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Jury Acquits Citizens of Illegally Filming Police
sexybomber writes "The Springfield (MA) Republican reports two men accused of illegally filming the process as they bailed friends out of jail that last summer, were acquitted of all charges Tuesday. Pete Eyre and Adam Mueller initially were granted permission to film the bail process, but later were forbidden by jail officials from recording the procedure. When they continued to digitally recording their encounter with jail officials, they were arrested by police. Eyre and Mueller testified that they never attempted to hide the fact that they were recording at the jail. Not only did they ask permission to film the bail-out process — which initially was granted — but their recording devices were 'out in the open,' Eyre said. The Jury found the defendants not guilty of three criminal counts: Each was acquitted of unlawful wiretapping, while Mueller also was acquitted of a charge of resisting arrest."
Traditionally, it goes soap box, ballot box, jury box, ammo box. But with powerful media corporations corrupting the electoral process by choosing which issues and which candidates for public office to play up and which to play down on national TV news, should the jury box be moved in front of the ballot box now?
The DA should have dropped these charges.
Hatta didn't say anything was wrong with the trial. Just like you said, "the arrest is where the problem was" so the next step is to sue the police department for the arrest, and hopefully get compensation for the jail time and legal fees. An acquittal doesn't stop the police from abusing their power the very next time this happens. And the judge should inform the police that they cannot refuse to allow the filming at all, should they choose to do so next time.
No, and I'll explain why. The same all white jury would not acquit a Black Panther member who bombed a church killing 4 young white girls.
The issue is that the jury needs to be opposed to the law in general, not it's application in a specific case.
Meaning, only if you truly believed that bombing and murder should be LEGAL FOR EVERYONE should you vote to acquit.
There is plenty of reason to hold a good many people accountable. The police for making the unjustifiable arrest, the DA for pressing forward with criminal charges in spite of the obvious injustice, and the JUDGE for not sanctioning the DA.
Judges have the authority AND the responsibility to throw a trial out early if it cannot succeed as a matter of law. That is, if the facts as laid out by the DA cannot support a criminal charge, that charge should be thrown out on the spot. They also have a responsibility to sanction a DA who brings charges that cannot be justified by the facts.
Most particularly, it is the judge's responsibility to make sure that the court does not become a crude bludgeon used as a punishment against those who annoy the police and the DA.
As far as relative guilt goes, the judge should probably get off with a reminder of those important responsibilities. The DA and police should face more significant sanctions.
Here's the thing. I *had* great-great grandparents; because I'm here. That's how we get here. So we can establish the validity right up front that such great great folks definitely existed. The storybook Jesus had no offspring, so that line of evidence is closed.
Next, I never claimed that my grandparents were magical creatures, able to convert water into wine, walk on water, etc. So we can assume we're looking for normal people, which we also have evidence existed.
Next, odds are pretty good that we can find others talking about my great greats, people who actually knew them. This is because (a) they absolutely did exist, and (b) they were moderately well known individuals. In fact, as it turns out, I have reams of this stuff (I maintain the genealogy for my family, so it's actually in my hands.) I've even got my great-great's state department paperwork. Awesome stuff. No crushing of citizen's rights at the border for them, no sir. But that's another lament.
Jesus, a miracle working dude of magical incarnation, existence, actions and exeunt... you could hardly be more stand-out in a crowd... well, as it turns out no one -- NO ONE -- from his time even noticed him enough to write down "cured a leper." That all came later. As the evidence to date indicates, anyway. Doesn't that strike you as... at least curious? Magic dude inspires NO reaction? And then there's the story, which indicates the opposite: he made quite a splash, according to the gospels. Something seems definitely wrong here.
Now let's consider: we know that there have been exactly zero instances of miracles or magic demonstrated under reasonable test conditions. So we tend to treat reports of them as imaginary, at least if we're smart. Now, we find a story about Some Magical Dude in a book that is stuffed with stories about miracles and magic. There's no other evidence that didn't essentially come from the same place as the book: The Christian cultists.
Now why, I ask you, should we give any more credence to these cultists than we do, for instance, to those who told us of Zeus and so forth? Using the same standards (that is, if the story is magical, it's nonsense), all supernatural issues are discarded. And as Jesus was very much a supernatural portion of the Christian narrative, he goes first, UNLESS we can find contemporaneous evidence that confirms his existence through other means. Reports by people who were born after him don't count; we want reports from his contemporaries. Even a receipt, for instance "cross, nails, spear, crown of thorns, crime: annoyed the heck out of ol' Pontius, name: Hayzuess of Nazereth" would be of great interest. But there is nothing at all. When we have contemporaneous evidence, we accept that part of the story has some relationship to reality; for instance, we know from many sources that there were Romans; the story contains Romans; there is a relationship there. What it is is something we can talk about, but we agree there is such a relationship of some kind.
Or, as was put most eloquently: Extraordinary events require extraordinary proof. My great-great-grandparents, lovely though they were, were not extraordinary. Jesus, however, is said to be so by the story. Consequently, our standards for proving he existed must be similar. Yet he fails even the most basic tests for existence: he left no mark on his contemporaries. So we don't, in fact, know he existed.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.