Thank you Forum Posters

[TalkLeft]

Now that this nightmare of a prosecution is over, I cannot thank the forum posters here enough, for their dedication in analyzing every piece of the discovery,  every pleading, statute and relevant case, and  every detail of  every pre-trial hearing and the trial.

These forums have truly been a cooperative effort. You should all be proud of the time and effort you spent making sure nothing was overlooked and examining the evidence from every conceivable angle.

The public will never know how much work we all put into this case, especially the hours spent on things that never even came out at trial, from the contradictory or implausible statements of witness who never testified at trial, to timing the raindrops in the M&I bank videos.

You created maps, analyzed distances, listened hundreds of times to recordings, many of which were unintelligible, and strained your eyes watching shadowy images in clubhouse videos.

We also managed to avoid character attacks, remain civil,  and not base our decisions on social media evidence that wasn't disclosed by one side or the other.

Did we make a difference? Not in the outcome of the case, that's the achievement of the defense team. Perhaps we had an impact on the public discourse. But that's not what's important. What's important is that every one of you perceived an injustice was being done to an absolute stranger, and you took to your keyboards and gave up hours of your personal lives  to contribute to a cooperative effort to prove it.

I am so proud of the forum contributors here. And I just wanted to tell you. I may host these forums, but they belong to all of you as well. I hope they will serve as a historical account of what happened in this case -- and what this case was not about.

[Added: Another thing we did: We all left our personal politics out of the discussions.]

[cboldt]

Thanks for the venue.

Speaking for myself, having a place to "vent," study, and test ideas is a way to relieve personal tension.  It's quite unlike being stuck with the shallow groupthink that is the hallmark of the press and most of the comment threads on blogs, chatrooms, etc.  Not to say there isn't a form of groupthink here, just that the positions are gotten to with considerably more rigorous analysis and maybe even something akin to peer review.

Until we meet again, my best to you, and my most sincere thanks.

[nomatter_nevermind]

Thanks back to you.

I can't believe how hard you have worked, moderating this forum along with everything else you do. I believe it is the only place on the web where a serious discussion of the facts of this case could happen, without all manner of distraction and clutter. If there's another that comes within a thousand miles, I didn't find it in over a year of looking.

Thank you, Jeralyn.

 

[cashmere]

Thanks so much to Jeralyn, cbolt, cylinder, nomatternevermind, and everyone!  Apologies to whom I neglected to mention by name, but rest assured that you are all appreciated so much!!

[DebFrmHell]

I am so glad the Forum was here!  I now know more about law and the Constitution than I ever knew.  I am also grateful that people were willing to stand up and dissect all of the information that was put out.

And the occasional glimpses of humor from NM!!   

Thank you very much!

[spectator]

Beautiful, Jeralyn.

All the evidence was under a microscope here, just fantastic !

[annoyedbeyond]

No, thank you, Jeralyn.

And thanks also to NMMN (Never Matters!) who's spent so much of his time becoming a well annotated encyclopedia. Knowing he was always there with the exact right answer was infuriating. And very helpful.

Thanks also to cboldt, MJW and cylinder.

And everyone else I'm leaving out.

It's been fun.

[Evil Chinchilla]

I had to work late last night and was actually still at work when the verdict was announced, so I'm a little late in commenting.

I want to thank Jeralyn for giving us these forums and for all the time she's given to analyzing this case-- and for keeping us in line and not letting the discourse devolve, like it inevitably did everywhere else people had an opportunity to speak out.

I also want to thank all the posters for the great discussions I've had, for challenging my thinking and not letting me get too settled in my assumptions, and-- especially-- my deepest gratitude for all the research they did and all the live blogging and recapping of the hearings and trial. Without that help, I would have had to miss so much due to my crazy work schedule.

And one other person I'd especially like to thank is Eric Zorn, for directing me here through a column he wrote that suggested that Jeralyn might have cut through the discrepancies and figured out what actually happened between GZ and TM. Without that, I would have been stuck with the MSM distortions.

Cheers to you all-- you're heroes.