In late, midnight reading, good news…
Man who flung footlong at Feds found “not guilty” of assault.
The first charge, filed as a felony was not vinegar-ous enough of a charge to carry an indictment. It was later resubmitted as a misdemeanor, leaving the defendant in a pickle. When asked about the whole thing, Dunn was quoted as saying, “For the prosecution to re-file charges was just plain vindictive, and honestly, one cold cut …”
Tripler
No need to ketchup on the news, its all right here.
It is incredible how low journalism standards have fallen. There is no mention of what the felonious sandwich was. Honey Mustard BBQ combo perhaps. It sounds shady.
The gyro we all need today.
If only there were Subway to decide whether this was a good case to prosecute.
Lettuce all rejoice that justice was done!
I’m torn on the verdict. It was still assault … if you throw a cup of water on me you have legally assaulted me … so why wasn’t this assault?
It was against an ICE agent so F the Gestapo?
It didn’t cause physical harm?
It didn’t cause fear in the agent?
Subway sandwiches suck?
It probably did technically meet the definition of assault, but the jury made the rightful determination this was too ludicrous to convict, regardless of the actual law.
If you throw a cup of water at someone and they see you doing it that’s assault whether or not the water hits, but if the water hits them without them having been made afraid of it happening first, for example if you throw the cup of water from behind or while they are asleep, that’s battery.
This is obviously more applicable than my nitpick above and the real reason the charges failed.
while historically this has been a distinction, many jurisdictions have merged the two into a single offense
(Added a period so Discourse won’t clip the quote)
Fair enough, they are still split here in California but I have no idea what the status is in DC
The jury members were heroes. I understand that the case went awry when it was shown that the sub did not explode as was alleged and that only a bit of onion wound up on the cop’s badge.
I don’t know, but clearly the guy wished it had extra pig.
This. It was an excellent use of jury nullification by the people of DC.
Whatcha know a check and/or balance in the US system actually works as a check on tryanny. It’s a small win but I’ll take it
Or more appropriately for this thread, “the case went a rye”.
& if it’s charged water then it’s hydroelectric battery 
The use of awry was intentional.
If I had a pumpernickel for every pun in this thread…
I don’t think this was jury nullification. According to Kevin Underhill, Dunn was charged with violating 18 U.S.C. § 111(a)(1), which says that anyone who “forcibly assaults, resists, opposes, impedes, intimidates, or interferes with” a federal officer is committing a crime. The issue apparently revolved around whether the sandwich assault was “forcible”. The defense argued “A footlong from Subway could not and certainly did not inflict any bodily harm. Throwing a sandwich is not a forcible offense.” The jury apparently agreed.
Not a surprise coming from you, you said as much 3.5 years ago.
I think Underhill’s analysis is basically correct:
The report says Dunn was charged with “assaulting, resisting, opposing, impeding, intimidating, and interfering with a federal officer,” which probably means a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 111(a)(1). Under the statute, those things have to be done “forcibly.” Probably that is only meant to exclude acts that don’t involve physical contact, like insults, although they have repeatedly and unconstitutionally arrested people for that too. But that adverb might give a sympathetic jury an excuse to find that a sandwich assault against someone in military gear is not all that “forcible.”
It’s not a completely ridiculous argument, but it’s fair to say you’re going to need a sympathetic jury to win with it.