I was struck by a side comment offered by Larry O’Connor, in the February 12, 2020 “Examining Politics” episode. In a segment on the Roger Stone sentencing recommendations kerfuffle, O’Connor, as podcast host, noted that he had been involved in civil litigation in the DC area some time ago. He settled the case, and…

He was told that he had absolutely no chance of prevailing with a DC jury, that his known political affiliation made him a guaranteed loser. Think on that for a moment. If true, it was an assumption in the local legal community, “everyone knows,” that if you are conservative you will not get justice from a DC-area jury. This effectively reduces the value of every conservative’s lawsuit to the nuisance suit level.

What does that mean? Say you have “black letter law” (the actual law, passed by the legislature and signed by the executive) on your side in a civil case. Say your facts are unassailable; you have everything documented in a form that the other side will have no chance of challenging. Say your damages are worth a million dollars. And yet, every lawyer you go to for help tells you, “sorry, but the real value of your case here is whatever the jerk’s insurance company will write off every day of the week as the cost of doing business.” You, a serious plaintiff, are reduced to the status of a slip-and-fall plaintiff, because of your political identity.