Not a MAGA Court
The Dispatch · RC · trust 35/100
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Advisory Opinions is a production of The Dispatch , a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch ’s offerings—including access to all of our articles, members-only newsletters, and bonus podcast episodes— click here . If you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member by clicking here .
Sarah Isgur is a senior editor at The Dispatch and is based in northern Virginia. Prior to joining the company in 2019, she had worked in every branch of the federal government and on three presidential campaigns. She’s also an ABC News contributor and the New York Times bestselling author of Last Branch Standing , a deep dive into the inner workings of the Supreme Court. When Sarah is not hosting podcasts or writing newsletters, she’s probably sending uplifting stories about spiders to Jonah, who only pretends to love all animals.
David French is a columnist for the New York Times. He’s a former senior editor of The Dispatch. He’s the author most recently of Divided We Fall: America's Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation.
The podcast transcription below was generated using artificial intelligence and may include occasional errors or misspellings.
Welcome to "Advisory Opinions." I'm not Sara Isgur. I'm David French, and I am sitting in the host chair once again, just, just for a week, only a week, so you don't have to wait too long for Sara to come back. But while I'm in the host chair, I have the best guest host once again coming back for the encore presentation, CNN's senior political analyst, Elie Honig. Now, Elie, fresh off of jury duty? Tell us about that.
Yeah. Okay, so this is-- I, I loved this experience. So, I've picked many juries, right? I was a prosecutor at the Southern District of New York. I was a prosecutor in total, federal and then state, 14 years. So I've picked many, many juries, and I've never really been on the other side. I get the notice like everyone else does, but it feels like the last several times, every time, you call the number the night before and they say, "We don't need you," and you go, "Great." This time they said, "We need you on Tuesday." Okay, so I go down. This is state-level jury service, Middlesex County, New Jersey. I go down to the courthouse in New Brunswick, which I've been in many times because when I was at the AG's office, we supervised all the county prosecutors. And so I, you know, I, I, it's my home base. There's 200, 250 people in the, the full pool. It's massive, it's packed, and they've obviously got jury trials galore. They're calling up a group of 30. They're calling up a group of 40, and nothing for me. And honestly, at a certain point, I started to feel a little rejected and a little left out. And so we go to the lunch break, and the day's dragging, and I'm thinking, "Eh, it's over. They're not gonna need me." And at 2:30 PM or so, they need another panel, and my name's on the list. So, I walk up to the courtroom, and it's a criminal case. There's two defendants, and the judge hands us the little, uh, the little questionnaire, and I realize it's a DCJ case, meaning the Division of Criminal Justice, which I used to run for five and a half years in New Jersey. It's sort of the equivalent of, you know, most federal cases are gonna be prosecuted by US attorneys in the field, but one out of 40 is gonna be by main justice, right? And we were the equivalent of main justice. This happens to be one of those cases. So, I'm looking at the witness list, and it's 10 or 15 detectives, most of whom I hired. And then I look over to the table, I actually don't know the prosecutors, but I hired and promoted their bosses. So, the judge is, is calling down the names, and he gets to me, and I go up and I say, "Your Honor, you know, look, I could definitely be fair. Like, I could absolutely be fair and impartial, but you should know I used to run the division..." And immediately this, this look of recognition comes over his face. "I used to run the Division of Criminal Justice. They're a party to this case. I know most of the witnesses on the list. I don't know these prosecutors, but I, I, I know their bosses." And the judge goes, "Oh, yeah, yeah. This, this won't work." And then he goes, "And I like you on TV also." [chuckles] I was like, "Okay, thank you. It's very nice." So, you know, look, there was no way they were gonna seat me. Someone was gonna strike me between... But I wanna say this. I would have absolutely been a fair and equitable juror. And even if, in my heart of hearts, I believed the defendants had done it, and they were charged with racketeering and carjacking and drugs and aggravated assault, not murder, but a lot of other serious crimes. Even if I thought at the end of the evidence, "Yeah, they did it. Like, I kinda know they did it. Obviously, they did it," but the prosecution had not carried its bur- its burden beyond a reasonable doubt, I would absolutely come back not guilty. And there is a misnomer. I think I, I said this to several other of my former prosecutor colleagues, and they all said the same thing. Like, it's sort of roughly akin to when one of my former colleagues at SDNY would become a federal judge. People…
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