Gulag “Justice”

Seventeen years for ripping down a fence during a riot.  I have been doing criminal defense for 41 years.  This is beyond preposterous and obviously the product of a Judge motivated by vengeance and ideology, not justice.

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MrsOpey
MrsOpey
Friday, September 1, AD 2023 4:37am

We are watching. We will never forget

Art Deco
Art Deco
Friday, September 1, AD 2023 5:26am

Judges should not have this sort of discretion.

I should note Mark Steyn’s remarks on the DC court system. He said he’d been a party to civil suits in three countries and DC’s was the worst he’s encountered to date in terms of inefficiency and judicial bias. If we had a Congress who accomplished anything, a piece of federal legislation would be passed dictating that the geographic jurisdiction of the extant DC courts consisted of one square yard in the middle of Pennsylvania avenue and its judges would henceforth be paid in potatoes once a year. DC needs a clean slate.

Frank
Frank
Friday, September 1, AD 2023 5:26am

DC needs to be dissolved as a political entity and absorbed into surrounding states. It might not make things much better, but it can’t be any worse.

John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
Friday, September 1, AD 2023 5:56am

This sentence reminder me of Otto Warmbier who was sentenced to 15 years in North Korea for stealing a poster. He paid with his life. Those four pro-life protesters also received 15 year sentences this week. The Democrats want the same “punishment” for any who oppose them.

CAG
CAG
Friday, September 1, AD 2023 6:36am

I had never even heard of the Proud Boys until Chris Wallace mentioned them in an ambush of Trump during a presidential debate. I doubt many people had.

Pinky
Pinky
Friday, September 1, AD 2023 1:19pm

Some of the prosecutions and sentences make no sense to me. This one, the guy seems to have been a ringleader. I love Matt Walsh but this tweet looks to be no better than a lie.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Friday, September 1, AD 2023 3:14pm

I love Matt Walsh but this tweet looks to be no better than a lie.
==
What’s the lie?

Pinky
Pinky
Friday, September 1, AD 2023 5:54pm

It is no better than a lie to characterize the charges against Biggs as no more than ripping down a fence.

The Bruised Optimist
The Bruised Optimist
Friday, September 1, AD 2023 6:07pm

The natural product of unjust justice is extremism. When you know the judge will be harsh regardless of the degree of your infraction, logic leads to two equally extreme positions.

Either you will be cowed into extreme servitude or you will act to your utmost extremity. No position in between will make any sense.

Pinky
Pinky
Friday, September 1, AD 2023 6:21pm

The judge’s sentence was below federal guidelines.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Friday, September 1, AD 2023 7:31pm

It is no better than a lie to characterize the charges against Biggs as no more than ripping down a fence.
==

You take the prosecutor at face value?

The judge’s sentence was below federal guidelines.
==

I’m fascinated to know from which talking point mill you acquired this tidbit.

In this country, Pinky, 60% of the criminal convicts receive NO prison time and the mean time served among the rest is 30 months. Our prison population is filled with violent people and drug dealers.

CAG
CAG
Friday, September 1, AD 2023 8:09pm

 “BLM six months before the J6 riot staged riots that set buildings aflame in Washington, with the arrested rioters treated with kid gloves.”

… Very correct Donald. They also tore down the exact same type of barricade that Biggs was given 17 years for moving … only that one was in front of the White House:

BLM Terrorism

“It is no better than a lie to characterize the charges against Biggs as no more than ripping down a fence.”

Pinky, Walsh said that all Biggs did was rip down a fence. That is a fact. Your claim that he “characterized the charges …” was less so.

None of those BLM rioters were charged with the nonsense Biggs was … I’m not sure any were even arrested.

CAG
CAG
Friday, September 1, AD 2023 8:33pm

Let me make another point. Trump was charged with conspiracy to overthrow the government and a bunch of other stuff for tweeting “go watch the news.”

Say he’s found guilty and is sentenced to 50 years in a high security prison. If I was to post “Trump got 50 years for tweeting ‘go watch the news’” would you claim that I was lying? Would you claim that the judge’s sentence was ‘below the federal guidelines‘ for treason, because Trump “seemed to be a ringleader” but didn’t face a firing squad?

The Bruised Optimist
The Bruised Optimist
Friday, September 1, AD 2023 10:01pm

To clarify, my comment refers to the overall treatment of J6 participants and other individuals whose actions were not held to be seriously criminal before the present regime.

Mary De Voe
Friday, September 1, AD 2023 11:44pm

Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
No Democrat has any knowledge of our Law of the Land, our Constitution.
Perjury.

Pinky
Pinky
Saturday, September 2, AD 2023 5:05pm

Art –

You take the prosecutor at face value?

I haven’t studied the case, but the jury found him guilty on serious charges.

[The judge’s sentence was below federal guidelines.]

I’m fascinated to know from which talking point mill you acquired this tidbit.

Every news story I’ve seen says this. The judge said it during sentencing.

In this country, Pinky, 60% of the criminal convicts receive NO prison time and the mean time served among the rest is 30 months.

Are 60% of convictions on seditious conspiracy?

Our prison population is filled with violent people and drug dealers.

Rioters are violent people. All rioters. If the jury was correct, Biggs was a leader, which makes him even more responsible.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Saturday, September 2, AD 2023 6:01pm

I haven’t studied the case, but the jury found him guilty on serious charges.
==

IOW, you take both the prosecutor and the DC jury at face value

Every news story I’ve seen says this. The judge said it during sentencing.
==

You take the newspapers and the judge at face value as well. These judges have been clapping people with families in preventive detention when all they did was mill around a public building.

Are 60% of convictions on seditious conspiracy?
==

No, they’re convicted of real crimes.

Our prison population is filled with violent people and drug dealers.
==
Rioters are violent people.
==

Get back to me when you’ve learned the difference between criminal mischief conjoined to disorderly conduct on the one hand and robbery and rape on the other.

Every other person in this thread who has remarked on this matter figured out what is going on here and the original poster is an experienced criminal defense attorney.

CAG
CAG
Saturday, September 2, AD 2023 9:06pm

What Biggs did: Move a barricade
What he was charged with: Seditious conspiracy
What dozens of BLM rioters did: Destroy a barricade
What they were charged with: Nothing
What President Trump did: tweet
What he was charged with: Seditious conspiracy

What honest people see: injustice.

… It’s like some people posting here are unfamiliar with the concept of inflated charges.

Pinky
Pinky
Sunday, September 3, AD 2023 8:22am

Art, you’re a research buff. I tried searching the US Sentencing Commission guidelines but couldn’t find anything. If you’d like to confirm that the judge lied when he said he was sentencing Biggs less than the guidelines, feel free. Otherwise, yeah, I’m going to take him at his word, given that he was the judge and had no reason to lie. He also said that he was sentencing Biggs less because he didn’t buy into the prosecution’s interpretation of the statute. (If someone wants to say that that’s proof he should have declared a mistrial, IANAL, so feel free to demonstrate it.)

Also, show me where I said that BLM rioters deserve light sentences. My position here is that the people who planned and committed violence should receive harsh sentences, and that there’s a difference in culpability between merely moving a barricade and planning a riot at the Capitol with the intention of preventing a Constitutional act.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Sunday, September 3, AD 2023 6:50pm

Art, you’re a research buff. I tried searching the US Sentencing Commission guidelines but couldn’t find anything.
==

You’re testing everyone’s patience. Do you do this to people in person?

‘Conspiracy’ is an ‘anticipatory offense’. People are not charged with ‘conspiracy’ for committing actual crimes, but for planning them. ‘Seditious conspiracy’ is a nonsense phrase, though it may actually have been placed in the federal criminal code by some dim-witted members of Congress. The allegation of ‘seditious conspiracy’ is an acre of embroidery on a pinhead of actual acts by this man. People keep noting this, including the criminal defense attorney who runs this site. You keep not hearing them.

I should also note that in a normal jurisdiction such as New York, Incitement to Riot is a low-grade felony and conspiracy charges are (bar in re Class A-I felonies) are invariably of a lower grade than the offense supposedly planned.

Penal codes commonly contain offenses which haven’t been prosecuted in decades. When was the last time anyone was prosecuted for ‘seditious conspiracy’? (One of the charges on Paul Manafort’s bill was an offense for which successful prosecutions in 85 years on the books number in the single digits and for which Democratic operatives were sent admonitory letters).

Also, show me where I said that BLM rioters deserve light sentences.
==
The only thing anyone has remarked on is your remarkably clueless defense of this travesty in Washington.

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Tuesday, September 12, AD 2023 12:21am

[…] News & Punditry: Gulag “Justice” – Donald R. McClarey, J.D., at The American Catholic 11 Sept – Shanksville, PA – et al. […]

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