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."

Comments

Ready 1...2...3... Rush to judgement.

[Gudeldar]

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.

Re:Ready 1...2...3... Rush to judgement.

[Bartab]

Oddly, a grand jury found reason enough to charge, and a second criminal jury found reason enough to convict.

Re:Ready 1...2...3... Rush to judgement.

[dolbywan_kenobi]

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.

Re:Ready 1...2...3... Rush to judgement.

[jjohnson]

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.

Re:Ready 1...2...3... Rush to judgement.

[Doctor_Jest]

That's always the problem in these sorts of things, because there is always going to be more than a "stink" if you scuffle with officers, even if they're being assholes.

I remember one 4th of July night I was stopped by a State Trooper and I immediately was required to step out of the vehicle. If I had been a dick, I probably would've been in jail for a few days. They were looking for a vehicle like mine, and when they found it wasn't mine, I got a "warning" of going over 60. The officer looked in the bed of my truck (it was a Red truck, go figure) and I must've stood on the side of the highway for oh, 20 or so minutes while they conferred and other nonsense. It was bullshit, and they knew it... but other than me having to stand on the side of the road, it was just an inconvenience. (They never asked to search inside the vehicle...)

Moral of the story: Most cops are okay... but there are dicks and bitches in uniform. Getting frisky with them will do nothing but make more trouble for YOU, and the dipshits in uniform will continue to be dipshits. It's best to handle this from outside the incidents in question, rather than escalating an already asinine situation. I'm not saying that Watts was right or wrong... just the circumstances of "penises with badges" always end in disaster for the victim if they escalate it. *shrug* I don't have a perfect answer for the problem either.

Re:Ready 1...2...3... Rush to judgement.

[jjohnson]

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.

Re:Ready 1...2...3... Rush to judgement.

[spun]

There should be such a law. In fact, I think police officers should be required to be in counseling while in active, non-desk service. For their sake as well as our own: constantly experiencing the underbelly of society can turn anyone into an asshole.

Re:Ready 1...2...3... Rush to judgement.

[mfnickster]

There should be such a law. In fact, I think police officers should be required to be in counseling while in active, non-desk service. For their sake as well as our own: constantly experiencing the underbelly of society can turn anyone into an asshole.

Great idea! The government can pass another stimulus bill with more borrowed money to hire all the currently unemployed as counselors.

When the seedy underbelly infects the cops, the counselors will be there to listen. Then the counselors will get infected. They will return home to their wives, husbands, and kids as assholes. The kids will bring the assholishness to school. A huge effort will be undertaken to find a vaccine before it's too late, until the worst-case scenario comes to pass: the ENTIRE USA becomes a nation of assholes in just under 3 months.

Then Charlton Heston comes back from the grave to fight the asshole hordes from a boarded-up house and a 1970 Ford Mustang.

Re:Ready 1...2...3... Rush to judgement.

[mfnickster]

To the mod who marked my joke "Flamebait" : I see you have already been infected!

Re:Ready 1...2...3... Rush to judgement.

[Ethanol-fueled]

DHS ICE/TSA/BP are not cops(police officers) who are concerned about their rapport with the communities in which they serve.

They are glorified thug security guards given license to threaten, intimidate, bully, harass average joes in the name of "national security." I know because I deal with those assholes and their checkpoints on a regular basis. It's a staring contest, and if you lose, you get pulled to the side while agents interrogate you and rummage through your vehicle, often with dogs. That's not even counting the false positives when they bring out the dogs to begin with. And if you don't think that's a problem then try explaining to your boss who saw the dogs pawing at your car before you were pulled over to secondary and yanked out of your car humiliated.

Those of you Southern California folks know exactly what I'm talking about if you've driven through the I-8 checkpoint in the mountains outside of Pine Valley. First, you drive past a sign that says "Terrorist threat level - Yellow", then you drive past another sign that says "keeping America Safe - X pounds of drugs confiscated, X citations issued, X illegal immigrants detained, X DUIs referred to CHP, etc."

Re:Ready 1...2...3... Rush to judgement.

[Maxo-Texas]

This is why we have jury nullification and why the correct answer to "Do you believe in jury nullfication?" is "no, I do not".

First draft...

[LostCluster]

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.

Whatt?

[angiasaa]

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!

Re:at he can keep being a writer in lockup.

[Ethanol-fueled]

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Adolf Hitler both wrote some interesting stuff while they were locked up.

"Convicted of assault" is very misleading

[Hortensia Patel]

From Watts' own blog:

Here at the Sarnia Best Western I don't have the actual statute in front of me but it includes a lengthy grab-bag of actions, things like "assault", "resist", "impede", "threaten", "obstruct" -- hell, "contradict" might be in there for all I know. And under "obstruct" is "failure to comply with a lawful order", and it's explicitly stated that violence on the part of the perp is not necessary for a conviction. Basically, everything from asking "Why?" right up to chain-saw attack falls under the same charge. And it's all a felony.

Making Light put it more caustically:

Peter Watts has been found guilty of being assaulted by a border guard. The actual charge was obstructing a border officer. The other charges were refuted in court, but there remained the fact that Watts, having just been punched twice in the head, did not immediately drop to the ground when ordered to do so, instead asking what the problem was. Apparently, this is a felony.

Re:Insightful?

[Anonymous Coward]

You all should be ashamed of yourselves for modding up hateful comments.

I agree. Not to mention that fact that the U.S. will have to fall a long, long way before people from the real armpits that Planet Earth has to offer stop trying to get in here any way they can (I could name one in particular, but then I'd be accused of being a bigot.)

The attitude of the original poster ("Soon nobody will want to come to America") is just wishful thinking at best, truly ignorant at worst. I know a number of immigrants who hail from, shall we say, less-enlightened countries (one described the country of his birth as a "typical Communist hellhole") and there's no way you would ever get them to go back. America is still the Land of Opportunity to them: it's all relative you know.

Re:yey

[Will Sargent]

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.

Re:don't f**k with the police!

[TheRaven64]

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.

the facts of the case

[elbow_spur]

The following points were established during the trial. http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=1186

• 1. The incident occured as Watts was exiting the US. He was stopped by US border patrol for a random "exit inspection"
• 2. Watts initially got out of the car and requested an explanation. At that point, one of the border patrol officers told him to get back in the car. He did so
• 3. An officer named Beaudry rushed over to the scene, got into the car with Watts, struck him in the face and told him to get out.
• 4. Watts exited the car and Beaudry ordered him to get to the ground.
• 5. Watts did not comply, but rather demanded an explanation.
• 6. Beaudry pepper-spayed watts and threatened him with a baton. At that point Watts lay down, was handcuffed, and placed under arrest.

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.

Re:the facts of the case

[Fnkmaster]

That's pathetic. Regardless of the letter of the law, if the guy didn't do anything that should amount to criminal behavior, and his behavior was reactive - a response to being unjustly assaulted - then the jury failed utterly to do its job. If the law is being applied unjustly or unfairly in a case, as it seems to have been here (the assault was committed by an officer, not by the defendant), then jury nullification is a justifiable, and in fact morally obligatory, response.

Re:the facts of the case

[MurphyZero]

The 6 points do establish that the border patrol agents gave conflicting orders (2 and 3+4). From that, the fact that Watts asked for an explanation. The officer that was ordering him to the ground was conflicting the order from the first officer. An explanation would be appropriate as officer #2 is asking him to violate an order from officer #1. From such, asking for an explanation is an aid to the officers not a non-compliance, in fact it was Beaudry that resisted the actions of the first officer. As a juror, I would have found as such and therefore Watts was not guilty.

Re:the facts of the case

[ChipMonk]

no man should have the power to be judge and jury.

Nonsense. Any single juror can pronounce the defendant "not guilty," and it would have the force of law behind it. Same goes for a summary judgment of "not guilty" from the bench, or a refusal by the assigned judge to hear the case. There has to be full agreement between the grand jury, the judge, and the petit jury for a conviction. That's at least 25 people, maybe more if there's more than 12 grand jurors.

As for "only Peter Watts was on trial," the answer for that is simple. Ask all the jurors, "Faced with the same situation, would you have done the same thing? And if you did, could you still see yourself as a law-abiding citizen?" Any one juror answering "yes" to the second question would mean an acquittal.

When two police officers are giving contradictory orders, as in this case, and the result is a charge of "failure to comply," it's entrapment, pure and simple. The shocking thing is, as I type this, I see no mention of the term on here, in well over 100 comments.

Re:the facts of the case

[Anonymous Cowpat]

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.

I'm not sure if you're quoting (I've seen that exact block of text in 3 places now), or if you're actually saying it. Here's is my response.

I was not comfortable with my vote

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.

Actually, you do. Or, rather, you did, until you threw it away by not putting the khybosh on the case (by doing what you admit that you thought was right) by refusing to convict.

but felt deep inside that it was consistent with the oath we took as jurors.

I'm glad to see that you put your oath (aka some words that you said) ahead of justice. Quoth Einstein "Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it."

I believe nearly all the jurors searched for a legitimate reason to vote differently.

Peter Watts was confused and disorientated by conflicting orders, 2 punches in the face and pepper spray. It is not certain that he was physically or mentally capable of immediately processing and obeying he instruction when given.
That took me around 20 seconds to think of - what the hell were you doing that 12 of you couldn't figure it out over a period of several hours?
On a related note, you don't NEED to find a reason why you should do the right thing. What you've just said is "we couldn't find a reason to justify doing the right thing, so we did the wrong thing"

In conclusion, you're a fool who utterly failed to discharge his duty as a juror properly, and has significantly harmed an innocent man as a result.

Re:the facts of the case

[Attila Dimedici]

I'm guessing you've never been on a jury before, and so have absolutely no idea what a jury is there for. Juries don't know the law. They aren't expected to. That's what the Judge is for. Judge and Jury act as two sides of the same coin.

The jury is there is part to decide if the law should apply in this case. If we just wanted people to decide if the law had been followed, we would be better served by creating professional juries who were trained in the law. Lawyers (and judges are lawyers) don't want the general populace to understand this because it reduces the importance of their carefully written laws that require years of study to understand what they mean. The purpose of juries is to decide if the defendant has committed a crime, regardless of what the law says. The justification for the judges' very strict instructions is that the jury's discretion is only supposed to work one way: find the defendant not guilty even if he violated the letter of the law, if the jury thinks the defendant is guilty of what should be a crime but did not violate the letter of the law, they are supposed to find him not guilty.

Would make a great headline

[ishmalius]

"Watts arrested for resistance"

Only for refusal to comply

[billstewart]

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.

Re:at he can keep being a writer in lockup.

[The Archon V2.0]

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.

Jury Nullification

[UberDude]

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.

Re:at he can keep being a writer in lockup.

[zippthorne]

On the prison baseball team, he will play second base.

Re:One more reason out of hundreds

[Terrasque]

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.

Re:so how are you going to change the law?

[Sabriel]

Under what circumstances should someone crossing the border be permitted not to comply with instructions by a border guard?

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.

NOT CONVICTED OF ASSAULT!

[argent]

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.