“Prominence does not necessarily produce prejudice, and juror impartiality, we have reiterated, does not require ignorance. Pretrial publicity—even pervasive, adverse publicity—does not inevitably lead to an unfair trial.”

United States Supreme Court, U.S. v. Skilling

Dominic Pezzola has a problem. Pezzola is a prominent member of the Proud Boys and he was so involved in the January 6th riot and attempted coup that some of the impeachment trial focused upon Pezzola’s actions. Now he is arguing that because of the attention given to Pezzola in the Trump impeachment, he cannot get a fair trial in Washington DC. Jurors will have heard his name and know what he did.

There are, of course, a couple of problems with this argument. If anything, the impeachment trial was less seen in Washington because security was still so tight and a lot of that security was provided by DC police and their staff. Additionally, as a city itself, much of Washington is poor, more so than most cities, and the people working for wages by the hour were not about to cost themselves hundreds of dollars by finding a way to stay home. Most likely watched highlights at night, just like everyone else in the country.

No, this isn’t really about moving the trial away from “publicity” so much as moving it from blue Democratic voters and more toward some nice, very red county in Virginia, where the jurors might see Pezzola’s actions as “justified” given the “steal.” Jury nullification is a thing and Pezzola’s defense team would dearly love to avail themselves of it.

After all, if Pezzola’s trial was held in some nice area in the suburbs of Jackson Mississippi, a particularly white area, the jurors might feel a bit of kinship with Pezzola and believe he’s not that guilty. He did what he had to do, they might think. His trial won’t be moved to Mississippi or Virginia. He will receive his day in court in Washington DC and likely either be found guilty or plead guilty.

Now there's this ===>

Accused Proud Boy Domenic Pezzola argues the Trump Impeachment trial will make it difficult for Pezzola to get a fair trial in Jan 6 case pic.twitter.com/eyiKXRpPPE

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) August 25, 2021

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