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The New Coffee Room

  1. TNCR
  2. General Discussion
  3. Lawyer up, guys.

Lawyer up, guys.

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  • MikM Mik

    @Catseye3 said in Lawyer up, guys.:

    Oftentimes, charges which strike people as obvious are not brought because of some perceived difficulty with prosecuting them successfully. Lots of time and revenue wasted, lots of judges pissed off, and if double jeopardy attaches, the accused walks free altogether. Prosecutors often decide to go for the lesser charge, like employing an incendiary device instead of attempted murder, and a greater hope of success.

    Yep. It all depends on how the attempted murder statute is written, and I suspect it has to do with intent.

    Yep:

    "In most jurisdictions, attempted murder charges consist of two elements:

    The offender took some action towards killing another person
    The offender’s act was intended to kill a person"

    George KG Offline
    George KG Offline
    George K
    wrote on last edited by
    #15

    @Mik said in Lawyer up, guys.:

    "In most jurisdictions, attempted murder charges consist of two elements:

    The offender took some action towards killing another person
    The offender’s act was intended to kill a person"

    In the context of Floyd, did the officer take action toward killing another person? Yeah, probably, but that's not for us to decide.

    Was the offender's act intended to kill a person? Did the cop intend to kill Floyd? I'd guess not.

    "Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08

    The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.

    1 Reply Last reply
    • RainmanR Offline
      RainmanR Offline
      Rainman
      wrote on last edited by
      #16

      There are rumors of a backstory, the cop knew Floyd. One thing I read was that they were both security guards some years ago.

      So, if true, there may be a motive, something to prove which went too far (?)

      1 Reply Last reply
      • George KG Offline
        George KG Offline
        George K
        wrote on last edited by George K
        #17

        "Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08

        The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.

        1 Reply Last reply
        • 89th8 Offline
          89th8 Offline
          89th
          wrote on last edited by
          #18

          Criminal morons.

          1 Reply Last reply
          • HoraceH Offline
            HoraceH Offline
            Horace
            wrote on last edited by
            #19

            I am sure they felt and feel righteous. And I am sure they will not lack for friends and supporters after this is all over.

            Education is extremely important.

            1 Reply Last reply
            • George KG Offline
              George KG Offline
              George K
              wrote on last edited by
              #20

              "Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08

              The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.

              1 Reply Last reply
              • MikM Away
                MikM Away
                Mik
                wrote on last edited by
                #21

                They’re what we in Ohio call well and truly screwed. By their own hand.

                “I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” ~Winston S. Churchill

                1 Reply Last reply
                • taiwan_girlT Offline
                  taiwan_girlT Offline
                  taiwan_girl
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #22

                  No sympathy for them at all.

                  1 Reply Last reply
                  • George KG Offline
                    George KG Offline
                    George K
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #23

                    Plenty of sympathy here:

                    https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/lawyers-arrested-molotov-cocktail-nyc-protest.html

                    But to work within that system is to understand just how capricious and brutal criminal justice can be — the enormous latitude given to prosecutors, the deference extended to judges and juries, and the procedural protocols and professional ethics that often merely cover for the status quo. And when a president and his advisers seem to regard the law as an obstacle course; when an attorney general metes out favors, not justice; and when immigrant children are held in cages and men are killed on video by police, some lawyers may want to embrace a more flexible definition of “lawless.” As recently as a few years ago, even a progressive-minded lawyer might have regarded fervent, visible participation in a political protest as professionally unbecoming. Today, some of Mattis and Rahman’s friends may concede in private that throwing a Molotov cocktail represents a lapse in judgment, but none are willing to discuss the degree to which their friends may have been ethically, professionally, morally, or legally out of bounds. Instead, they emphasize that violence against government property, especially in the midst of political upheaval, is not the same as violence against a person; that the prosecution of their friends for an act of what amounted to political vandalism is far more extreme than the crime itself; that it amounts to a criminalization of dissent and reflects a broader right-wing crusade against people of color and the progressive left — and, as such, demonstrates precisely the horror of the system they were out in the streets that night to protest. There is a version of the Rahman and Mattis story in which they are civil-rights heroes, even martyrs, instead of professionals who crossed a line.

                    These are people the least deserving of this kind of treatment, their friends say, people who are unfailingly kind, gentle, and decent. Rahman gave a piece of her apartment floor in Athens, Greece, where she was working during the migrant crisis, to a queer Syrian refugee in an abusive relationship; Mattis turned around on his way to vacation to sit by a friend’s hospital bed after she’d suffered a stillbirth. After college, Mattis worked for Teach for America in New Orleans and later won a prize for his pro bono work helping a single mother get child support. Rahman worked in Northern Ireland and on behalf of hill-tribe people in Thailand and was a student of South African apartheid. Over the past year, she started attending Friday-night meetings of an informal Sufi spiritual group and had recently given a short talk to a Muslim women’s group about the sacredness of every single life, including those of animals — which is why she tried to be a vegetarian although sometimes fell short. She joked that she was a “slackaterian” or “vegetrying.”

                    “My heart — and I speak for many of our friends — my heart has been breaking,” says Tabatha Robinson, who met Mattis through Prep for Prep and has just graduated from Harvard Law. When Robinson was a teenager, Mattis would travel from Princeton to her New Jersey high school to watch her ballet recitals because she’d confessed to him her dream of becoming a ballerina. “What college boy shows up at their friend’s high-school ballet recitals?” She starts to cry. “Forty-five years to life? Are you kidding me? I want a world in which our sentencing doesn’t look like this.”

                    Mattis and Rahman are not, nor have they ever been, a couple, their friends say. The press is painting the night of May 29 as this “weird Bonnie and Clyde situation,” says someone close to Rahman. “It’s so freaking ridiculous. Colin is like a cute, lovable baby.” What Mattis and Rahman do share are life circumstances that set them apart from their friends, most of whom were raised with more privilege. Each of them lost parents comparatively young. Rahman’s father died suddenly when she was 23; Mattis’s died in a stabbing on St. Vincent when he was in law school, and his mother, a powerful presence in his life — and a fervent Christian — died last summer. So they both know early grief and loss, and as the responsible, high-achieving adult children of immigrant parents, they stepped in to shoulder more than their share of the family obligations, while their peers were far more carefree. Rahman looked after her mother, doing the shopping and ferrying her to doctor’s appointments. Mattis took over the raising of his mother’s three foster children after her death. Their relationship is more “like brother and sister,” says Salmah Rizvi, who co-hosted the birthday party where they met. “Like, they take care of each other.”

                    "Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08

                    The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.

                    1 Reply Last reply
                    • MikM Away
                      MikM Away
                      Mik
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #24

                      I don't care if they were Ghandi and Mother Theresa. They threw an incendiary bomb into an occupied police car.

                      “I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” ~Winston S. Churchill

                      taiwan_girlT 1 Reply Last reply
                      • L Offline
                        L Offline
                        Loki
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #25

                        But but but but but...... so interesting that people of a certain ideology that are so full of hubris and judgement suddenly say but but life is complicated and there are so many mitigating factors and don’t be so quick to judge. Hahaha.

                        MikM 1 Reply Last reply
                        • markM Offline
                          markM Offline
                          mark
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #26

                          When they are found guilty, lock em up!

                          1 Reply Last reply
                          • L Loki

                            But but but but but...... so interesting that people of a certain ideology that are so full of hubris and judgement suddenly say but but life is complicated and there are so many mitigating factors and don’t be so quick to judge. Hahaha.

                            MikM Away
                            MikM Away
                            Mik
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #27

                            @Loki said in Lawyer up, guys.:

                            But but but but but...... so interesting that people of a certain ideology that are so full of hubris and judgement suddenly say but but life is complicated and there are so many mitigating factors and don’t be so quick to judge. Hahaha.

                            Absurd, isn't it? Totally Bizarro world.

                            “I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” ~Winston S. Churchill

                            1 Reply Last reply
                            • MikM Mik

                              I don't care if they were Ghandi and Mother Theresa. They threw an incendiary bomb into an occupied police car.

                              taiwan_girlT Offline
                              taiwan_girlT Offline
                              taiwan_girl
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #28

                              @Mik said in Lawyer up, guys.:

                              I don't care if they were Ghandi and Mother Theresa. They threw an incendiary bomb into an occupied police car.

                              Exactly. They may actually be very nice people. Sometimes, very nice people do very stupid things. And then they have to have the consequence for their very stupid thing.

                              HoraceH 1 Reply Last reply
                              • jon-nycJ Offline
                                jon-nycJ Offline
                                jon-nyc
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #29

                                Car was not occupied which will make a big difference at sentencing.

                                You were warned.

                                AxtremusA 1 Reply Last reply
                                • MikM Away
                                  MikM Away
                                  Mik
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #30

                                  Oh? That could..if they were just blowing up an empty car that they KNEW was empty.

                                  I’d likely cut six months off their sentence. Nineteen and a half would be ok.

                                  “I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” ~Winston S. Churchill

                                  1 Reply Last reply
                                  • taiwan_girlT taiwan_girl

                                    @Mik said in Lawyer up, guys.:

                                    I don't care if they were Ghandi and Mother Theresa. They threw an incendiary bomb into an occupied police car.

                                    Exactly. They may actually be very nice people. Sometimes, very nice people do very stupid things. And then they have to have the consequence for their very stupid thing.

                                    HoraceH Offline
                                    HoraceH Offline
                                    Horace
                                    wrote on last edited by Horace
                                    #31

                                    @taiwan_girl said in Lawyer up, guys.:

                                    @Mik said in Lawyer up, guys.:

                                    I don't care if they were Ghandi and Mother Theresa. They threw an incendiary bomb into an occupied police car.

                                    Exactly. They may actually be very nice people. Sometimes, very nice people do very stupid things. And then they have to have the consequence for their very stupid thing.

                                    I think there's an old saying that good people doing bad things requires religion. In fact, what it requires is righteousness. These days the most righteous of us have been laughing at religion for generations.

                                    Education is extremely important.

                                    1 Reply Last reply
                                    • jon-nycJ jon-nyc

                                      Car was not occupied which will make a big difference at sentencing.

                                      AxtremusA Offline
                                      AxtremusA Offline
                                      Axtremus
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #32

                                      @jon-nyc said in Lawyer up, guys.:

                                      Car was not occupied which will make a big difference at sentencing.

                                      Car occupied ==> assault, may even be attempted murder
                                      Car unoccupied ==> vandalism, property damage

                                      I suppose that is material difference, especially if the perpetrators knew at the time whether the car was occupied or not.

                                      1 Reply Last reply
                                      • jon-nycJ Offline
                                        jon-nycJ Offline
                                        jon-nyc
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #33

                                        The article implied they did but that could just be part of the political topspin of the piece.

                                        You were warned.

                                        1 Reply Last reply
                                        • MikM Away
                                          MikM Away
                                          Mik
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #34

                                          They did not spray paint the car. That would be vandalism. They threw an explosive, incendiary bomb into it. If the gas tank blew it could have been a much larger, more dangerous explosion.

                                          “I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” ~Winston S. Churchill

                                          AxtremusA 1 Reply Last reply
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