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Sci-Fi Writer Peter Watts Convicted of Assault
SJrX writes "CBC news is reporting that Peter Watts has indeed been convicted of Assaulting border guards, (discussed here). He will be sentenced April 26th."
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From Watts' own blog:
Making Light put it more caustically:
Not sure why you got moderated up, because the court threw out the accusation that he attempted to strangle the officer. The guards' testimony was demolished on cross examination as inconsistent and the only thing that the prosecutor had at the end was that, after the guard had punched him in the face several times (an event which the prosecution did not dispute), he did not immediately comply with an instruction to lie on the ground.
Events like this that make life difficult for the majority of police officers, who actually want to do a good job and protect people from criminals. They undermine the public faith in the police and in the judicial system. If you can be convicted of not following police instructions after they have assaulted you, then why on earth would you ever go near the police, let alone cooperate with them? Whichever legislator thought up that particular law deserves jail time.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I am a criminal defense attorney. My experience is that whenever it's the word of the police versus the word of the person accused of a crime, the accused loses. In most jurisdictions in the US, judges and juries tend to believe the cops. Unless the case was tried by a jury in a large metro area with significant minority population ( and the jury is reflective of that), chances are a guilty verdict will result.
Jurors watched complete video of the entire incident. In interviews afterwards, they said the border guards acted like assholes, but Watts was guilty of the law as explained to them.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
At no point did Watts engage in a physical confrontation with the CBP officers. Upon cross-examination the "choking" accusation and the "aggressive stance" accusations were shown to have been fabricated.
The conviction stemmed solely from point #5 Here are a couple of post-trial juror statements. One was posted on Watts own site. The other was posted as a comment to the Port Huron report on the verdict; see
http://www.thetimesherald.com/article/20100319/NEWS01/3190308/Jury-remains-out-in-Watts-trial?plckFindCommentKey=CommentKey:e3d49247-c265-47a6-9721-5713e32cc7ed
As a member of the jury that convicted Mr. Watts today, I have a few comments to make. The jury’s task was not to decide who we liked better. The job of the jury was to decide whether Mr. Watts “obstructed/resisted” the custom officials. Assault was not one of the charges. What it boiled down to was Mr. Watts did not follow the instructions of the customs agents. Period. He was not violent, he was not intimidating, he was not stopping them from searching his car. He did, however, refuse to follow the commands by his non compliance. He’s not a bad man by any stretch of the imagination. The customs agents escalted the situation with sarcasm and miscommunication. Unfortunately, we were not asked to convict those agents with a crime, although, in my opinion, they did commit offenses against Mr. Watts. Two wrongs don’t make a right, so we had to follow the instructions as set forth to us by the judge.
Peter,
I believe your description of the trial and deliberations is more accurate than you could know. As a non-conformist and “libertarian” (who has had some experiences not unlike yours) I was not comfortable with my vote, but felt deep inside that it was consistent with the oath we took as jurors. I believe nearly all the jurors searched for a legitimate reason to vote differently. In the end it came down to the question “Was the law broken?”. While I would much rather have a beer and discussion with you than Officer B. I never the less felt obligated to vote my conscience. I also believe most, if not all, the jurors sincerely hope that you are handled with a great degree of leniency, we, unfortunately have no say in that matter.
There wasn't really much argument about whether or not Watts immediately and obediently complied with the order - he says he asked them what they were doing and why. It took the jury about four days to decide that the law said that meant he was technically guilty of not complying. The juror who commented on Watts's blog also said that the cops had acted badly in the way they attacked Watts, but that this case was against Watts and not an assault or brutality case against the cops so they had no official judgement about that.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Jury nullification can't be explained to them. A defense attorney who tries to argue it gets an immediate mistrial.
FYI, if you're ever on an (American) jury, you can't argue for nullification there, either. A juror who argues to nullify gives grounds to the judge to set aside the verdict. If you're going to nullify, you just keep saying "I'm not convinced by the prosecution's case." Jury nullification exists only insofar as, if the jury says "not guilty" (and holds that the prosecution didn't prove its case), the prosecution can't try the accused again. As an explicit jury right, it doesn't exist, notwithstanding the arguments of libertarians. It's an implicit tactic only.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Jesus Christ, it's bad enough when the mainstream press repeats crap like this, but I would have thought Slashdot posters were capable of reading plain English.
He was convicted of failing to follow direction quickly enough for the border guards. The accusations of assault were found to be baseless.
This is why we have jury nullification and why the correct answer to "Do you believe in jury nullfication?" is "no, I do not".
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.