If you already know that your manual is something you can’t stand up and acknowledge in front of a jury, you should already know you’re on the wrong side.
(Shouldn’t that go without saying?)
Evidence that supports conviction is of course prejudicial. I don’t understand the legal argument here. Not asking you specifically, just confused. How can meaningful evidence be excluded because it makes the defendant look bad? “Your Honor, we move to have the video of my client shooting the victim and sawing off his head suppressed on the basis that it would prejudice the jury against my client.” Like, duh.
I mean, I get that something negative but unrelated can be excluded. If I’m on trial for tax evasion, a blog post about how I hate puppies is irrelevant and prejudicial, sure, fine. But these guys wanted to destroy American democracy and its machinery, they are on trial for taking action to do so, and their club materials are all about how they wanted to do this. What am I missing?
Because the manual is more than just how to destroy democracy. The misogynistic parts, the racist parts, and the idiotic parts are unrelated to the coup attempt.
I hope that the parts of the manual that are about destroying democracy are enough that the judge rules that it can be admitted. But I can certainly understand the defense attorney’s arguments, even if I don’t agree with them.
The above is a direct link to the aforementioned manual, in case someone did not click the link in the article.
The majority of it does not pertain to conspiracy to commit sedition.
on the surface, it does make one wonder how they would be taken seriously. A deeper reading does show a group looking for a cause and they did find one with trump. There is an interesting mishmash of philosophies in it.
The station 4 could relate to the trial.
I did “Spock eyebrow” at the use of the word uhuru.
One would think. Along with slop, slip, slap; don’t do anything you don’t want to see on the front page of news, are words by which to live.
So did I, they’re claiming to be Black Power Marxists?!
Yes, overall the manual has very little evidentiary value for this trial and a lot of unfair prejudice.
ER 403
The court may exclude relevant evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of one or more of the following: unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, wasting time, or needlessly presenting cumulative evidence.
SHARIA COURT? does any brother want to bring a grievance to the Sharia Court?
I know! It’s like a defendant in a bank robbery case wanting to exclude evidence that was found at their house that consisted of written plans of the bank layout, notes on how to get the money, and plans for the getaway, but included racist rants and idiotic comments.
“You can’t use that evidence because it clearly shows my client to be guilty!”
That was a startle the cat moment. The mishmash is stunning. I should’ve gone with the cult leader idea I had during the Great Recession.
I thought this initially as well. Then I started thinking, maybe they can just pull out the parts that demonstrate coup-like intent for the jury, so I tried to grab examples of those. And…I couldn’t really find any.
It’s full of proof these guys are assholes, but it isn’t a manual for overthrow of the government. Pretend you’re the prosecutor - what specific passages would you cite as evidence for sedition or a coup?
Confession: I don’t want to read it.
So I guess it’s like if the prosecution for a bank robbery wants to use a document full of racist and asshole shit, that has a bit in it that talks about maybe robbing a bank. The bank robbery bit is relevant, but it’s outweighed by the fact that the rest of the document shows the defendant to be a worthless piece of garbage.
That’s about it. We don’t put people in jail because they’re nasty scum. We can only put them in jail if the police and the prosecutor prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that they committed a criminal offence. Evidence that makes the jury dislike the accused, that does not help show that the accused did in fact commit a crime, is not admissible.
Previous thread on topic:
At the end of the Ashamed Boy Manifesto there’s a shout-out to “a Pride Boy in the White House” and I’m thinking - what, some GQP’er? - and turning out ot be one Lucian Wintrich, some fake news hack for the annoyingly-still-in-operation Gateway Pundit. Couple sentences later, a comedy tour is in the works! I can see that going over really big - scores of cities, nice venues.
Ima taking them totally out of context and holding them against you.
I also posted this in the Schadenfreude thread, so if you read it there, you can ignore this:
(gift link)
Proud ‘Boys’. Well that manual sure is adolescent. Do these guys have a tree house or what? The whole group acts like a bunch of rebellious tweens trying to act like what they think a grown-up is.
Only a small part.
And finally, to the parasites both on the streets and in the White House who want to attack us and take what we earn. To the trespassers who want to sabotage our family our culture and our way of life. You want a war? Well you’ve got one. To all of our enemies both high and low.
That potion is relevant. I don’t think anything else is.
Again, their name comes from a song from the Aladdin musical “Proud of Your Boy”, in which Aladdin sings about how he hopes his mother would be proud of him. It’s a very weird thing to glom onto and does suggest that they all have serious mommy issues by their own admission. Which would also explain their rather dysfunctional relationship with members of the opposite sex.
Don’t doubt that they may have mommy issues and they certainly are misogynistic. I very much doubt they put any thought into using the song. Sort of like the GOP (I think Reagan) using Bruce’s ‘Born In The USA’
They just found hidden camera video of the Oath Keepers pledge ceremony.