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Notes -
Update on the Paul Kessler death from last week (link to Gattsurus post from last week's thread):
Police have arrested the Palestinian supporting computer science professor that allegedly swung a megaphone at Kessler; a pro-Israel counter protestor, resulting in the latter falling down and hitting his head leading to death.
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I know there was a fair bit of speculation around whether he would or would not be charged, but it seems like the cops think they might have enough evidence to make this stick (even though they are still asking people to come forward if they were a witness or have video). Either that or they've decided they'd better do everything they can to dodge the political consequences of not prosecuting with so much signal boosting from jewish advocacy groups.
@gattsuru linked an earlier post by @FCfromSSC that opines that Blue Tribers are less likely to face consequences of these sorts of scuffles. If that theory is correct than perhaps Jewish Zionists still rate higher than Palestinians on the progressive stack and in situations like this the lower ranking Blue Triber will face punishment more like the Red Tribe.
Also, if you're going to go to a protest and be a maskless speaker it seems like you should do whatever you can to avoid scuffling. Without a mask Alnaji didn't have the option of leaving the scene with his anonymity intact.
Can one of our resident legal minds tell me if $1 million bail is normal for this kind of charge?
Per this article, "At his later arraignment in Ventura County Court, Alnaji's bail amount was reduced to $50,000, and he was ordered to surrender his passports, Fox News Digital has learned."
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I am not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice, but I think it's high.
Ventura County's presumptive bail schedule is here. While that schedule is for initial arrests without a warrant, before seeing a judge, the 192(b) presumptive bail of 50,000 USD isn't meaningless as a motion around the typical case. By contrast, it's comparable to the original bail for the guy charged for the Ghost Ship fire (later reduced further between the first and second trial), and that was for three-dozen counts of involuntary manslaughter (albeit with an even less clear responsibility). There's been cases so clear-cut that judges just refuse to issue bail for involuntary manslaughter, but release on recognisance can be an option too.
There's a few different allowed reasons to upgrade bail, but most of them revolve around either ensuring the safety of the public, threats to witnesses, seriousness of the offense, or risk of flight. The combination of an older victim and further charges down the road would be the first place my mind would go.
The schedule also calls for an additional $50k for the allegation that he personally inflicted great bodily injury.
That being said:
I thought the procedure in California had the arrest warrants include bail? I guess that'd be magistrate rather than judge, though.
Yeah, but that is what I meant by a default amount. I don't know that judges are even bound by law at that stage. As a practical matter, they can do what they want, because that issue is probably never litigated; the arraignment occurs very soon after arrest -- within 48 hours of arrest if the defendant remains in custody -- that any challenge to the bail amount will be a challenge to the amount set at the arraignment.
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https://www.lacourt.org/division/criminal/pdf/felony.pdf
Offered for reference at a nearby municipality. Here, all life sentences, the appropriate bail is listed as $1mm. Manslaughter would typically be lower, but Enhancements are offered for "hate crime" and "elderly victim" so between a little bit of this and a little bit of that, it's not shockingly high.
In a lot of places, judges have pretty much plenary power to set bail anyway.
But only if those are alleged, which they do not seem to be. Plus, the elderly victim enhancement applies only to "crime[s] enumerated in Penal Code sections 667.9-667.10", and neither battery nor manslaughter is listed there.
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