The Court of Public Opinion

Something happened last weekend, at a campaign event in Mill Hill Park hosted by mayoral candidate Eric Jackson. Something happened that involved another mayoral candidate, Paul Perez, and a few prominent Jackson supporters and members of his campaign. Something happened that led to Facebook posts and comments alleging Mr. Perez assaulted one of those supporters, Miriam Martinez, and which led Mr. Perez to file a defamation lawsuit in Mercer County Court, demanding Ms. Martinez and others to remove those posts and comments.

Yesterday, in a preliminary hearing in Judge Mary Jacobson’s courtroom on the matter, the Judge denied the candidate’s request for a temporary restraining order, and allowed the accusatory Facebook posts to remain, pending a full hearing at a later time that would allow both sides in the case to present witnesses and evidence and make their case fairly. First Amendment rights create a very high threshold for granting prior restraints on free speech, a threshold she ruled was not met by Mr. Perez and his lawyer. “There may be no relief in the court as far as prior restraints, but there is the court of public opinion,” the judge stated, leaving it to the judgment of Trenton’s voters to sort out the truth in the handful of days before Tuesday’s election.

So, something happened last week, the judicial truth of which we will not have a chance to hear for quite some time, if ever. After Tuesday, the whole matter is moot, and neither side will likely have much interest nor resources to pursue a matter such as this which can easily take years to settle. Something happened, and it is left to “the court of public opinion.”

Well then.

My first reaction to this story, and the wildly contradictory versions of what actually happened, was actually, “At this point in time, if something like this happened at a big public event, with hundreds of people at the event, and many in close proximity to what happened, and no one recorded what went down on a cell phone, then to me nothing happened.”

That may be kind of harsh, but I don’t think so. This wasn’t a random encounter in the middle of the night between two people and no witnesses, this was a major political rally in the heart of the city in the middle of a Saturday, involving several individuals who have long been more or less experienced (I was going to say sophisticated, but thought better of it) in all kinds of public events. Most of them, and the people around them who may not have been directly involved, have cell phones that were certainly capable of documenting what really went down.

Why did neither side produce any video that might bolster their case? This is a town when seemingly every little street beef ends up on YouTube. Enter the search term “Trenton street fight” and see how many videos show up! One video of an infamous diner battle has drawn close to a quarter million views. People in this town almost reflexively start to record anything of interest that happens, at any time and in any place.

This is the one of the few occasions in which I can actually refer to relevant personal experience. In entirely different circumstances, and with an entirely different cast of characters, I found myself in a situation where I thought it might be useful to make a recording in order to establish a public record of events. Turns out it was indeed helpful in satisfactorily resolving the situation, which also ended up in a courtroom.

So there is not a single piece of footage of this incident has found its way online? For all intents and purposes, then, it didn’t happen.

Still too harsh? Perhaps. The Times account by Jenna Pizzi on Thursday quoted one German Ortiz, described as a supporter of Eric Jackson, who witnessed the events in question in a way that seems to back up Paul Perez’s version:

Ortiz said yesterday [Wed May 7] he was speaking with Perez when the alleged assault occurred, but denied Martinez’s allegations.

Wearing a hat from the Jackson campaign, Ortiz said Martinez was yelling at Perez that he “wasn’t supposed to be there.”

Perez then went to go speak with Jackson privately, and Ortiz said he “didn’t see anything.”

“There’s no way he could have touched her,” Ortiz said.

Since this will not be settled in a court of law, and since rather surprisingly there is no recording of what happened, I will have to settle for trusting the version of events laid out by Mr. Ortiz. As far as I can tell, he is a disinterested observer in this situation. And he didn’t see any assault.

One other person who could shed some light on this incident is Eric Jackson, who was present at his campaign event. It’s unclear exactly what he saw. According to the Times,

Jackson declined to comment about the incident yesterday, but said that Perez, like all members of the public, was invited to the event. “It was an invitation that was open to the entire community,” Jackson said. Jackson said after the alleged incident he brought Perez to meet his family, to remove him from the situation.

I find it unfortunate that Mr. Jackson declined to say anything more on the matter. He should go on the record with what he saw and what he didn’t, what he said to Mr. Perez and what he said to his own campaign supporters who were involved, and what responsibility he feels in the matter. This was his sponsored event, after all. Hosts do bear some responsibility for the behavior of their guests.

In a larger sense, I would even say that Mr. Jackson has an obligation to speak out about what he saw, or didn’t. This is a town where one of the major obstacles in the investigation and prosecution of crime is a frequent refusal by witnesses to go on the record with what they see. “If You See Something, Say Nothing” is close to being the official Trenton Municipal Motto.

In this case, I think Mr. Jackson could have set a good example by making a clear and complete statement. By failing to do so, he is setting another example, and it’s not a good one. In his silence, as in his silence on so many other matters, he sets an example of passivity, lack of responsibility and lack of leadership. In the absence of any formal ruling by a judge or jury, perhaps that is to be the judgment of the Court of Public Opinion.