I don’t want to toot my own horn, but um—toot, toot! I told ya’ll. I said told ya’ll Fani Willis was not going to be taken off this case. I mean as soon as I got wind of the fact that Georgia law allows you to hire you husband, your boyfriend, your lover, I was like oh, this is over. I don’t even know why the judge even heard the case.
No, I take that back, I do know. This judge is playing politics like the rest of them. This judge is up for reelection too. He got that ambition baby, look in his eyes, no doubt he has higher courts in his sights. This creates an interesting dynamic, because on the one hand he’s gotta get reelected, but on the other hand down the road, he just may have to get appointed. So what does he do? He tows the line. Very Justice John Marshall vis a vis Marbury vs Madison of you Judge Scott McAfee.
If you don’t know about the Marbury v. Madison case, look it up. It’s good shit. My favorite case I’ve ever studied. I’m not a lawyer. It’s just that as a political science major in grad school – which I didn’t finish by the way – I had to study law occasionally.
It’s funny, people have told me – lawyers even – that I should be a lawyer. People think I like to argue. But I don’t like to argue. Quite to the contrary, I’d much rather not. No, what I like, is being right. And sometimes you have to argue to make it clear that you’re right.
Having said that, I am not one of these people who thinks their right all the time…I’m more like one of these people who thinks they’re right most of the time, but I’m always open to be proven wrong. And truth be told, about 50% of the time I’m actually wrong…okay maybe 45%…40%. The point is, I know that I’m not always right.
But anyway, back to Fani Willis and the significance of her staying on this case. People can say what they want about her demeanor on the stand but I guarantee you, had she not come in hot, had she not went toe to toe with those defense lawyers, had she not called bullshit on bullshit, and showed her – yes I’m saying it – ANGER, I believe we would have had a totally different outcome. Fani Willis wouldn’t have been given a choice between herself and Nathan Wade staying on the case. That judge would have thrown them both off the case and her entire team to boot. Because even the Georgia law about hiring someone you’re dating, from what I gather of it seems straightforward as hell, laws are left up to interpretation which is why this nonsensical side-show of a hearing took place to begin with.
But just as they tried to plant a seed of doubt regarding her credibility she did the same thing to them with her testimony. Testimony, by the way, that she did not have to stand for, but rather she choose to.
The thing about this is – her testimony on the stand – I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything like this before from a female elected official. We saw it with Justice Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings. But if I’m not mistaken, not even Hillary Clinton, who was called to a congressional hearing regarding her emails, showed this type of defense for herself.
For me this just goes to show that it is so important for women, and in particular women of color, to stand up for themselves when they feel that they’ve been wronged and the stakes are high. Now granted, Fani Willis didn’t come out of this thing unscathed. Nathan Wade was forced to resign and she now got folks out here not trying to get her disbarred — but the point is she came out on the other side – bruised maybe, battered yes – but out on the other side nonetheless with the case still in her hands.
Nathan Wade was supposed to appear on Meet the Press this morning, then backed out, apparently due to a family emergency. I’d say it’s best for him to keep quiet, stay outta sight until the whole thing blows over. If I were Fani and her team I wouldn’t talk about it either, other than to use it evidence of a stall and distraction tactic used by the defense.
If you ask me, the defense doesn’t seem to confident about the merit of their case. They were banking on the fact that this black woman would take the contrite posture that so many women do when put in this type of situation, when so much was on the line. But like I said in my previous entry about this mess, they weren’t ready for this smoke. It makes no sense that they would try to push back on their clients constitutional right to a speedy trial. Or, actually, it makes all the sense in the world. But the thing is, the American people – in this case – the people of Fulton County I believe are smart enough to catch on to that. They may start to view these constant delay tactics as having the odor of guilt.
But yeah, I thought this was a great day for women, a great day for black women in particular. And an extra cherry on top for me, because once again, I was right!
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