Ira Glass

The judge doesn't like the jury panel.

And I'm like, why?

And he's like, because they hate ICE.

and that the shirt is the MacGuffin in order to restart this whole thing and get a new jury pool to choose from.

I mean, that is pure speculation.

That is not what the judge said.

That's not the stated reason for calling a mistrial.

And later, that defense lawyer pulled it back.

He was like, I really don't know.

But it was a significant thing, how many people were against ICE over and over, and people saying they wouldn't be able to put their feelings aside over and over.

18 to 20.

I know we're talking about a jury pool of 70 plus people, but the way the process works, the prosecution would not necessarily be able to block all the jurors who hated ICE if that's what they wanted to do just because of the rules of the game.

Yeah, that's not a weird goal at all.

It's potential bias, their feelings about ICE.

It's not strange the judge would want that at all.

But it is strange to call a mistrial.

And...

There is a clue that something else was going on with this judge, which was at the end of this strange day in court, he calls the jury back in and he gives this little speech and it kind of comes out of nowhere.

He talks again about how much jury service matters and this should be a place where you can set your personal politics aside.

And then he says, Wait, what?