News flash — Sam Duncan, the prosecutor for the Auburn Avenue business, stated on the floor of the Louisiana Presbytery that no one from LAP could expect to get a fair trial before the SJC. This astonishing comment has been commented on in different places. Jeff Meyers has this, and Lane posted an explanation after speaking with Sam Duncan on the phone. Here is a web site for a man (not an FV sympathizer) who confirms that this is what Duncan said. In the comments on his blog, note the exchanges between him and Duane Garner, who also heard the statement.
Now let me consider this from an angle other than “this is what he must have meant,” and “no, it wasn’t.” For the sake of discussion, let’s just grant that Duncan meant exactly what he told Lane that he meant, and that his statements just came out wrong and sounded bad. This is not just a guy in a debate saying something he didn’t mean, but later on he can correct it. He was speaking before the Louisiana Presbytery, which had already been pressured into a guilty plea, and was now (in effect) being pressured into another one.
Whether or not Duncan meant it this way (let us grant he did not), can we agree together that reasonable people sitting on the floor of presbytery would have been well within their rights to take it this way, and that in fact it would have been odd if they hadn’t taken it this way? And that they were therefore well within their rights to believe that if they continued to plead “not guilty” they would not get a fair trial, and there would be stiff consequences waiting for them?
This means that a simple clarification of the true meaning (on Lane’s blog) is not sufficient. At a bare minimum, the acknowledgement of this mis-statement means that any pressure that was (according to this account, accidentally) placed on Louisiana Presbytery needs to be lifted, removed, taken away. The real question is whether or not Louisiana Presbytery took any action in light of this perceived threat. If they did, what will be done for redress? If they did not, what will be done to ensure they do not?