March in DC January 6

[Robert]

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/0 ... t-00023493

A judge has issued the first outright acquittal of a defendant charged in the Capitol riot.

Following a two-day bench trial in U.S. District Court in Washington, New Mexico engineer Matthew Martin was acquitted Wednesday on four misdemeanor charges by U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden. Martin claimed that he thought the police had allowed him into an entrance near the Capitol Rotunda on Jan. 6, 2021.

McFadden said that, based on video of the scene, that assertion was at least “plausible” and that prosecutors failed to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.

“People were streaming by and the officers made no attempt to stop the people,” said the judge, an appointee of President Donald Trump.

Prosecutors argued that broken windows and blaring alarms should have alerted Martin that he did not have permission to enter, but McFadden said the sheer size of the crowd coupled with the conduct of the police undermined that evidence.

The ruling is a blow to the Justice Department and seems likely to elevate similar defenses from hundreds of other members of the mob who have claimed that they didn’t know they weren’t permitted inside the Capitol and believed that police officers had approved their presence.

Martin, who became the first Jan. 6 defendant to testify in his own defense, said he believed that an officer waved him into the Rotunda lobby at about 3 p.m. that day.

McFadden said that he did not believe that, but that the way the officer briefly interrupted the flow of people and then stepped back to allow it to resume could have given Martin that impression.

“I do think the defendant reasonably believed the officers allowed him into the Capitol,” the judge said.

[temporal1]

.. Martin, who became the first Jan. 6 defendant to testify in his own defense, ..

this strikes me as unusual.
(maybe not in misdemeanor cases??)

from general publicity, anyone would guess these were all heinous felony crimes or worse.

maybe the court will dismiss “hundreds” of similar cases.

[Szdfan]

.. Martin, who became the first Jan. 6 defendant to testify in his own defense, ..

this strikes me as unusual.
(maybe not in misdemeanor cases??)

from general publicity, anyone would guess these were all heinous felony crimes or worse.

maybe the court will dismiss “hundreds” of similar cases.

You have a constitutional right to represent yourself in court, even with felony charges. It may not be the smartest thing to do, but you can do it.

[Ken]

.. Martin, who became the first Jan. 6 defendant to testify in his own defense, ..

this strikes me as unusual.
(maybe not in misdemeanor cases??)

from general publicity, anyone would guess these were all heinous felony crimes or worse.

maybe the court will dismiss “hundreds” of similar cases.

Courts don't dismiss cases. Prosecutors do by dropping charges. Since these are Federal cases brought by the Justice Department, that would mean the Justice Department under Merrick Garland would need to drop the cases. Or in these cases, it would likely be the decision of Matthew Graves who is Biden's appointee as the US Attorney for the District of Columbia.

Only if there is some sort of egregious error or misconduct on the part of the prosecution do courts step in and dismiss charges.

[Josh]

Courts certainly do dismiss cases all the time. The plaintiff can also choose to dismiss their charges, but ultimately the court decides whether to dismiss it or not.

[temporal1]

Courts certainly do dismiss cases all the time. The plaintiff can also choose to dismiss their charges, but ultimately the court decides whether to dismiss it or not.

i believe this is correct, even in some felony cases. (easily googled)

In this case, where “hundreds” of similar cases are waiting, dismissal would save loads of courtroom time and taxpayer funds.

Judges have leeway to employ wisdom and common sense.
They are also known to discourage frivolous cases, even to warn prosecutors to not make a mockery of the courts.

The Bar Association is powerful, it’s a brotherhood that exists: to protect+promote its own.
Self-representation is discouraged, to put it mildly. i don’t believe this is a trade secret.

[Robert]

Alan Dershowitz has taken a J6 client.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news ... ing-lawyer

Attorney Alan Dershowitz has taken on a Jan. 6 client after spending a year on the sidelines speaking out about government overreach and constitutional rights violations.

His deciding factor was the fact that one defendant was a law school student whose diploma was withheld and who has been prohibited from taking the bar exam because he has five counts hanging over his head from entering the Capitol.

“I said I disagreed with him fundamentally [about Jan. 6], and he said, ‘I could care less,’” Dershowitz told the Washington Examiner. “He made a persuasive point to me: He graduated from law school, was denied admission to the bar, and I generally take First Amendment cases like this.”

The new client is Brady Knowlton, 41, who was a fisherman a decade ago and starred in several episodes of Catfishin’ Kings on Animal Planet. He was also a financial consultant in the Texas energy sector but now lives in Utah.

Dershowitz, a Harvard Law School professor emeritus, has a soft spot for law students and didn’t want Knowlton’s life ruined over the incident. So he took the case but would not say if he had been approached by others in the past.

Dershowitz wasted no time in producing a narrated video of that infamous day, which resulted in 816 people being charged. Some of the footage is new, added to Justice Department clips released previously. It highlights what the officers were doing, stopping at key points to explain what is happening.

The video states that 250 protesters entered through a side door in the upper terrace and that Capitol police officers can be seen welcoming some of them. One of the visitors was Knowlton, who held up his cellphone to film the event. He went into the lobby, Rotunda, and Senate chamber before leaving.

The footage itself is silent, but the body language of the officers clearly tells the story, Dershowitz argued. He is demanding the release of audio under a federal law that requires prosecutors to turn over all exculpatory evidence to the defense.

“There is no crime. The police invited these people to come in and not do any damage and leave when they are told to leave,” Dershowitz said. “It seems clear from the pictures on the video that this is the message being sent. The audio will confirm what we see on the tapes.”

As for the rest of the Jan. 6 detainees, Dershowitz said they should be released.

“That’s clearly a mistake,” he said.

[Robert]

I am not digging for this stuff. Seems that things are finally starting to come out.

https://justthenews.com/nation/court-fi ... -january-6

An attorney for a Jan. 6 defendant says in a recent court filing that at least 20 FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives "assets" were embedded around the U.S. Capitol on the day of the riot.

The attorney, David Fischer, is seeking a dismissal of charges of seditious conspiracy and obstruction charges against nearly a dozen members of the Oath Keepers and client Thomas Caldwell.

The 41-page motion was filed Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington, D.C., according to a report in the Epoch Times.

"At least 20 FBI and ATF assets were embedded around the Capitol on J6," a footnote in the motion reads. The motion also states that attorneys "combed through a mountain of discovery" including summaries of interviews conducted by FBI agents and that members of the Oath Keepers, a far-right group, were "being monitored and recorded prior to J6."

Fischer writes that despite carefully inspecting a significant amount of evidence during discovery, he has not found "one iota of proof" that the defendants pre-planned or had any "intention, design, or scheme to specifically enter the Capitol Building on J6."

[temporal1]

It doesn’t make any sense at all to think the U.S. District of Columbia is not crawling with “The World’s Best” police+military and “intelligence” - on-any-given-day. This is not the minor leagues.

The overall media response reflects how hungry media consumers are: For a certain prescribed narrative.
They can’t get enough, fast enough. “Feed me, feed me!”

[Grace]

It doesn’t make any sense at all to think the U.S. District of Columbia is not crawling with “The World’s Best” police+military and “intelligence” - on-any-given-day. This is not the minor leagues.

The overall media response reflects how hungry media consumers are: For a certain prescribed narrative.
They can’t get enough, fast enough. “Feed me, feed me!”

They media and many Democrats are desperately attempting to take the focus off all that has transpired in this nation and abroad since January 20, 2022. We have record high inflation, high gas prices, crime out of control, crisis at our border, lifted sanctions on Russia, emboldening Putin to invade Ukraine etc. The media and Democrats are using January 6th as a diversion away from the downward slide in the current state of affairs in this nation.