first, if Trayvon Martin struck him numerous times, this would be the action of somebody who reasonably feared for his life.

JUDY WOODRUFF: We're going to let Jonathan Turley respond. And then I have a final question for all of you.

JONATHAN TURLEY: Sure. Mr. Cobb, where I disagree with you -- and we can't say that the jury believed Zimmerman or even liked Zimmerman in this decision. They simply didn't have enough to convict Zimmerman.

But the actions you described were legal. He's allowed to get out of his car. He's allowed to follow someone. He's even allowed to be armed.

And I think that people are investing so much in the case that they don't recognize that these were lawful acts, and you have to presume things in this case that a jury's not supposed to presume when there's a presumption of innocence.

(My italics)

This is the kind of abstract logic-chopping nonsense that gives our profession a bad name. The notion that because a series of acts is, when broken out of context and viewed discretely, each individually lawful, the sum of the actions taken together is not sufficient to instill fear of bodily harm in the prey would create a stalker and an abuser's charter. Think about it: it's a dark, rainy night, in a desolate location. An adult in a car follows a kid in the dark. The kid tries to avoid him. The adult gets out of the car and continues the pursuit. Even if Trayvon Martin didn't know Zimmerman was armed, he had every right to fear for his life.

If that's your son, your nephew, your godson--anybody you actually care about, as opposed to an abstraction in a law school exam--do you really believe that kid doesn't have any reason to fear for his safety? Because that's the conversation between Cobb and Turley--Cobb is saying that Trayvon Martin had a right to self-defense, and that the aggressor, Zimmerman, put him in fear of serious bodily injury or death. Turley is responding that Martin's fear doesn't count until Zimmerman performs an independently unlawful act.

Turley's willingness to decontextualize the events leading up to Martin's death is important because, looked at in context, with Zimmerman as the aggressor, as I believe is the proper analysis, the correctness of the verdict even under the self-defense-on-steroids provided by Florida law is far less clear. Under Florida's self-defense statute self-defense is limited in the case of an aggressor, who must show:

The justification described in the preceding sections of this chapter is not available to a person who:
(1) Is attempting to commit, committing, or escaping after the commission of, a forcible felony; or
(2) Initially provokes the use of force against himself or herself, unless:
(a) Such force is so great that the person reasonably believes that he or she is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and that he or she has exhausted every reasonable means to escape such danger other than the use of force which is likely to cause death or great bodily harm to the assailant; or
(b) In good faith, the person withdraws from physical contact with the assailant and indicates clearly to the assailant that he or she desires to withdraw and terminate the use of force, but the assailant continues or resumes the use of force.

(My emphasis.) Now, Zimmerman did not identify himself as a Neighborhood Watch volunteer, or take any steps to dispel Martin's entirely legitimate fear for his life. Nor do I find his self-serving statement that he was headed back to the car credible in light of his fired-up,"these assholes always get away" conversation with the dispatcher, whose instruction to not get out of the car and follow he had just minutes ago disobeyed. I find that so incredible--Zimmerman charges out of the car, ignoring instructions, cursing that this "fucking punk" (Zimmerman's words) is going to get away, and then immediately decides to turn back to the car.

The jury appears to have joined Turley in decontextualizing--and also in giving the defense the benefit of a "Stand Your Ground" defense that the defense did not in fact raise, if this interview with a juror is to be believed:

COOPER: Did you feel like you understood the instructions from the judge? Because they were very complex. I mean, reading them, they were tough to follow.
JUROR: Right. That was our problem. It was just so confusing what went with what and what we could apply to what. Because I mean, there was a couple of them in there that wanted to find him guilty of something. And after hours and hours and hours of deliberating over the law and reading did over and over and over again, we decided there’s just no way — no other place to go.
COOPER: Because of the two options you had, second degree murder or manslaughter, you felt neither applied?
JUROR: Right. Because of the heat of the moment and the Stand Your Ground. He had a right to defend himself. If he felt threatened that his life was going to be taken away from him or he was going to have bodily harm, he had a right.
COOPER: Even though he got out of the car, followed Trayvon Martin that didn’t matter in the deliberations. What mattered was the final seconds, minutes when there was an altercation and whether or not in your mind the most important thing was whether or not George Zimmerman felt his life was in danger?
JUROR: That’s how we read the law. That’s how we got to the point of everybody being not guilty.

But even if you believe that the unsworn statement of Zimmerman and the other evidentiary issues are enough to eke out reasonable doubt and justify an acquittal--well, fair enough, but that doesn't make this case a ringing endorsement of the notion the the rule of law always leads to justice. Earlier in the NewsHour conversation with Turley and Cobb, the other two panelists had a telling discussion:

CHRISTINA SWARNS: You know, with -- I obviously agree. Young black men shouldn't be getting killed across this country.

But what happened in Florida to Trayvon Martin was that Mr. Zimmerman looked at him walking down the street with a bag of Skittles and a bottle of iced tea and determined that based on factors that he could see this young man was a criminal.

He warranted a call to the police, he warranted being followed, he warranted being followed -- Mr. Zimmerman getting out of his car and following him down the street on foot, notwithstanding the fact that the police department told him not to get out of the car, and notwithstanding the fact that everyone agrees that this young man was doing absolutely nothing wrong.

There was nothing criminal about what he was doing. There was nothing apparently criminal about what he was doing. The only thing ...

CHRISTINA SWARNS: ... about him was that he was black.

CAROL SWAIN: We know from other evidence that the school had apprehended him and found jewelry.

CHRISTINA SWARNS: Mr. Zimmerman knew none of that. Mr. Zimmerman didn't know a single thing about that. All he knew at that moment was that Mr. -- he didn't know anything about this child. This was a teenager walking down the street.

Again, the Zimmerman defender here is eager to impute to Zimmerman knowledge of some ground for suspicion that Zimmerman could not possibly have had, and that nobody claims he had. Somehow the fact that Trayvon Martin was not a perfect teen retroactively justifies his being profiled by Zimmerman--who just presumed from Martin's youth color and clothing that he was a criminal.

Turley is right to stress that the trial was a fair one, and comported with due process. Where he is terribly wrong, in my opinion, is to presume that a fair trial is not just a necessary but a sufficient guarantee of justice. This case in no way stands for that principle; quite the obverse, rather: that our justice system is profoundly flawed, and that human judgment is a very dicey business indeed.