Believe Absurdities, Commit Atrocities

Opening Arguments

Opening Arguments Media LLC

Atheist, Opinion, Harvard, News, Politics, Legal, Law, Liberal, Supremecourt

4.3 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2024

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

OA1079 - An OA Spooktacular! But also a normal episode.

We continue our ongoing series on fascism and the law with a fresh perspective on a familiar American legal horror story. Matt explains the terrifying legal context surrounding the 1692 Court of Oyer and Terminar which sentenced dozens of innocent Massachusetts colonists to hang for the extremely real felony of practicing witchcraft--and an unexpected defense strategy which could have spared them. What can the most terrifying run of wrongful executions in US history teach us about the dangers of governance by rumor, paranoia, and conspiracy theories 332 years later?

SOURCES:

In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692, Mary Beth Norton (2003)
“Salem Witchcraft Trials Research Guide,” Congregational Library (2024)(links to primary sources)
18 USC 611 (voting by aliens)
Order granting preliminary injunction against Oklahoma’s anti-Sharia law amendment in Awad v. Ziriax et al, W.Dist. of OK (2010)(later upheld by 10th Circuit

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Transcript

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0:00.0	So just a yes or no you still do not have a plan? I have concepts of a plan. That is a damning non-answer. I'm not trying to...
0:18.0	That is a damning non-answer. I'm not trying to make it about myself, your honor.
0:27.1	I'm just trying to show his bias toward the defendant.
0:30.5	Just don't make it about yourself. Something simple as a crack pipe, a use crack pipe.
0:37.0	The rules were that you got to
0:40.0	going to fact check. Hello and welcome to opening arguments.
0:47.0	This is a spook-tacular episode,
0:50.0	1,079. I'm your spooky host on.
0:55.0	That over there is real live, real dead attorney, Matt Cameron.
1:01.0	How you doing?
1:02.0	It came from the law. That's right. We're here to talk about some legal horror stories, one from very long time ago and one from, I don't know, next month. Current now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The only problem is when you talk about legal horror stories, there's so many. Like what which ones aren't horror stories? Like which you know like I'm any any my brush with the law I would call a
1:25.0	horror story I agree it is by 2024 standards but I think maybe when you hear
1:30.3	this one you might that's right yeah this is a true legal horror story in every sense could
1:34.7	always get worse that's true much worse yeah I love a good spooketaculars it's not
1:39.0	often you can find a spooketacular for the legal show. Yeah.
1:43.0	Matt has a very good idea of how to tie this all together in a way that is still relevant and fun and
1:48.0	and spooky.
1:49.0	And we're talking about fascism
1:53.2	fascism of all. That's right. The real specter. Yeah, I put up some fascism
1:57.1	declarations. They're very scared.
1:59.9	I will say that for the first time in the history of opening arguments we are going to provide legal advice so be prepared.
2:04.7	Whoa! Actual legal advice that you can use in 1692.
	...

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