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Facing 16 Years In Prison For Videotaping Police
krou sends this snip from the Maine Civil Liberties Union: "The ACLU of Maryland is defending Anthony Graber, who faces as much as sixteen years in prison if found guilty of violating state wiretap laws because he recorded video of an officer drawing a gun during a traffic stop. ... Once [the Maryland State Police] learned of the video on YouTube, Graber's parents' house was raided, searched, and four of his computers were confiscated. Graber was arrested, booked, and jailed. Their actions are a calculated method of intimidation. Another person has since been similarly charged under the same statute. The wiretap law being used to charge Anthony Graber is intended to protect private communication between two parties. According to David Rocah, the ACLU attorney handling Mr. Graber's case, 'To charge Graber with violating the law, you would have to conclude that a police officer on a public road, wearing a badge and a uniform, performing his official duty, pulling someone over, somehow has a right to privacy when it comes to the conversation he has with the motorist.'" Here are a factsheet (PDF) on the case from the ACLU of Maryland, and the video at issue.
... you've nothing to be afraid of. So, I wonder what it is they're afraid of?
We're all one traffic stop away from total financial ruin and potentially jail. If it's not for something illegal today, it'll be for something illegal tomorrow, or simply something the police think might be possibly illegal.
Whether he's found guilty or not, his life is basically over.
If he's lucky, the ordeal will cost him thousands (maybe tens of thousands) when it's all said and done, and he wont get any of his stuff back. He'll have an impossible time getting a job, a loan, a security clearance, etc. with an arrest in his background. Many (most?) employers now ask if you've merely been arrested, regardless of whether you were charged or found guilty, so he'll be making minimum wage at best.
If he's unlucky, he'll have a bunch of jack-booted "law and order" Americans on his jury who side with the police by default and just want to see more people put in jail.
I can't speak for MD in particular (although I do live here) but beyond the pernicious "the public can't watch us do the public's work" aspect of this is those dashboard cameras we all love on America's Funniest Car Chases and whatever. I've certainly seen clips that include audio from the citizen as well as the police officer--are we to take it that these too are felonious wiretaps?
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
What Graber filmed was called a Terry Stop and the cop is able to search you without a warrant within your "wingspan" to check for weapons that may threaten him or other people. There are a lot of laws that cops often break on Terry Stops. My car was searched on my own property under the guise of a Terry Stop, which of course is wildly illegal, but I digress.
What Graber is "facing" is a maximum..he will never serve it unless he decides to roll the dice with a jury, blows trial and the judge sentences him to the maximum. Since the ACLU is involved, you can bet that will never happen.
But States and more often, the Feds will indict you for offenses that carry insane sentences in order to convince you to plead out, as the vast majority of people do. I did. I was facing five life sentences plus 105 years for an offense no one had ever been jailed a day on before. If I went to trial and lost on one single count, I would have done fifteen years, mandatory. (No parole in feds, BTW...you do 87.5%) I signed for five years, did 52 months.
Now, would you have fought? Really? Many people say they would, but it's a lot different when you are considering giving your life to 12 people too stupid to get out of jury duty. When you realize that the whole system is set up to plead out 95+% of cases and do anything possible to convince you to not go in front of a jury, the average person has almost no chance in the system as it is set up. You didn't do it? That doesn't matter. It's what you can PROVE to a jury. And most of the time, the Government has much better lawyers and resources, so Graban is actually lucky...he won't serve a day, IMVHO.
CSI, Law and Order are worse than misinformation..they are propaganda, brainwashing us into thinking the system is fair and equal. It isn't. Graber is lucky that his case has publicity value. He may be "facing" sixteen years, but he'll never serve any.
But we aren't all lucky. We are indeed one Terry stop away from ruin. Be careful.
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
I seriously doubt anybody will get more than a slap on the wrist.
This is a problem pretty much everywhere. When law enforcement does nasty stuff they're rarely punished. If a private citizen pulled a gun on a motorist, then broke into his home, kidnapped him for 26 hours, and stole this computers, there would be serious prison time, but when cops do this there are no real consequences.
I think that it would probably help the majority of decent, competent cops to do their jobs if the bad ones (and their superiors) were fired and punished when they pulled this sort of crap, but whenever anybody calls for bad cops to be held accountable, police unions raise a stink.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
Support House Concurrent Resolution 298, "Expressing the sense of Congress that the videotaping or photographing of police engaged in potentially abusive activity in a public place should not be prosecuted in State or Federal courts." US citizens, click here to write your congressional representative.
Just imagine if LAPD pulled that on the person who filmed the Rodney King incident.
-Fiend-
The motorcyclist would have been 100% within his rights to draw a gun and shoot his attacker in the face. This police officer is extraordinarily lucky to be breathing.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
I have an honest question for you: Why the fuck do you still live in that country?
Honestly, a place where cops are practically untouchable, the justice system amounts to "plea guilty and do a few years, or else...." and guilt is determined by your average group of mouthbreathers with an extremely mis-placed sense of justice on a power-trip. Why the hell would anyone want to live there?
People, what a bunch of bastards
Oh, bullshit. I'm sure it's exhilarating to push the +1 Insightful moderation, but I live in an actual police state. If I went to city hall with a group of people waving signs, we'd have the People's Armed Police up in our grill faster than you can say "Jiminy Cricket". I just cringe when Americans make idiot statements like yours.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Really? If you were completely innocent, but had been indicted on Federal charges that would most likely put you away for life if you blew trial, or you were offered a two year plea deal, you'd actually gamble your life on twelve people who hear a very colorized version of the truth?
The cold facts:
93.6% of Fed cases result in a guilty plea.
75.6% of Fed criminal defendants are convicted following trial.
97% of Fed criminal defendants are sentenced.
82.8% of Fed criminal defendants receive a prison term.
That's not guilty defendants: it's ALL defendants.
Many of the people I met in Fed prison had either done nothing, or something so minor as to certainly not merit hard time. (I was a bit of a jailhouse lawyer..not much else to do.) I saw guys serving 20 years for making a phone call. I am not kidding.
As I said, it doesn't matter at ALL whether you did it or not. It matters what you can prove. And trust me, it's YOU that needs to do the proving, innocent till proven guilty is BS.
So, maybe you didn't do it, but you almost certainly will lose at trial. Yes, you''l be "right" and will have the moral high ground,..and wear khakis the rest of your life.
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
I saw the video. The cop is in an unmarked car and plain clothes. He pulls up past the motorcycle while it's stopped at an exit, veers in front of it, stops, and gets out with a gun drawn, saying, "Get off the motorcycle. Get off the motorcycle! Get off the motorcycle. State police."
So what if this guy had been exercising the second amendment, and happened to be an overconfident quick-draw artist, and got "lucky" enough to shoot first?
Right up until he says "State police," it doesn't look like a traffic stop to me. It looks like a crime in progress. Even then, pretty much anyone can say "police". He could at least flash a badge. The video did cut off right there, but that was more than enough time for something bad to happen.
This is the gazillionth story I've heard of Maryland cops wantonly abusing their power.
The most blatant one I've heard happened to a coworker of mine from Bethesda in about '98. His car had been stolen and was reported to the police about a month prior to the incident. The police had actually recovered his vehicle and he had picked it up at the city impound lot earlier in the week.
On a Friday night, he was pulled over while riding with a friend. The cops ran to his car with guns drawn, pulled the doors open, dragged them out of the car, forced them to the ground, and kicked the crap out of them. All the while they were both of course shouting that this was their car and trying to show ID etc.
After they were both beaten into submission, the cops did eventually look at the car papers and ID, and then verified with their dispatcher that the car had been recovered that week, after which they simply drove away. I believe there were exchanges of something along the lines of "you have no proof of anything".
Now, my friend should have gotten a lawyer, but where he messed up was that he & his dad went to the police station to complain, which got them basically nowhere. Actually this was also about the time he left our mutual employer and we haven't really discussed it since, so I'm not sure how it turned out in the end.
Really? Anything that involves interstate commerce can immediately be classified as federal. And it's easy to classify anything has having an effect on commerce.
I did not say "I didn't do anything." I said "I was facing five life sentences plus 105 years for an offense no one had ever been jailed a day on before. " And that is absolutely true. In fact, I filed my own 2255 collateral attack and the judge issued a sua sponte ruling (in violation of Greenlaw) using Gonzalez v Raich, a 9th Circuit medical marijuana case, which states that the Government can regulate noncommercial INTRAstate activity in which it has an interest. (See Wickard v Fillmore.) No "special circumstance.." the Feds just need to have an interest in you.
As for only "robbery with a gun" being an example of a life sentence requirement, that's bollocks. Feds operate on a very strict numerical system, (even though Booker says it's all advisory.) See this table? All you need to do is get up to Offense Level 37 with a few priors and you're gone forever. Or get a few 924(c) counts, the third of which puts you away for life, mandatory. There are white collar guys who are doing life because their dollar amounts are high. Bernie Madoff didn't use a gun, did he? How about Jeff Skilling? A guy who sells small amounts of drugs three times does 20 years, mandatory because of 18 USC 851.
You can do life for conspiracy. If I call you and ask "hey want a pound of blow?" and you simply say yes, you can be indicted on a pound of blow..at least 15 years. No blow needs to exist. Happens every day.
Just cause you have a pal who happens to work for a PD doesn't mean you understand just how unjust the system is. Actually, at the spot I served, I never saw a single inmate who claimed to be innocent.
I'm just suggesting people be very careful.
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
Routinely, eh? Then surely you can provide a citation delving into what percentage of protests end in police intervention more than a simple arrest of a person or persons acting in a clearly illegal manner? How many times tear gas has been fired at protesters in, say, the last decade? How many times rubber bullets were fired?
There's an awful lot of paperwork involved with such things, so surely you must have this information since you're comfortable characterizing its frequency.
Or you're making something that happens rarely sound, ahem, "routine" in order to bolster a silly claim?
Eagerly waiting to find out which. So suspenseful!
I've looked into it, not that the 60+% taxes really make it appealing.......but when you're unemployed, you look at all options.
60% taxes, where? I would say, that the most taxing countries (France for instance), get at most 50%. But look at it in another way, yes, you pay 50% taxes, but that comes with UNIVERSAL health care, real rights to the ones that get unemployed, children support, practically FREE education all the way until the end of college (ok, in some countries you have to pay like €1000 per year when you are in the University, but in some other, they actually pay you to go to University, although it's just something like €300 per month).
And beside, what really kills me, is how you Americans just care about the money. Man, quality of life is much more than the money. It's support when you need it. It's knowing that you are protected in case something goes wrong and it's not entirely your fault, it's good climate (well, this only applies to Souther Europe), it's culture for free, it's really good food (once again ... only in southern Europe :D), it's living in a city where you don't have to drive every morning to work cause the public mass transport system is really effective or because the centre of the city is also occupied by it's citizens ... well, it's a very big bunch of many other things.
I might not be rich ... but then again, I have everything I need to be happy, so what's the problem?
Sounds like you are rich, it's just that 20-30% of your money doesn't appear on your budget since you're enjoying it through all these public services.
No, that's the part most of the Americans constantly fail to understand. I'm not rich in here, and I wouldn't still be rich if I hadn't to pay those extra 20%-30% more to get these benefits. In fact I doubt that 30% over the wage I get (around €1000 per month) would actually allowed my to buy all that stuff. More, I'm completely certain that it would not allow the people that earn the minimum wage (which in here is around €500 and that's very little even with these benefits), would allow them to have this.
But his is the great part about it. The 20%-30% that a very rich people also has to pay, it's enough to give the benefits to that rich one, and there is plenty of money left to get those same benefits to a bunch the ones that earn much less than them.
A small example. The tax over fuel in here it's huge. It's really one of the highest in EU, but on the other side, public transportation works well and it's quite cheap (€18 per month to travel as many time as you want in the metro, or €25 to travel all you want in metro and BUS). And I'm happy, it's this way. The city works much better than if everyone takes their cars around, it's less polluted, and it's better for the environment.
It's not Socialism, it's Social Democracy and when done really correctly it works beautifully, like you have to admit it works in Northern Europe ... not so good in the South, but it's still ok in here. And well, although, Northern Europe is better in this social aspect and has all those nice blondes, but bah, it's too cold for me and the food kind of stinks ... and all that contributes to your quality of life :)
Here's a useful phone app someone into phone apps should write. When you push one emergency button, the phone starts taking video and audio and uploading it in real time to a server, which then immediately sends the video someplace where it can't be deleted. (Sending it to YouTube, Wikileaks, the ACLU, and CopWatch might be overkill, but it would work.)