One of the primary tenets of the American legal system is the importance of precedent; the common law doctrine of "stare decisis" means "to stand by things decided." The purpose of law in such a system is to provide stability and predictability, so that people can conform their conduct to the law's requirements.

Another way of describing this is "the rule of law." At its core, the rule of law in this country means that all individuals and entities, including the government, are subject to the same laws, which will be applied fairly, consistently and uniformly. This principle is at the very foundation of the U.S. government and legal system.

The importance of the rule of law is one of the reasons the mistrial in the Lindsay Clancy trial continues to create shockwaves. Eleven of the 12 jurors voted to acquit Clancy of murder, even though Clancy killed her three small children.

In one of her many recent interviews, Clancy juror Paula Devlin said that she and the other women on the jury saw the case as an opportunity "to make it better for other women in the future." "Justice for those children," she said, "is this never happening again."

Those are manifestly incorrect statements. The jurors in the Clancy case have no control over whether some other woman someplace else kills her children. Making things "better for other women" was not their job. Nor was it their job to make sure that Clancy "gets the help she needs." Their job — their only job — was determining whether Clancy knew right from wrong when she committed those acts.

That — not some notion of female activism — was what "justice for those children" demanded.

Devlin was also the person who "outed" the juror who would not vote to acquit Clancy, by revealing to Gayle King on "CBS Mornings"........

© Townhall