America’s criminal jurisprudence presumes innocence until guilt is proved. In proving that guilt, most crimes require proof of “mens rea” — an intent to commit the crime. In recent years this concept is being reversed by social justice warriors who are waging war against tried and true concepts of law — imputing guilt not based on intent, but solely on the color of one’s skin.

As a young attorney, I was approached by a black client who was convinced that he had been pulled over by a white police officer in neighboring Coventry, Connecticut for speeding, and was determined to challenge the ticket. As an attorney, I would eagerly defend any client with whatever credible evidence I could gather — but there was none here. Not only had the police officer not said anything overtly racist (indicative of racist intent) — it was well known that drivers got snagged on this very road by Coventry police officers.

John Klar

Coventry at the time bore the nickname “Copentry” for a reason — if you went over 10 miles per hour above the speed limit, you would get a ticket. Additionally, my client had been stopped at night and it was hard to imagine — let alone prove — that the arresting officer had any awareness of my client’s skin color prior to the stop.

At court, the prosecutor literally laughed at my client’s claims — he also knew better, and he wasn’t having any of it. My only factual basis for my client’s position was his skin color — and that alone hardly proved a racist mens rea simply because the cop was white.

Fast forward to 2021, and this vital foundational principle of mens rea and presumption of innocence is being jettisoned — for white people, even when not charged with a crime. This is the case not just for George Floyd, in which there was zero evidence of racist animus (only a presumption based on melanin pigment deficiency). This is the case in Vermont, where not only is latent or overt racism presumed in all white police, but the absurd converse is prevalent — black perpetrators of crime are “victims” being falsely accused. Could there ever be a more evil moral hazard in any society than this?

Oh, the tortured howls of anguish about the higher rate of stops of black drivers in Vermont than whites — the left wing extremists point to this as absolute proof that Vermont is a “white supremacist system,” which then infuses every aspect of our lives. The big problem is that it is built on pathetically shoddy pretensions of “science.”

As in Connecticut, the Vermont State Police pull people over when they exceed the speed limit — and often it is nighttime so they are unaware of the occupant’s skin color prior to the stop. I have driven in many states, including Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York, where the public moves along at 80 miles/hour en masse, with no cops in sight. Out-of-staters of any color visiting Vermont may be shocked to get ticketed at 75 mph, when locals know well what the unspoken line is. Could that be a cause of the pullover rate discrepancy, when that factor (out-of-state drivers, who are statistically more likely to be black than native Vermonters) is weighed? Would the race-baiting extremists who seek to prove their a priori assumptions about white people even weigh such data, or attempt to exonerate police from the possibility of false charges of racism? Of course not — that is why the entire effort must be flushed down the statistical toilet as bunk.

The Bennington Police commissioned a private traffic study to prove that a large portion of the black drivers arrested there are from out of state. Yet, Stephanie Seguino has continued to promulgate a study that deliberately excludes that residency data, to conclude Vermont’s police are racist — that is, all racial disparities are a consequence of racist discrimination. This is a patently flawed, partisan exercise — it is laughably shallow academically, and Seguino should get an “F” rather than be hailed as a hero. Her entire work product is a farce.

None of these studies can be trusted, because all are visibly biased. Are we to believe that every time a black person is arrested in Vermont that they are the victim of discrimination, or might our “system” try to examine actual facts? Under the analysis used by the Left, every time a black man or woman is convicted in Vermont, this “proves” Vermont is systemically racist without regard to guilt or intent — Vermont has more black people in jail than its underlying black population: therefore it is racist, and every additional conviction “proves” that. What a great vacation spot for rapists, gang members, and murderers “of color.” Who needs billboards to advertise this new “system” in Vermont, with news headlines like ours?

This is absurd moronity. Vermont apparently cannot incarcerate people based on proof of guilt — mens rea, etc. — if they are black, because it is presumed that they are not guilty. White police officers are judged guilty by virtue of arresting a “person of color.” Who would want the job?

“Social justice warriors” are truly domestic terrorists, enabling an opioid scourge by wrongfully tying law enforcement hands; unleashing dangerous and mentally ill villains into society as victims; and sweeping aside as racist hundreds of years of jurisprudence designed to ensure every person with equal rights — to trial, due process, speech, equal protection. These anti-American racist agitators hate their own nation, and are bent on eliminating these fundamental protections for everyone except themselves — because they are enlightened, special, woke, self-righteously exempt.

Interestingly, the police officer who has killed the most suspects (3) in Vermont is black — and his “victims” white. SJWs assert that black people are incapable of racism, thus this officer is automatically exonerated from any possibility of racist animus even if he did have an intent to kill whitey. But I’d bet if the facts were examined, one would find race had zero to do with his black finger squeezing the trigger at white suspects.

If the “system” cannot distinguish murderers and rapists based on the facts of those actions rather than the “fact” of skin color, then we now have a color-conscious, reverse-racist, inequitable “system” to replace the American creed. This is just one of the many “radical new society” initiatives of the lost-their-minds racist lefties. The revolutionaries who want to destroy Vermont never tell you what it will look like after they have used past sins to destroy all that is good in our nation — but it is right before our eyes.

Coming to a Vermont Court near you: “equitable” justice.

John Klar is an attorney and farmer residing in Brookfield, and the former pastor of the First Congregational Church of Westfield. © Copyright True North Reports 2021. All rights reserved.