Scott Jensen verdict: What has society gained?

Nothing. Society has lost. Let's walk through the typical prosecutorial cliches about why someone should be "held accountable."

• Punishment/retribution? I doubt the public is clamoring for retribution because a guy is convicted of directing state workers to campaign on state time. And why punish him and not the parade of others?
• To send a message? What message? What message is sent when so many other people skated? When one sits on the Board of Regents, another on the state Supreme Court, and another is running the governor's campaign? Not to mention the literally hundreds of others over the past decades who did or were involved in doing the same exact thing. So what message is sent?
• To repay the taxpayers what was taken from them? Well, as mentioned, then the bill is incomplete. But, on top of that, I'd be willing to bet that the prosecution cost the taxpayers more money than the supposedly illegal campaigning did. That would be a great question for the media to ask the Dane County DA: Mr. Blanchard, what was the bill?
• To protect society? Not applicable, obviously. Anyway, the caucuses were disbanded. That was the proper action, not this.
• To uphold our rule of law? 1, How is it upheld when so many others admitted to investigators doing the same thing (that means they were caught) and were not also held accountable for it? 2, Even a majority of the state Supreme Court could not reach agreement that there even was a clear law violated in the first place.

So, really, the Democratic Party and the governor can spare me their posturing press releases. The public didn't gain anything from this prosecution and conviction. There is actually a net loss because of the good that Jensen did - such as his leadership on the school choice issue.

Speaking of those press releases, the governor's was particularly galling:

"These verdicts are a strong statement that Wisconsin government should be held to the highest standards, and that campaigning on state time is illegal and wrong."

I can't believe he can say this with a straight face. I can't believe the media are letting him get away with it. If this is what he thinks, then why is Rich Judge still his campaign manager, and why did the governor tell the media that he basically didn't want to ask Judge any questions about Judge's admissions to investigators?

"As Attorney General, I assigned investigators to this case, and I am pleased that their work has helped the prosecutor get the convictions he sought."

Right. The convictions Blanchard SOUGHT. The question is why he sought them against some but not others. And, by the way, I'd still like to know WHY the governor says he purposely tried not to get briefed on the case while Attorney General. Oh, there was also this Doyle gem:

"When our elected officials misuse the public's trust, they should be held accountable..."

Paging Mr. Biskupic...

Finally, the jury foreman spoke out on Madison TV. I found two comments he said particularly revealing:

1. He said that some jurors hesitated to convict at first because they felt sympathy for Jensen because they believed the activity had been part of the "system." They gleaned this from the snippets that got into evidence in a round-about manner - through character witnesses and Jensen's own testimony. I wonder how much more strengthened in this position these jurors would have been had they known the true scope of how much this activity really was part of the system. I wonder if that would have strengthened their position to such a degree that they would not have convicted. Of course, they didn't get to know the truth - just a selective, narrow version of it.
2. The foreman also said that he believed this activity had been going on for years, but that it got much worse and crossed a line. So this apparently played a role in his decision to convict and perhaps in the decision of others. That's interesting - he gleaned this perception, but he never got to know what really had been going on years back and at the time of the Jensen allegations. Might his mind have been changed had he learned what was really happening? And why couldn't the jurors learn what was really going on?