USPOL Oct: Trumpelthinskin's spinning wheel: spinning hot takes into gold

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Pakled: Aug 6, 2011; WE ARE SMART

How in the gently caress did they get off? Like, how can an armed group storm a government compound and hold it for over a month and not be convicted of something?

# ? Oct 28, 2016 01:46

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# ? May 19, 2024 23:18

Islam is the Lite Rock FM: Jul 27, 2007; by exmarx

Inspector Gesicht posted:

If it's any consolation people will be struggling to remember who Pence is again in three weeks.

In the head museum closet-access crawl space with Palin and Ryan?

# ? Oct 28, 2016 01:46

ImpAtom: May 24, 2007

Pakled posted:

How in the gently caress did they get off? Like, how can an armed group storm a government compound and hold it for over a month and not be convicted of something?

Well, you see, they're white.

# ? Oct 28, 2016 01:46

Aerox: Jan 8, 2012

Apologies for the super long post, but I spent a bit of time this afternoon looking into this whole case and what happened and here's where I've kind of ended up. My job involves a whole lot of jury work but that said, we won't know exactly what happened unless they do juror interviews.

This is in no way an actual defense of these shitheads, but juries often get a really bad rap for doing their best to struggle through complex, byzantine, and sometimes contradictory charges and laws. In most trials, jurors are not even told what the actual jury instructions are until the very end of the trial, in a giant hour-long boring rear end reading by the judge. Prior to that they often have absolutely no idea what exactly they're supposed to be listening for and what evidence is important or useless. A lot of the stuff we know of from the media may not have come into the trial, because it was either flat out wrong or not allowed for a number of legal reasons.

Even though the outcome sucks I guess my personal hope is that we at least not poo poo all over the jurors themselves unless something comes out that they flagrantly ignored their duty. I've worked on some pretty controversial trials and seeing the way some jurors were treated in the aftermath was heartbreaking, when they did their absolute best and ended up having to make a decision they knew would be publicly unpopular.

The following is pure speculation and based on cursory research from available materials, so if I'm missing some major charge or someone who has been following the case closely sees something wrong please correct me.

...it was a slow afternoon at work.

The property theft offense was a deadlock apparently so disregarding that, the two major charges they got acquitted of were:

1. Conspiracy to Impede or Injure an Officer
2. Possession of firearms and dangerous weapons in Federal facilities

Both of these sound pretty straightforward from their title, but like everything legal, they're not! Surprise! Let's take a look at #1.

Here's the text of #1:

quote:

If two or more persons in any State, Territory, Possession, or District conspire to prevent, by force, intimidation, or threat, any person from accepting or holding any office, trust, or place of confidence under the United States, or from discharging any duties thereof, or to induce by like means any officer of the United States to leave the place, where his duties as an officer are required to be performed, or to injure him in his person or property on account of his lawful discharge of the duties of his office, or while engaged in the lawful discharge thereof, or to injure his property so as to molest, interrupt, hinder, or impede him in the discharge of his official duties, each of such persons shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six years, or both.

Complicating matters, this is a general jury instruction on conspiracy:

quote:

First, beginning on or about [date], and ending on or about [date], there was an agreement between two or more persons to commit at least one crime as charged in the indictment; [and]

Second, the defendant became a member of the conspiracy knowing of at least one of its objects and intending to help accomplish it[.] [; and]

[Third, one of the members of the conspiracy performed at least one overt act [on or after [date]]for the purpose of carrying out the conspiracy.]

A conspiracy is a kind of criminal partnership�an agreement of two or more persons to commit one or more crimes. The crime of conspiracy is the agreement to do something unlawful; it does not matter whether the crime agreed upon was committed.

For a conspiracy to have existed, it is not necessary that the conspirators made a formal agreement or that they agreed on every detail of the conspiracy. It is not enough, however, that they simply met, discussed matters of common interest, acted in similar ways, or perhaps helped one another. You must find that there was a plan to commit at least one of the crimes alleged in the indictment as an object of the conspiracy with all of you agreeing as to the particular crime which the conspirators agreed to commit.

One becomes a member of a conspiracy by willfully participating in the unlawful plan with the intent to advance or further some object or purpose of the conspiracy, even though the person does not have full knowledge of all the details of the conspiracy. Furthermore, one who willfully joins an existing conspiracy is as responsible for it as the originators. On the other hand, one who has no knowledge of a conspiracy, but happens to act in a way which furthers some object or purpose of the conspiracy, does not thereby become a conspirator. Similarly, a person does not become a conspirator merely by associating with one or more persons who are conspirators, nor merely by knowing that a conspiracy exists.

So, conspiracy in general, whether it's drug or whatever, is actually really difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. I've actually worked on a few conspiracy cases from both prosecution and defense side, and a really common sticking point for jurors in conspiracy cases is that it's very rare that there's solid evidence of two people openly agreeing to commit the crime charged. Refer back to the definition of conspiracy, an agreement between two or more persons to commit at least one crime as charged in the indictment and it might be easy to see how this can be difficult to prove, absent a video or audio recording of both parties saying YES, LET US COMMIT A CRIME TOGETHER, which almost never exists.

Compounding the problem in this case is the charge itself, a conspiracy to Impede or Injure an Officer. What I suspect happened, and whether you agree with this interpretation of the law or not is irrelevant, is that the jurors got hung up on the fact that there was little to no evidence presented that Y'all Quaeda had a specific plan and intent to HARM LAW ENFORCEMENT.
This charge wasn't about conspiracy to unlawfully occupy, or anything related to federal lands -- the prosecution had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that these guys had a criminal plan to injure law enforcement from the get-go, and that evidence probably just wasn't there.

Quite honestly, I could see myself voting not guilty on the conspiracy charge, because jesus that's difficult to prove and there's no evidence that I'm aware of that these guys actually wanted to kill anyone.

In terms of #2, the law is much longer so I'm only going to post snippets of it, but again while seemingly straightforward, there's actually a number of exceptions, many of which have never been legally tested before. This one is a lot murkier than #1, but here's how I suspect they came to that decision. Again, this is pure speculation on my part:

The basic portion, which seems clear as day, is:

quote:

(a) Except as provided in subsection (d), whoever knowingly possesses or causes to be present a firearm or other dangerous weapon in a Federal facility (other than a Federal court facility), or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 1 year, or both.

However, let's go to the definitions again:

quote:

(g) As used in this section:
(1) The term �Federal facility� means a building or part thereof owned or leased by the Federal Government, where Federal employees are regularly present for the purpose of performing their official duties.

Here's where I imagine the sticking point was, although I think it's a misreading of the law -- because the building was closed for a holiday weekend and no Federal employees were present, I imagine some of the jurors made some common sense arguments about the scope and purpose of the law.

If any employee had actually been in the building when they took it over it would be a slam dunk, but there were likely questions about the illegality of the act if it was empty, especially if some of the jurors were gun owners. If no one was threatened, if there was no chance of harm by carrying weapons into this facility, if no Federal employees were present at all for the duration of the occupation, I can certainly see some jurors arguing (again, in my view, probably incorrectly) that this wasn't a violation of the law as written because of that exception.

Additionally, there's a weird exception that's never really been clearly tested or defined, which is:

quote:

(d) Subsection (a) shall not apply to� (3) the lawful carrying of firearms or other dangerous weapons in a Federal facility incident to hunting or other lawful purposes.

Bluntly, no one is really sure what exactly this means. If it's hunting season, can you carry a firearm into a facility? If you went hunting in the morning and still had your weapon with you, is that ok? If you're hunting while occupying with the weapons you brought, is that now incident to hunting?

This certainly isn't a defense of what happened, but an example of how things can get murky.

Anyway, this is way longer than I meant it to be, but these are the takeaways.

1. The Bundys are pieces of poo poo
2. It's too bad they didn't get convicted
3. The law is really confusing and really complicated
4. Jurors don't have the same information about everything that happened as we do, and that's intentional and by design
5. Automatically blaming jurors and publicly savaging them for returning a verdict you didn't like is really bad for the justice system, really bad for America, and a really awful experience for a group of people who were probably doing the best job they could with the information they had.

Ok thanks.

Aerox fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Oct 28, 2016

# ? Oct 28, 2016 01:46

Teriyaki Koinku: Nov 25, 2008; Bread! Bread! Bread!

Bread! BREAD! BREAD!

Samurai Sanders posted:

So was Pence's plane rigged by the liberal media or what?

Rigged bigly by the biggest and the best in the business! :sniff:

# ? Oct 28, 2016 01:47

predicto: Jul 22, 2004; THE DEM DEFENDER HAS LOGGED ON

Geostomp posted:

Yup. This is a disgustingly obvious example of a jury ignoring evidence and any law just to suit their own biases. A black child getting executed for standing around is fully justified because he was no angel, but white terrorists taking over a town are just angry good old boys.

It seems Tarp-man is the only one facing consequences for his actions.

I don't think the jurors were biased and I don't think they were stupid.

I think it much more likely that they were terrified of Bundy's buddies coming to visit them in the middle of the night if they dared vote to convict. They have to live in that area. Militia people have been standing outside the courthouse all day, every day, staring at them while gently caressing their open carry guns.

I'd be scared too.

# ? Oct 28, 2016 01:48

H.P. Hovercraft: Jan 12, 2004; one thing a computer can do that most humans can't is be sealed up in a cardboard box and sit in a warehouse; Slippery Tilde

overdesigned posted:

It looks bad but it's not. Those are EMAS (Engineered Materials Arrestor System) panels. They're a highly aerated concrete composite that's designed to crush like that to absorb the plane's energy and slow it down quickly and safely. LaGuardia has them because they don't have space for a traditional 1000' overrun at the end of the runway.

They're also SUPER expensive so I wonder if the campaign is getting the bill for it.

EMAS is so cool and yeah they're hellishly expensive since they can even be worn down by the jet wash of nearby engines and hafta be protected and occasionally replaced and only like two companies make them

here's what it looks like in use during the daytime at SFO which has similar runway conditions

e: whoops that's in WV here's SFO all new

it's basically only strong enough to walk on

H.P. Hovercraft fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Oct 28, 2016

# ? Oct 28, 2016 01:48

Fitzy Fitz: May 14, 2005

overdesigned posted:

It looks bad but it's not. Those are EMAS (Engineered Materials Arrestor System) panels. They're a highly aerated concrete composite that's designed to crush like that to absorb the plane's energy and slow it down quickly and safely. LaGuardia has them because they don't have space for a traditional 1000' overrun at the end of the runway.

They're also SUPER expensive so I wonder if the campaign is getting the bill for it.

There are so many great things out there that I've never even considered.

# ? Oct 28, 2016 01:49

U-DO Burger: Nov 12, 2007

Teriyaki Koinku posted:

Rigged bigly by the biggest and the best in the business!

It must have been Trump. An attempt from Hillary wouldn't have failed

# ? Oct 28, 2016 01:48

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Aerox posted:

5. Automatically blaming jurors and publicly savaging them for returning a verdict you didn't like is really bad for the justice system, really bad for America, and a really awful experience for a group of people who were probably doing the best job they could with the information they had.

Ok thanks.

can i automatically blame and publicly savage jurors for getting the guy who was in BLM 20 years ago kicked out like an hour before the verdict was needed

# ? Oct 28, 2016 01:49

Alec Bald Snatch: Sep 12, 2012; by exmarx

overdesigned posted:

LaGuardia has them because they don't have space for a traditional 1000' overrun at the end of the runway.

yeah laguardia's one of the more fun places to take off and land from because it's like oh hey there's the east river

# ? Oct 28, 2016 01:49

A Fancy 400 lbs: Jul 24, 2008

torgeaux posted:

Mark Kirk: I'd forgotten your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUEwhcXNWM0&feature=youtu.be

Jesus christ. All Kirk had to do was run on the fact that he's probably the most bipartisan Republican in the Senate and he'd have a fairly decent chance. But no, he keeps shooting himself in the foot with personal attacks on Duckworth. Has he just given up on politics and is trying to lose or does he think swinging hard right is going to help him here in IL of all places?

# ? Oct 28, 2016 01:52

ShutteredIn: Mar 24, 2005; El Campeon Mundial del Acordeon