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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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It would be nice to know if there was some evidence besides the accounts of the officer and Watts. If what the officers said is true then he is guilty and if Watts said is true then the officers assaulted him.
He will be sentenced April 26th
The sentence will be sent to his editor May 5.
They'll have it proofread and the final edit will be done June 7.
Armed truck drivers will deliver the sentence to Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Borders locations on an undisclosed date.
The sentence will go on sale August 11.
Please, no spoilers before the release date.
So when someone said "Watts the problem",
He said "I'm certainly not!"
That kind of attitude with the police can earn you a can of pepper-spray!
Also, that kind of attitude in court could certainly earn you some jail-time!
Geekism is your _only_ God!
He was told to get back into his car. This is SOP. He refused.
This is the same procedure Canadian police use during a traffic stop. When you're pulled over, you're supposed to wait in your car. If you get out, you are told to get back into your vehicle. If you refuse, you have disobeyed a lawful order, end of story.
He admitted he got out of the car, and didn't get back in it when he was told to, instead trying to see what the police were doing when they were searching hit trunk (a legal search, btw). So he was also interfering with a police search.
The guy's a jerk and gives Canadians a bad name. If he had done this in Canada, he'd still have ended up in court, so what's the big deal? Oh, right - AMERIKA BAD!
I make enough "In Soviet Amerika" jokes, but in that case, it simply doesn't apply. Peter Watts has only Peter Watts to blame.
The evil part, which you have glossed over, is that disobeying a lawful order (which he did, stipulated) should NOT equate to felony assault (which is what he was accused and convicted of). That it does, at least in Michigan, is a woeful misstep in legislation and jurisprudence, and a shameful blot on the soul of every American, including me.
You all should be ashamed of yourselves for modding up hateful comments.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Adolf Hitler both wrote some interesting stuff while they were locked up.
From Watts' own blog:
Making Light put it more caustically:
He was told to get back into his car after the officer had just punched him in the face.
It doesn't surprise me that he'd be confused and disoriented, or that he'd be slow to comply. Try punching someone in the face some time. It hurts.
The really sad bit is that under these laws, you could not only punch someone in the face, you could pepper spray them, kick them in the nuts while they were down, and then tell them you wanted them to stand up and empty out your pockets. Don't do it because you're screaming and in pain, or trying to run away? You're committing a crime.
is twofold:
1. what he was found guilty of is that of obstructing the border guard from doing his job. and that part of the law is so vague, that simply asking what the problem is can be seen as obstruction.
2. the jury was not there to consider the guard behavior, but about point 1.
so in essence, watts was screwed from the moment his car got stopped while leaving USA (yep, he had gotten in just fine, it was while going back to canada that the trouble started).
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
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
The CBC story is wrong - Watts was NOT convicted of assault.
So don't worry, this isn't a blot on your soul, and as a Canadian I can say we still love you all, and hope for the best for you, and apologize for Mr. Watts being a self-righteous jerk who feels he can give less deference to American police than he'd have to show to Canadian police and then whine about "mistreatment" because of the possible bad optics.
Courtesy begats courtesy. It doesn't cost anything to be polite, especially when you're a guest in another country.
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.
"Watts arrested for resistance"
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
If a cop socks you in the face for no reason, and decides to bring you up on charges for "resisting a police officer", you'll be convicted on the grounds that your face impeded the free movement of the cop's fist. (and no, I'm not exaggerating).
Any juror who won't essentially agree to convict will be dismissed during voir dire.
I'm finding it hard to believe you put both of those guys in the same sentence.
Why? They're both notable historical figures. Ditto the Marquis de Sade.
IANAL...
You would have been entirely within your rights to acquit, if you felt that it was unjust to convict him under the circumstances. You're not forced to follow the directions of the judge, otherwise there wouldn't be any point in having a jury at all. If I was Peter Watts' lawyer, reading your message, I would be filing an appeal on Monday morning, on grounds of misdirection.
He was told to get back into his car after the officer had just punched him in the face.
I can't even imagine where this timeline of events was created. Probably in your head. It doesn't appear in any credible news source.
Ah crap. The command was to lie down on the ground, not to get back in the car.
As for the source, it's direct from Dr. Watts himself:
"So what it came down to, ultimately, was those moments after I was repeatedly struck in the face by Beaudry (an event not in dispute, incidentally). After Beaudry had finished whaling on me in the car, and stepped outside, and ordered me out of the vehicle; after I’d complied with that, and was standing motionless beside the car, and Beaudry told me to get on the ground — I just stood there, saying “What is the problem?”, just before Beaudry maced me.
And that, said the Prosecutor in her final remarks — that, right there, was failure to comply. That was enough to convict."
On the prison baseball team, he will play second base.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I agree. To be charged with failure to comply in the middle of an unjustified and probably illegal assault is a gross moral wrong that everyone can see. You can't just cherry pick the non-compliance out of there and convict. Well, obviously you can. It stinks. I would not have convicted him if I were free to choose.
There are a few things:
1. The border patrol agent is the face of the american government, and thus the face of USA
2. The agent acted out of line, with physical abuse (punches to the face, unneccesarily maced)
3. It's caught on camera.
4. The agent seem to have no consequences from it.
5. The unlucky victim is found guilty of breaking the law, by essentially asking why he was punched in the face
Are you still wondering why people react? That guy should be given a public apology, and the border guard should be kicked out.
Instead, the law (aka government, aka USA) supports him, and criminalizes the victim of the abuse.
It's The Golden Rule: "He who has the gold makes the rules."
Too bad the jurors had never heard of Jury Nullification
When the guard is performing, or has just performed, an illegal act (e.g. assault and battery), thereby revoking their privilege of authority.
I have to wonder if that's covered anywhere under "colour of law" legislation. If it isn't, it should be.
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.
Although the way you wrote this is a bit inflammatory, I'd have to agree. Most people here (Australia) would be aware of MLK and what he did, but only in rather vague or general terms. Hitler on the other hand ... Australia along with most other Western nations spent the best part of 6 years fighting him so no introduction needed there.
I dare say most of the world would be similar. MLK was a great man, but his achievements were primarily US domestic ones. A bit like if I, as an Australian, were to mention Eddie Mabo - most outside of AU would not know off the top of their head who he was (not that I'm trying to say Mabo was on the same scale of importance as MLK).
Still I don't think it's invalid to put them in the same sentence. The GGGP didn't try and state that they were equally influential ... just that both of them wrong interesting things while locked up :) Which is true.