Truth is the Foundation of the Rule of Law

By Thomas Coffin

I spent 51 years of my life in a career of service within our nation’s justice system, 21 of those as a federal prosecutor divided between the Southern District of California and the District of Oregon. During that time, I tried hundreds of cases before jurors involving a full gamut of crimes which violated federal laws, including murder, rape, fraud, bank robbery, bribery, drug trafficking, and a host of other felony offenses. The rest of my career was in the position of a judicial officer. I cite this experience as part of my resume to counter the egregious misinformation and scurrilous attacks that have been directed by Donald Trump and some of his followers after his recent conviction in a New York felony case by a jury that weighed the evidence introduced during his trial.

Let me start by observing that jurors are performing a service to the nation and its democracy quite similar to those serving in our military. I will put it this way—without them we are in danger of losing our freedoms, cherished rights, and our very existence as a nation governed by the rule of law which is the foundation of all that we deem sacred in our social compact with those charged with the duty to treat all of us equally and justly regardless of wealth, race, gender, or status.

Alexis de Tocqueville, the French political science commentator who studied American democracy at its early 19thcentury stages, was astonished by our jury system which was unique among nations. He described it as the most democratic form of governance he had come across in his experience. It is, in essence, the personification of justice by the citizenry themselves.

The jurors are drawn by lot, questioned by the court and/or the attorneys to determine their impartiality, and number the revered 12, sworn to fulfill the duty to return a true verdict based on the evidence produced at the trial.

That is a sacrifice they make to serve our hallowed justice system. It can involve a significant sacrifice by themselves and their families, as the cases they hear range from the gamut of simple and short to complex and lengthy. I once prosecuted a very complicated case against the trustees of a union pension and welfare trust that involved over a dozen defendants and took three months of trial before the evidence was concluded. That was a marathon for our jury, who sacrificed family and job to fulfill their duty.

When a would-be tyrant and his anti-democracy followers chastise and even threaten the jurors, witnesses, judge, and other participants who were tasked to seek truth in the process we have used for over two centuries in our system to determine truth, that can fairly be described as

treason. It is nothing less than taking up arms against our government, which is founded on the rule of law, not the will of some potentate such as a dictator.

Donald Trump received a fair trial. He was represented by a team of seasoned attorneys. His attorneys were allowed to challenge all the evidence introduced at his trial, and he himself had the right to offer evidence he wished the jury to consider. He chose not to testify on his own behalf and claimed the reason was because the judge issued a gag order. That was false; the gag order concerned inflammatory out-of-court statements to the media, not evidence submitted at trial. He was free to submit evidence on his own behalf, and had the right of every defendant in our justice system to take the stand and testify on his own behalf. He chose not to do so, and he undoubtedly had the advice of his attorney team in making that decision. Had he chosen to testify, he would, of course, been subject to cross-examination. It is a fair inference that such was the basis of his decision, not some gag order to cease making out-of-court inflammatory speeches.

All this is merely the tip of the iceberg. Retaliating against judges, witnesses, jurors, and all those who enable the rule of law is a prelude to establishing a completely different model of governance. The lip service to democracy is as fraudulent as everything else with this ongoing movement by the Trump faction towards totalitarianism. Thus, truth itself is a target, and with it the entire foundation on which we currently rely.

This is exactly why we see an alarming trend of Trump loyalists in Congress increasingly refuse to say whether they will accept the November election results. We are entering an era of insurrection politics and instability. You can bet your America on it. I am a poor excuse for Paul Revere, but please vote to support our democracy and its foundation of the rule of law this November.

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Thomas Coffin was the keynote speaker at the Blackberry Pie Society’s Political Party in February, 2020 and at Politics and Pie in October, 2022. He is a retired federal magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon and a former professor at the UO Law School. Thomas retired in 2016 after 24 years on the bench, prior to which he had a career as a federal prosecutor spanning 21 years. He is married with 7 children. The Blackberry Pie Society is pleased to include a collection of his essays on our website. We will post them as they become available.

Posted 6.6.2024