darkwoodwitch

[darkwoodwitch]

I know this isn't gonna help anyone on the Luigi Mangione jury, but I feel like I see a lot of people throw around "Jury Nullification" without actually understanding the responsibility it entails.

Jury Nullification is NOT your explicit right. It is a legal gray area that rides on the back of your explicit rights. Specifically, a jury has the right to

Return any verdict it sees fit.

Not be punished for the verdict it selects.

Not have their verdict challenged or directed.

For these reasons, you (as a Juror) and the people (as a Jury) have the right to vote whichever way they see fit for whatever reason they may choose. That includes voting "Not Guilty" in a situation where the defendant has broken the law, but the circumstances or law, itself, require an alternative verdict.

However.

Just like you have the right to return whatever verdict you choose, a judge has the right to remove you from the jury if they feel you are being deceptive about your impartiality. The point of a trial is to be as neutral and impartial as possible. After all, a trial with biases is not a "fair" trial. Jurors who have prior knowledge and opinions about a case and its circumstances must be removed from the case and relieved of their jury duty. Jurors who intent to disregard the letters of the law in favor of opinion, morality, whatever, must also be relieved of their jury duty and replaced. Therefore, if you approach your fellow jurors and tell them about Jury Nullification and your plans to utilize it, someone may very well tell on you to the judge. It is then that judge's obligation to remove you from the jury and replace you with a more impartial juror (one that may not know about Jury Nullification). Therefore, if you openly support Jury Nullification in a court room, you can (and will) be removed from it.

So, even if it means hanging the jury with a non-unanimous vote, you cannot inform others about your intentions, and you cannot encourage others to utilize Jury Nullification, too. It sucks, but it's reality. Court rooms are very disapproving of Jury Nullification to the point that they have (wrongly) charged individuals with Contempt of Court for telling jurors about it. Lawyers are even forbidden from telling juries they can use this right, in the first place. That's how disliked this ability is. So one more time:

If you intend on actually utilizing Jury Nullification, you have to be completely silent about it. Period. You cannot inform your fellow jurors about it, and you cannot inform anybody in the court room about your plans to utilize it. That is it. That is how things work, and you have to tread lightly and carefully.

[darkwoodwitch]

You know what? It’s fucking hard trying to get better. It’s exhausting managing doctors appointments, doing daily PT exercises, eating better, trying to exercise, trying to meditate, and doing ADL’s. I have had a bad crash per week trying to juggle and do all of the above.

It’s easier and less acutely painful to just coast and not actively work on ‘getting better’. Is the work worth it? I don’t know yet.

But to people who’ve tried and given up, to those who don’t even bother - you still deserve care and compassion.

[darkwoodwitch]

Hey so fun new scam just dropped! I got a call earlier today from someone spoofing the local police department's desk number, asking me if there was a reason I'd missed my jury summons this morning.

Friends, I had not received a jury summons for this month. Which I told him, at which point his previously clear diction suddenly turned into a rapid mumble, only becoming clear for scary words like 'federal' and then asking to confirm my address, at which point I hung up and decided to call the police department later.

When I called the police department the desk officer sounded so tired y'all. All I had to say was "Hey I got a call earlier saying I missed jury duty this morning?" and she immediately sighed and told me that yes it was a scam that was going around and thanked me for calling to confirm.

So this is your periodic reminder that law enforcement agencies will not call you to tell you that you're in trouble. If you need to pay a fine of some sort they will mail you a physical invoice. Anyone calling you saying they're from the police or any other law enforcement organization (up to the CIA and yes I have heard of scammers attempting to impersonate CIA agents over the phone) who then tries to get financial information from you over the phone is a scammer.

I know I actually bang on about this a weird amount, but it is my fervent hope that the information will stick in peoples' brains if they get randomly selected for the adrenaline spike lottery. Scammers use scary words to get you to panic in order to shut down your critical thinking, and if even one person's brain spits out "Tumblr user waterhobbit said the cops/CIA/federal marshalls don't call about this shit" before their bank account routing number is in the hands of assholes I will consider it a job well done.

[darkwoodwitch]

This is Andrey X, a Jewish Israeli pro-Palestine activist.

I don't know how to describe this video so I'll just write out what he's saying:

That is the beginning of an Israeli settlement. And this is the Palestinian village of Umm al-Hiran. Which is right now under a demolition order, in order to expand the settlement that way.

And we are not in the West Bank. We are in the Naqab desert. Every single Palestinian in that village has an Israeli passport. And yet they're being expelled to make way for a Jewish settlement.

And look at the hills around us. This place is empty. If Israel wants to build a settlement, they can do it anywhere. And yet they choose to do it here. Because the only purpose of that settlement is to expel Palestinians from their land.

This is happen all over the Naqab desert. Currently 14 Palestinian Bedouin communities are under demolition orders. And thousands of people are set to become homeless.

This is the most blatant illustration that Israel is an ethno-nationalist apartheid state. The Palestinians of Umm al-Hiran have the exact same citizenship as the settlers who are about to move into their land. And yet the Palestinians are being ethnically cleansed just because they belong to an ethno-cultural group that the Israeli state wants to suppress as much as possible.

[darkwoodwitch]

(Description in alt)

FUCK YES TEAMSTERS!

This is as of December 19, 2024.

Link to post

[darkwoodwitch]

Urgent appeal for help for my family in repairing the tent to face the winter and the harsh rains and to obtain their food.

$ 10,513 / $ 12,050 ( Deadline 15 Dec ).

3 days left .

Gofundme

Ko-Fi ( we have 27,78 $)

✅ vetted by @dlxxv-vetted-donations link

✅ vetted by @90-ghost link

[darkwoodwitch]

Years before the covid pandemic began, author Naomi Kritzer wrote the charming, emotionally genuine short story "So Much Cooking," which was a pandemic log through the eyes of a cooking blog. The premise is that the author is a home cooking blogger raising her kids, and then a pandemic hits--and bit by bit she's feeding not only her own, but her sister's kids, some neighbors' kids, and so on, in a situation of pandemic lockdown and food shortages.

It's very good, and was prescient for a lot of the early days of the covid pandemic. I found myself returning to it often in the first couple of years because of how steadfast it was in its hopefulness.

Last year she wrote a novelette, "The Year Without Sunshine," which attacks a similar problem in a similar way; instead of pandemic, this one is about the aftereffects of a distant nuke or a massive volcano explosion (it doesn't say), which has churned a great deal of dust into the air, causing massive damage to society and agriculture. The story covers one neighborhood, pulling together to keep each other alive--not through violence, but through lawn potatoes and message pinboards and bicycle-powered oxygen concentrators.

I recommend both stories. They're uplifting in a way that a lot of what I see lately isn't. They're a bit of a panacea for constant fearmongering about intracommunity violence and grinding hatefulness. We can be good to each other, if we try.

[darkwoodwitch]

Redditors crashed the website with donations over $25k and 0 wishes left. via /r/MadeMeSmile

Click here and follow to get more daily positivity on your dash!

[darkwoodwitch]

Since the holiday toy drive post is circulating again, I figured this would also be helpful! Food insecurity is such a massive problem in America, in general, and if you have the means to help feed others, I think you should take that opportunity. Here are some other tips:

1. If you’re planning on donating items from your own pantry, please check the expiration dates on the packaging. Think of your donations as gifts to bestow, not castoffs to be rid of. It’s awful to think of people feeling like they got scraps someone else just didn’t want. Everyone deserves dignity with their meals.

2. If you’d rather give money to a food bank, that’s also great since they buy food in bulk and know what items are most wanted/needed!

3. Not everyone has access to appliances like stoves or microwaves or hot plates so if you can donate items that don’t need to be heated up, that would also be greatly appreciated!

🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽

[darkwoodwitch]

This ABSOLUTELY works.

I have used this for many years. Definitely b do it.

[darkwoodwitch]

today you, tomorrow me.

[darkwoodwitch]

Was talking to a 70 year old security guard at my university yesterday and I liked what he had to say to me and a couple of the younger freshmen chatting him up. I think you should hear it. I’ll paraphrase him (cutting out my half of the conversation);

“For people like us [POC] it’s always been a fight against the latest dude. Reagan and bush and Obama and trump. You know what they did when we started scaring them? They bombed American soil because they were about to piss themselves at black power. You know I can’t say out loud I was a part of that but that’s what you kids gotta do. Stay calm and build that black power, that neighbor power, that low class power against the latest dude, and when they bomb this neighborhood again that’s when you can panic, but you’ve gotta fight til then. The president was never on our side. Neither one.”

[darkwoodwitch]

20 million votes have been uncounted

Link to this Tweet here

Link to the tweet here for the image above

Link to the White house

If you need further help in a quick format, here is one, but i urge you to also add in the details for requiring an investigation, not just recount.

I know its a shitty situation and were tired but we still have to try to fight for a life that's worth living.

If you can blaze this post, GO FOR IT!!!

[darkwoodwitch]

take my hand for a moment

your objective from this point on is to survive

the election results are going to take a few days. The world is going to be very tense. I want you to take all the things you like to do to distract yourself and splurge on them. I want you to go eat your favroite foods and spend time with friends. I want you to do what you gotta do to make sure you can make it through the week.

There are people out there who want you to survive. There are people out there who are just as scared as you are.

We'll get through this. We will find a way

[darkwoodwitch]

Stockpile HRT now.

[darkwoodwitch]

This is going to fucking suck but I will not do my enemies’ work for them. I will not just roll over and fucking die.

[darkwoodwitch]

Please, spread this for those who might need it right now

U.S. suicide hotline: call or text 988 (available 24 hours)

U.S. trans lifeline: (877) 565-8860 (when you call, you’ll speak to a trans/nonbinary peer operator. full anonymity and confidentiality)

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helpline: 1-800-662-HELP (4357) – provides 24/7 confidential support and referrals for individuals and families facing mental health and substance use disorders, including panic attacks and anxiety.

LGBT National Help Center: (888) 843-4564

Trevor Project: Call (866) 488-7386, text START to 678-678, or chat online.

Take care of yourself and each other. Please stay safe ♡