Dad, don't listen to this one.

Welcome to the political orphanage, a home for plucky bailiffs and comely jurists.

I'm your host Andrew Heaton, and ain't no court this side of the Mississippi ever going

to indict me.

Today we are going to discuss jury nullification, the bet noir of all upright judges.

And we'll hear from no less than fellow political orphan and my personal defense attorney when I get into shenanigans in New York,

Paul Townsend Esquire.

Before I summon my guest from the green room, though, I want to tell a long-winded but related story involving powdered wigs, as is my want.

Our tale begins with an epileptic seizure.

In 1731, the Royal Governor of New York, a Scotsman named John Montgomery, died rather unexpectedly at the age of 47 by way of seizure. Which was not a little irritating to King George II, who would have preferred colonial administrators

scheduled their deaths ahead of time in concert

with their terms. Montgomery had ducked out early with three years left of his governorship.

That meant an upstart named Rip Van Dam became acting governor of the New York colony.

Now I don't need to tell you that Rip Van Dam had a suspiciously Dutch sounding name. But that was the least of his

irritancies. Governorships, even acting governorships, were the province of Britain's nobles who would receive the position as payment and honor from the crown.

Van Dam, who again I just want to point this out, was Dutch or at least part Dutch or something, wasn't a nobleman or even a particularly

wealthy scion of New York. His parents were middle class, his father was a carpenter, and a foreigner, kind of retroactively.

Anyway, back in 1701, way back in 1701, old Governor Cornbury got pissed off at some of the

members of the Governor's Council for

resisting the Navigation Act, and he appointed then young man Rip Van Dam into the vacancy

when he kicked them out.

Where, this rather mouthy and querulous New York upstart would proceed to percolate for the next 30 or so years?

...