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Do you believe that is the normal punishment for such crime?
Well, according to the plea agreement, the sentencing guidelines range was 41 to 51 months. He got 41. So, yes.
The question isn’t what sentencing guidelines say. The question is what does the average person get. For example, certain protestors without authorization got into private areas for senators to protest Kavanaugh. Were those persons even arrested let alone stuck with 41 months? The context of these statutes do suggest some degree of violence.
Moreover the elements of the crime require that it be unauthorized. Yet here the defendant is thanking the police for letting them in and was escorted by 9 police officers when there was no one else around; these police officers even tried to unlock doors for him. This is at least a mitigating factor.
He should’ve gotten jail time but 3.5 years seems excessive given that other protestors probably received zero jail time and the context muddies the water.
I am not familiar with those specific people. Did they do so with the intent to disrupt an official proceeding? And, apparently 300 people were arrested at some point. Not sure if they are the ones you are referring to.
Where do you see that? The statute reads:
I think you might be thinking of another charge such as entering or remaining in a restricted building
Well, he did get the low end of the sentencing range. And, besides, the final offense level it calculated after mitigating and aggravating circumstances are added. Eg: According to the plea agreement, his agreed-upon offense level was reduced for acceptance of responsibility
You are missing the point. Sure, you can certainly make the case that Jacob Chansley’s actions were criminal if you look only at the bare letter of the law, and ignore context. The argument is, however, that there have been thousands of other people, hundreds in the specific example of Kavanaugh hearings, that also broke the bare letter of the law in roughly the same degree of egregiousness as Chansley, but none of whom even faced anything close to criminal trial, much less years in prison. The argument here is about malicious prosecution which is completely outside historical norms for the behavior.
Imagine, for example, that federal government found that some of these protesters are not US citizens, but permanent residents, and found that they are not carrying their green card, as required by law, and charged them with misdemeanor and put them for 30 days in jail. The letter of the law clearly allows that, but it would be completely outrageous, as this law is never enforced in any other circumstance, so it would be hard to see it as anything other than malicious political targeting.
Yes, I am familiar with the concept of selective prosecution (not malicious prosecution, which is a tort). But if you are going to claim that they "broke the bare letter of the law in roughly the same degree of egregiousness as Chansley," you should probably cite some evidence of what explicitly they did. Because it seems to me that attempting to prevent the peaceful transfer of power from the loser of an election to the winner is pretty egregious.
The bare letter of that particular law does not contain enhancements for “attempting to prevent the peaceful transfer of power from the loser of an election to the winner,” so I don’t see what that has to do with anything, much less whether the Kavanaugh protestors broke the letter of the law to the same degree.
?? I am not the one who raised the issue of "degree of egregiousness." Many laws can be violated in different ways, and although there is not a specific sentencing enhancement re attempting to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, there is no doubt that that is a relevant factor in sentencing. Sentences must individualized to the specific circumstances of the offense and of the offender, and:
Wisconsin v. Mitchell, 508 US 476, 485 (1993).
Moreover, obviously, "the consideration of the harm caused by the crime has been an important factor in the exercise of that [sentencing] discretion[.]" Payne v. Tennessee, 501 US 808, 820 (1991). And for attempts, that includes the harm that would have occurred, had the defendant been successful.
Yes, that is literally the whole complaint: either the exercise of prosecutorial discretion and subsequent punishment both fit the crime in this case, in which case they didn't in others (like the Kavanaugh disruption or the riots after Trump was elected), or they fit in those others and so didn't fit here.
Not only are there no enhancements for doing that, "the peaceful transfer of power," so a fortiori attempting to prevent it, is not a legally meaningful notion, because "the peaceful transfer of power" is a notion from political science, and AFAIK that notion and its analogues are found nowhere in American law. There are of course laws against sedition and whatnot, but a) those are not specific to transitions between administrations like "peaceful transfer of power" and b) Chansley wasn't charged with sedition, nor was it argued that he was attempting sedition.
The harm of disrupting an official proceeding? So, like, a few extra hours or maybe days of delay? Again, he wasn't being tried for "attempting to prevent the peaceful transfer of power" (which is not a statutorily defined crime), or for sedition, or anything of that sort. And if his sentence can be enhanced because prosecutors argue he merely intended or attempted (incredibly inefficaciously!) to do something which he wasn't even charged with attempting, then the same strictures should apply to the other examples that have been discussed in this thread.
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Count 2, 3, and 5.
And yes there was an intent to interfere with Kavanaugh deliberations.
Additionally, I imagine the looters who were attacking the White House got less than 3.5 years.
That is, there is massive discretion in charging and pleas. Citing the sentencing guidance is far downstream of the relevant decisions.
Yes, there is, and prosecutors always charge as much as possible, and most charges are eventually dropped when more facts come to the fore (and sometimes charges are added when more facts come to the fore). The entire allegation is that this guy was treated more harshly than is normal, but what the prosecutors did as in fact completely normal. That doesn't mean it is ok, but the claim that he was somehow was singled out is not supported by simply pointing to what was alleged in the indictment.
I cannot comment unless you can link to exactly what you are referring to.
Were they attempting to disrupt an official proceeding? It doesn't sound like it.
Honestly at this point I am once again detecting bad faith.
First, you sent authorization was not an element in the crime. It was in some of the charges. Moreover, there is a policy to overcharge to agree to a lesser plea. That didn’t seem to occur here.
Second, I have to link to a specific fact pattern? Were you not around when BK protestors were occurring? You don’t remember the facts?
Finally, you think violent repeated attacks against the White House (including using fireworks) that required a much larger police presence to repeal (because it was in fact much more violent compared to J6) and that involved arson is not comparable because it didn’t stop an official proceeding?
The central theme running through the above is that yes we can point to specific laws or specific decisions made by prosecutors to say this was unique. I’m not saying details don’t matter but it is also true that there are a shit ton of laws out there and prosecutors have a massive amount of leeway in what charges they pursue and what charges they don’t. Taken at a whole, focusing then on the specific indictment is a fools errand. Look at the totality of the circumstances.
Go back and watch the Washington DC riots. Go watch the J6 tapes (including the Tucker tapes). It is quite clear there are numerous worse actors compared to the Q shaman. Yet those worse actors do not appear to have been as heavily punished as the Q shaman. I know why that is. Do you?
No, I am afraid that I am the one who is detecting bad faith:
But not the one that he was convicted of. That is the ostensible complaint, right? That his conviction was somehow unjust. As I said, it is normal that "charges are eventually dropped when more facts come to the fore." That is what happened here, so what is the complaint? I have done work in criminal defense for a long time, and I don't know a single defense attorney who would complaint about this.
There is also a policy to charge as many crimes as possible, and then drop most of them. That is precisely what happened here.
I remember the general facts, but if in order to determine whether they were guilty of this very specific crime, I need more specific facts. If you are claiming that they committed identical crimes, then isn't it incumbent on you to explain how they are identical, in ways that are legally relevant?
Is this a joke? Yes, if it didn't stop an official proceeding then it is not the crime of disrupting an official proceeding, which would explain why they were not charged with disrupting an official proceeding. And the law defines "official proceeding" to include "a proceeding before the Congress" but not things going on in the White House.
You seem to have this all too common idea that what is "worse" is legally relevant. It isn't. What is relevant is whether the elements of a particular statues were violated. For example, if the shaman intended to prevent Congress from declaring Biden the winner, then he was guilty of attempted disruption of an official proceeding the moment he entered the capital, regardless how he got in or whether he prayed on the way in or not. US v. Farhane, 634 F. 3d 127 - (2nd Cir 2011) ["A conviction for attempt requires proof that a defendant (a) had the intent to commit the object crime and (b) engaged in conduct amounting to a substantial step towards its commission."].
And, for the record, plenty of Jan 6 rioters have been sentenced to far more than 41 months, as you would know if you spend 10 seconds googling.
Arson is almost a more serious crime with higher prison times. Ditto violently attacking the White House or for that matter literal sedition re CHAZ.
My point (that hopefully any lawyer would understand) is that selective prosecution can result in someone who committed Crime A being treated differently than Crime B regardless of what an objective reasonable person would assume even given the laws on the book. And my argument is given what transpired for almost an entire year before and then the videos that have emerged here it paints a picture of selective prosecution (including certain choices about what charges to bring so as to reduce the potential penalty).
You keep trying to focus on the specific facts to say “similarly situated people end up in a similarly situated place and thereby no bias” while starting the analysis after the prosecution has exercised extreme discretion. My point is you need to start before the extreme discretion.
Once more you can have the last word as I grow tired of speaking with you.
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No, but do you believe that the official 12th-amendment electoral vote count is the normal official proceeding for such crime?
No but it doesn’t seem to me much worse compared to say interfering with the advice and consent for a SCOTUS justice.
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