Lawyer up, guys.
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No sympathy for them at all.
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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.”
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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.
@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.
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I don't care if they were Ghandi and Mother Theresa. They threw an incendiary bomb into an occupied police car.
@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.
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@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.
@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.
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@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 damageI suppose that is material difference, especially if the perpetrators knew at the time whether the car was occupied or not.
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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.
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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.
@Mik said in Lawyer up, guys.:
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.
Good point. Upgrade "vandalism" to "arson."
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@jon-nyc said in Lawyer up, guys.:
Car was not occupied which will make a big difference at sentencing.
It’s too bad people have to have their own lives blown up so others think about it. Their careers are toast so the sentencing is just gilding the lily.
Oh and after all the schooling thinking it’s okay to blow up a police car, if that is a lapse in judgement...then everyone gets a pass. Even white supremists.
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@Mik said in Lawyer up, guys.:
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.
Good point. Upgrade "vandalism" to "arson."
@Axtremus said in Lawyer up, guys.:
@Mik said in Lawyer up, guys.:
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.
Good point. Upgrade "vandalism" to "arson."
Try terrorism.
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Someone goes to St. Andrews, Princeton, NYU gets hired by top law firm starting at 150k and decided one night to make Molotov cocktails to throw at something, anything and eventually a cop car. The narrative on him is his not privileged life and one indiscretion.
This is WOKE. You can’t make this shit up.
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@jon-nyc said in Lawyer up, guys.:
Car was not occupied which will make a big difference at sentencing.
It’s too bad people have to have their own lives blown up so others think about it. Their careers are toast so the sentencing is just gilding the lily.
Oh and after all the schooling thinking it’s okay to blow up a police car, if that is a lapse in judgement...then everyone gets a pass. Even white supremists.
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New York Attorneys Accused of Firebombing Police Car Given Generous Plea Deal
hey were facing domestic terrorism charges and the possibility of 30 years in jail. This week, the Biden Administration agreed to a massive reduction of the charges in a plea agreement that will likely result only in a couple years of jail time. What is particularly bizarre is that the plea agreement reduces an earlier plea agreement for a more serious offense.
The plea deal by the Justice Department is a breathtaking reduction in the charges and expected sentencing of the two lawyers.
Earlier, some of us were surprised that U.S. District Judge Margo Brodie upheld the $250,000 bail determination of U.S. Magistrate Judge Steven Gold. Prosecutors presented evidence that they two attorneys were trying to distribute Molotov cocktails and suggested that Mattis did not appear rational. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed Judge Brodie and the two attorneys were sent back to jail. (Rahman’s bail was paid for by friend and fellow attorney Salmah Rizvi, who served in the Defense Department and State Department during the Obama administration).
Notably, Rahman and Mattis pleaded guilty last year to one count of possessing and making an explosive device, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Now, however, they will be allowed to withdraw the earlier plea and instead pleaded guilty to conspiring to assemble the Molotov cocktail and damage the New York Police Department patrol car. That is a nosebleed of a drop in the severity and punishment for this violent attack.
