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Identifying Trump rioters


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On NPR today they were talking about Peru and how their government forces killed like 60 protestors who were legitimately protesting a corrupt government.  We had people attempting a motherfucking coup based on complete lies and we only killed one.  

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On NPR today they were talking about Peru and how their government forces killed like 60 protestors who were legitimately protesting a corrupt government.  We had people attempting a motherfucking coup based on complete lies and we only killed one.  

Are you arguing we should be more like Peru? Because I’m gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you on that one.
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4 minutes ago, Chad Fuck said:


Are you arguing we should be more like Peru? Because I’m gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you on that one.

I don't think so.  I think he's making a "compare and contrast" statement.

Then again, the J6 response was limited intentionally, from the inside.

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But a second man charged with Crowl, James D. Beeks, a stage actor and Michael Jackson impersonator from Florida, was acquitted of the same two counts, becoming the first Oath Keeper to be cleared of all Jan. 6-related charges. Beeks had not met or spoken with any of the Oath Keepers before connecting with them at the Ellipse that morning, and U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta found no evidence that he was aware of any plan to disrupt the transfer of presidential power to Joe Biden.

“I was duped,” Beeks, 51, said of the Oath Keepers after the verdict. “I didn’t know anything about them.” He said he didn’t want to travel to Washington alone for Jan. 6, found the Oath Keepers online, and “I made the wrong choice of people to go with.”

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Court records show Beeks joined the group in December 2020 through its website. He said after the verdict that his father was a police chief, and he thought the Oath Keepers website, with its emphasis on members from law enforcement and the military, gave the impression of “a good organization. … Based on their public statements, I thought they were legit and professional.”

 

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Stage actor James Beeks has been acquitted of all charges stemming from his participation in the Jan. 6th Capitol riots, with U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta concluding today at a Washington, D.C. courthouse that there was no evidence suggesting Beeks knew of plans to obstruct Congress.

Beeks, who was arrested in November 2021 while on tour portraying Judas in a road company of Jesus Christ Superstar, had traveled to Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6 after reading online messages posted by the right-wing group Oath Keepers. The 49-year-old actor’s attorney Greg Hunter said Beeks was not aware of the group’s intentions. “If he didn’t know what others intended, he couldn’t intend to do it,” Hunter said, according to reports.

 

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3 minutes ago, Felix said:

My understanding is that either the sentences will be upheld or extended but not reduced.  I could be wrong but that's how I read it.

While I think they should all be executed, this seems a little anti-due process to me.

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I believe the reason for the appeal was that the sentences were consistently under the sentencing guidelines.  I'm not a lawyer, but the conviction would seem to be the due process.  Once convicted it doesn't seem like the sentence is anything that would change due process.  It's set by the judge, supposedly based on fairly strict guidelines, so it seems much more administrative to me.

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36 minutes ago, Felix said:

I believe the reason for the appeal was that the sentences were consistently under the sentencing guidelines.  I'm not a lawyer, but the conviction would seem to be the due process.  Once convicted it doesn't seem like the sentence is anything that would change due process.  It's set by the judge, supposedly based on fairly strict guidelines, so it seems much more administrative to me.

I'm sure multiple surly law dogs can explain it, but a) it feels weird for the "winner" to appeal and b) it seems like the convicted should have every right to have the case re-tried on appeal.

But I am so not a lawyer.

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2 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I'm sure multiple surly law dogs can explain it, but a) it feels weird for the "winner" to appeal and b) it seems like the convicted should have every right to have the case re-tried on appeal.

But I am so not a lawyer.

Yeah, I'm no law dog for sure, but my understanding is the once the verdict is in the trial is over.  The sentencing is a different process.  I served on one criminal jury and that was how the judge described it to us after the trial was over and we'd found him guilty.

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31 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I'm sure multiple surly law dogs can explain it, but a) it feels weird for the "winner" to appeal and b) it seems like the convicted should have every right to have the case re-tried on appeal.

But I am so not a lawyer.

The state cannot appeal an acquittal and usually has no reason to appeal a conviction, but can't anyway.

In the federal system, sentencing under the Sentencing Guidelines is a separate proceeding in almost every way conceivable.  Both sides can appeal it.  And yes, there is risk for either side that it "gets worse."  The defendants are appealing their sentences, also.  So one of the foremost authorities on sentencing thinks the DOJ is taking "the best defense is a good offense" tactic, rather than passively attempting to defend the sentences. https://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/2023/07/doj-says-18-is-not-enough-as-it-appeals-sentence-of-stewart-rhodes-and-other-oath-keepers.html

Generally speaking, I applaud under-guideline sentences because the guidelines use the statutory sentencing range as the "limits" and for that reason alone are fubar (the ranges are generally too high and not low enough).  In some common crimes, the guidelines are additionally just fucked up.  FUBAR.

The guidelines are advisory only, not mandatory.  But a sentence within the guidelines is presumed to be reasonable.  A sentence above or below is not.  So, although a judge doesn't have to follow the guidelines at all, there's an incentive to do so.  Today's "thinking" judges tend to go below guidelines pretty much all the time, recognizing what I said in my previous paragraph.

I might make an exception this time.

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11 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

The state cannot appeal an acquittal and usually has no reason to appeal a conviction, but can't anyway.

In the federal system, sentencing under the Sentencing Guidelines is a separate proceeding in almost every way conceivable.  Both sides can appeal it.  And yes, there is risk for either side that it "gets worse."  The defendants are appealing their sentences, also. 

Thanks, I had a feeling it might be a state/federal difference.  

Do the defendants have any option for refusing appeal?  I assume the answer is "no".

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35 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Thanks, I had a feeling it might be a state/federal difference.  

Do the defendants have any option for refusing appeal?  I assume the answer is "no".

The defendant can, of course, decline to appeal, but if the state wants to, the defendant has nothing to say about it.

What Prof. Berman is saying in the link is had the defendants not appealed their sentences, it's likely the government would not have either.

Note that there is a subtle distinction between the state simply defending the appeal of the sentence by the defendants and pursuing their own appeal.  In defending the appeal, the state can only argue that the trial court was correct, by making their own appeal, they can make the additional argument that the trial court got it wrong-- by going too low.

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2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

The defendant can, of course, decline to appeal, but if the state wants to, the defendant has nothing to say about it.

What Prof. Berman is saying in the link is had the defendants not appealed their sentences, it's likely the government would not have either.

Note that there is a subtle distinction between the state simply defending the appeal of the sentence by the defendants and pursuing their own appeal.  In defending the appeal, the state can only argue that the trial court was correct, by making their own appeal, they can make the additional argument that the trial court got it wrong-- by going too low.

So basically, the defendants said "not fair!  too long!"

and the DOJ said "fuck you, if anything, it wasn't long enough!"

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2 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

So basically, the defendants said "not fair!  too long!"

and the DOJ said "fuck you, if anything, it wasn't long enough!"

Pretty much.  But if only one side appealed, it would be "too long/short!" vs. "it's fine, this is fine."

And while I'm on my sentencing soapbox, the federal system is what is called "determinate" sentencing, which generally** means that a system of ostensibly objective factors is employed to determine the sentence, i.e. the Sentencing Guidelines.

Texas, and most states, employ "indeterminate" sentencing, where a judge or jury hears arguments from the prosecution and defense on what the sentence should be within the statutory range and makes a seat-of-the-pants decision or SWAG.  Thus, going into it, the sentence is indeterminate except for the statutory range.

In both types of systems, as you've probably observed, sentencing occurs days, weeks or months after conviction by a jury, in a separate hearing, and sometimes after a government agency (parole/probation/pretrial services) prepares a pre-sentencing report giving background information on the defendant.  Somewhat bizarrely to me, in the federal system, US Probation and Pretrial Services, which has no legal training, takes the first pass at applying the sentencing guidelines to the defendant and then that gets argued over at the sentencing hearing.

In the federal system, the sentencing hearing can be a mini trial where the prosecution and defense litigate each of numerous sentencing guidelines and their applicability to the defendant and his/her sentence.  Because of this, sentencing is appealable separate from the conviction itself.

**also note that determinate is sometimes used to describe a sentence that is precise as to a term of years, e.g. X years or months, as opposed to a range, e.g. 5-15, that depends on the outcome of parole hearings to determine the actual time served, i.e. "indeterminate."  Often, the two types go together, as in the federal system is determinate as to both the sentencing process and the sentence itself.  Others are kind of mix-and-match.

Finally, the "determinateness" of a federal sentence is mostly illusory.  The sentencing guideline factors are not objective, nor precise, and can be applied a million ways to Sunday to lengthen or shorten a sentence.  They've done very little to increase the uniformity of federal sentencing nationwide.  They do sort of narrow and sharpen the sentencing inquiry some relative to purely indeterminate sentencing, no question there.

It's a lot like the legal process in general:  no matter how you try to increase its objectivity and "mathematical precision," it's always going to boil down to some type of value judgment.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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Samad testified in his affidavit that Luke Hoffman was present on the Capitol grounds in a “coyote tan tactical vest” which he was wearing in a post shared by his wife on the social media service Parler that read: “I am so proud of my husband! He stood up for America today!! Were you part of today too?”

Multiple individuals interviewed positively identified Hoffman as the person in the social media post, which matched surveillance footage, according to court documents.

https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/crime/article277292548.html

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32 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

yes, let's give them second trials. this fucker got off too easy the first time around  !!!

 

 

Tell him we don't need to be told how stupid he is, we already know.

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15 hours ago, cactusflinthead said:

 

You forgot something on your list, Rachel Powell.  You forgot to write, "Make sure it stays under seal which federal prison I will be assigned to upon the completion of sentencing hearing later this Autumn."  

Since you dragged your grandchildren into this and handicapped, right outta the gate, their chance to start life with a clean name...I've decided out of frustration with the pace of our legal system---that yeah---odds are I can connect to some Cholas in your facility just like I have with two other female insurrectionists.  No physical violence will ever come to pass, but you're in store for a living nightmare.  Kiss your grandchildren and write them as frequently as you can between now and the end of the calendar year, record some testimonials for them if you can.  Because I promise you're going to be a broken shadow of your former self by the time you get out.  Leave your grandchildren off your social media.  It won't get you a lighter sentence out of sympathy.  It is only going to make your life more difficult.  Your children probably egged you on before January 6th, but those poor little babies don't deserve to hear, "Oh, you're Rachel Powell's grandkid?  Boy they found some crazy stuff she wrote just a few weeks ago, after all these years. Anyway, says here you're applying for the Patriot Scholarship Award?"  

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Dude, don't be the guy who wears the t-shirt of his favorite insurrection when he later gets arrested for having participated in said insurrection.  It's like wearing the t-shirt of the band you're going to see in concert.  Don't be that guy.  /piven-in-PCU

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