3d Cir., 2-1, no QI for police officer who slammed an unarmed eighteen year-old into a wall and then the ground when he argued back over being stopped on suspicion of underage purchase of tobacco. www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/18285…
Couple things here. First, as noted in the above pic, the dashcam video was so important to this outcome because it established the facts beyond doubt. And still it wasn't enough for the dissenting judge.
Second, once again we have a police-public interaction that should never have happened in the first place. Here's the timeline of the twenty-minute event:
(1) Officer is surveilling store. (2) The young men decline to talk to her. This mere decision not to talk with her *heightens her suspicion enough* that she sits them down on the sidewalk and makes them turn out thier pockets. (3) No contraband discovered.
(4) Now, though, her blood is up, and one of the young men doesn't have his ID, but he does have tobacco. Huzzah for the officer, now she can say she's worried about underage purchase of tobacco.
(5) She throws down his ID and steps on it to prevent his brother form picking it up. WTF? (6) Things are getting heated. One brother is arguing with the newly-arrived backup that this is harassment. (He's right.) (7) Two steps forward, and he's slammed to the wall and pavement.
NONE OF THIS SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED.
You're imagining it. The fact is that more people are covering qualified immunity cases than used to.
Dissenting Judge Phipps argues that the relevant right here not to be taken to the ground during an investigative stop was not clearly established bc there hasn't been a sufficiently analogous case.
He also would define the right with more specificity:
Hmm, yes, I am rather having a hard time finding a "shoved backward into a vertical structure while not losing his footing" case . . .
The last batch of Michigan fake electors has been arraigned.
They are charged with forgery, conspiracy to commit election forgery, and publishing a counterfeit record—namely, the false electoral certificate they sent to D.C. as part of Trump's scheme. cnn.com/2023/08/10/pol…
Here's a copy of the fake elector certificate the false electors from Michigan sent to D.C.
There are several lies in this document. Not only were they lying about being the 2020 electors from Michigan, they also lied that they "convened and organized in the State Capitol." In fact, they were turned away by the Michigan State Police when they tried to enter.
Okay, I've tweeted a lot about the § 371 count, conspiracy to defraud the U.S., which is, I think, the easiest charge to prove. One of those threads is QTed here.
But let's talk about the second count, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.
For the second count, DOJ will have to prove Trump (1) knowingly (2) entered into an agreement (3) to obstruct an official proceeding (4) corruptly and (5) at least one overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy.
The sticking point for this one will be what "corruptly" means. There's not a lot of precedent discussing it. The DC Cir. has this exact question already before it bc of the Jan. 6 cases.
This continues to fail to grapple with Tanner, Dennis, Haas, Hammerschmidt.
Trump is not charged with wire fraud or honest services fraud. And clear (and binding on the lower courts) precedent says that conspiracy to defraud the U.S. does not require loss of money or property.
It is true that SCOTUS has in recent years pared back the meaning of fraud in wire fraud and honest services fraud prosecutions. But they have not altered conspiracy to defraud the U.S., which goes back A LOT further than the wire fraud or honest service fraud statutes.
Ninety-nine years ago SCOTUS explained that conspiracy to defraud the U.S. does not require "property or pecuniary loss."
The claim that Jack Smith has offered a "novel" or "unprecedented" theory of the conspiracy fraud crime is simply and obviously false.
He is charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceedings, obstruction of an official proceeding, and civil rights conspiracy. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Co-Conspirator 1 is Rudy Giuliani.
Co-Conspirator 2 is John Eastman.
Co-Conspirator 3 is Sidney Powell.
Co-Conspirator 4 is Jeffrey Clark.
Co-Conspirator 5 is Kenneth Chesebro.
Co-Conspirator 6 is ???
I see conservative pundits suggesting that Trump was just exercising free speech in falsely claiming to have won the election, but they're not really getting to the meat of the fraudulent electors scheme.
"But some of them got away with it, and FBI is, like, finding all the Jan. 6 rioters n stuff."
Uh, okay??
"It's not fair!"
Did the Jan. 6 rioters post their rioting on Facebook?
"..."
Yeah.
"How dare these state and local agencies not hunt down every person who under cover of darkness and chaos rioted!!!"
Same people: "How dare the FBI find these people who rioted in broad daylight and then posted their crimes to social media! This is a double standard!!!!"
The fun thing about being a pundit is they don't have to struggle with things like "evidence" or "burden of proof" or "the rule of law" or any of the hard things that might crop up during chaotic multi-night riots.
Instead, they happily whine that not enough people are in jail.
Here's why it's frustrating when, for example, Gov. DeSantis says he would pardon Jan. 6 rioters for "technical violations of the law" if Summer 2020 rioters didn't get prosecuted.
First, as we've seen, the hypothetical isn't actually true, but he won't tell his followers that.
But second, most Summer 2020 riots were state crimes, not federal crimes. Of course DOJ didn't prosecute state crimes, that's not DOJ's job, that's state prosecutors.
This stuff about "uneven application of justice" doesn't involve DOJ's area of authority at all.
And again, to come back to the first part, where the Summer 2020 rioters actually committed federal crimes, like vandalizing federal courthouses, DOJ, in fact, did prosecute.