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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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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.
From Watts' own blog:
Making Light put it more caustically:
Oddly, a grand jury found reason enough to charge, and a second criminal jury found reason enough to convict.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.
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.
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"
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.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
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.
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."
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."