Look Who’s Talking Now

In light of Black’s recent inflammatory statements in the British press, the National Post and CBC News report that Judge Amy St. Eve has told the defendant’s lawyers to put a sock in his mouth. “I suggest that you tell him and admonish him. If you can’t control him…I’d be happy to do it.” Ed Genson’s reported response was that while he didn’t think that Black’s comments in the Toronto Star and the Guardian of London would influence the jury, he would accede to the judge’s request. I think Eddie the Other rather misses the point. Black’s suggesting the case is “bullshit” and calling the prosecutors Nazis isn’t likely to influence the jury one way or the other (they’ll have spent more than 12 weeks filling their heads with details so peripheral to their lives as to qualify them as victims of government-sponsored psychological torture). What will sway them are St. Eve’s instructions just before they retire to deliberate—instructions she may be all too “happy” to deliver.