It took me a while to understand the expression “Your name is mud.”  It’d come up when I was playing sandlot baseball or learning about football.  Someone would scream it, and I had no idea why such an expression would be used in a sunny day.

So eventually my wonderful 6th-grade teacher (Miss Jones) explained the story of Dr. Mudd and John Wilkes Boothe.  She said that it was something like “You are discredited or in disgrace.  The very mention of your name produces scorn.”  Thank you, Miss Jones, but I’ll confess that explaining this in Spanish to my mother was challenging.  My mom’s response was, why would someone have a name like Mudd?  I told her that it was “Mudd” with two “Ds,” not the stuff on the ground.

So let’s come to the present and talk about that fellow Judge Merchan.  My prediction is that we will one day say that your name is as good as Merchan.  It will be how we describe corrupt judges.

Let’s check this from Jonathan Turley:

Bragg’s legal vision for non-objective indictments was greatly advanced by Judge Juan Merchan, who will allow the jury to reach different rulings on what crime is actually evident in Bragg’s paint splatters.

Merchan has ruled that the jurors can disagree on what actually occurred in terms of the second crime. This means there could be three groups of four jurors, with one believing that there was a conspiracy to conceal a state election violation, another believing there was a federal election violation (which Bragg cannot enforce), and a third believing there was a tax violation, respectively. Nonetheless, Merchan will treat that as a unanimous verdict.

In other words, they could look at the indictment and see vastly different shapes, but still send Trump to prison on their interpretations.

Translation: Judge to jury: Come back to me with a conviction, no matter how you arrive at the conclusion.  Talk about having one strike zone for one team and one for the other.

As I understand, Dr. Mudd’s name was eventually cleared.  I don’t think it will be so easy for Judge Merchan, a man who should explain to the New York Bar just what in the world he was doing from the bench.  Or at least Judge Merchan should explain it to the Supreme Court when the Trump case gets to them.

PS: Check out my blog for posts, podcasts and videos.

Image via Picryl.