Slog Comments
Forty-Seven Days and Counting...
1
My understanding from a cursory look around once you started writing about this stuff is that another original purpose of the grand jury's secrecy and latitude of inquiry (since we're getting around to looking at that for context to this story, better late than never) was to protect jurors, the ordinariest of us - originally protect them from a vengeful monarch, but more lately from mobsters and such. And I do hope there's discussion around abuses of the grand jury system, but also its enduring value and how any attempt to reform it will have to be able to preserve its utility. There is still a baby in that bathwater, remember.
4
Posts like "lets take a critical look at our legal system like responsible citizens" or posts like "I am not a rabid knee-jerk-reactionary tit, who lacks any form of real world experience outside of my sheltered middle class life"?
Because you have as far back as I can remembered whined about the last of the two.
Because you have as far back as I can remembered whined about the last of the two.
5
@1 A Grand Jury is not made up of "the ordinariest of us." It is usually made up of people well versed in the legal system. Highly educated professionals.
I actually know Matt. He's a very low-key, really nice guy. Not a radical or extremist. Just a random guy who happened to have principals.
I actually know Matt. He's a very low-key, really nice guy. Not a radical or extremist. Just a random guy who happened to have principals.
6
@3 none of us take you seriously any more either, you twit.
Stay on that site with the funny pitchers of cats from now on.
Stay on that site with the funny pitchers of cats from now on.
8
@1 A Grand Jury is not made up of "the ordinariest of us." It is usually made up of people well versd in the legal system. Highly educated professionals.@5, here is some information for you to consider replacing that with. This is by Susan Brenner, the law professor who wrote a book called "Federal Grand Jury Practice". Good luck. http://campus.udayton.edu/~grandjur/faq/…
Prof. Brenner also wrote a pretty scathing indictment of the federal grand jury system's shortcomings, along with some ideas to fix it. If you're not tired of reading: http://campus.udayton.edu/~grandjur/rece…
9
@7 Wow! You sure showed him w/ your razor-sharp wit!
Stay tuned in to 5280's non-stop laugh riot retorts, sure to cower all your peers on the play ground. How many different versions of "I know you are but what am I?" will he come up w/?
Stay tuned in to 5280's non-stop laugh riot retorts, sure to cower all your peers on the play ground. How many different versions of "I know you are but what am I?" will he come up w/?
10
Ah. The brain trust speaks. We should all feel honored.
Read Gus' response above. If you can't say anything intelligent, you shouldn't bother. But then you'd have nothing to say at all, would you?
Read Gus' response above. If you can't say anything intelligent, you shouldn't bother. But then you'd have nothing to say at all, would you?
12
Meanwhile...
Plante has left Portland without answering questions, citing fear for her safety should she provide any answers. Said questions were coming, notably, from fellow anarchists. If anyone knows where she's gone, they're not talking.
The Committee Against Political Repression has withdrawn their support for her.
Any mention of her freedom, or even her name, appears to have become rather hilariously verboten in new posts on freeleah.org.
It's a good idea to sit down and think every once in a while about how the power of subpoena ought to be enforced, and it's nice that we're all taking the opportunity to do that.
But anarchists, naturally, don't give a damn about what sort of balance we as a society ought to seek in enforcing of a codified system of justice, what with their belief that we shouldn't have a legal code at all, let alone enforce it.
What seems to have them really fired up in these recent postings about Leah-Lynn Plante isn't the grand jury minutia (that's for mere liberals) so much as their strict "no snitches" code of silence, which presumably is meant to be autonomously (but definitely not optionally) observed by all True Anarchists.
Plante has left Portland without answering questions, citing fear for her safety should she provide any answers. Said questions were coming, notably, from fellow anarchists. If anyone knows where she's gone, they're not talking.
The Committee Against Political Repression has withdrawn their support for her.
Any mention of her freedom, or even her name, appears to have become rather hilariously verboten in new posts on freeleah.org.
It's a good idea to sit down and think every once in a while about how the power of subpoena ought to be enforced, and it's nice that we're all taking the opportunity to do that.
But anarchists, naturally, don't give a damn about what sort of balance we as a society ought to seek in enforcing of a codified system of justice, what with their belief that we shouldn't have a legal code at all, let alone enforce it.
What seems to have them really fired up in these recent postings about Leah-Lynn Plante isn't the grand jury minutia (that's for mere liberals) so much as their strict "no snitches" code of silence, which presumably is meant to be autonomously (but definitely not optionally) observed by all True Anarchists.
13
When the state can punish someone for knowing about a crime for more than the crime that was committed I believe they call that fascism.
14
@13
According to scant leaks and rampant speculation, one of the the crimes under investigation is crossing state lines to incite riot. Which is a federal felony with a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison and a fine of $10,000.
The resisters can only be held for the duration of the grand jury, a maximum of 18 months in WA, and can not be fined.
So however else you might feel about this clusterfuck, it doesn't sound like anyone will be punished more for knowing* than they would be for doing.
* (or more accurately, refusing to say whether or not they know)
According to scant leaks and rampant speculation, one of the the crimes under investigation is crossing state lines to incite riot. Which is a federal felony with a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison and a fine of $10,000.
The resisters can only be held for the duration of the grand jury, a maximum of 18 months in WA, and can not be fined.
So however else you might feel about this clusterfuck, it doesn't sound like anyone will be punished more for knowing* than they would be for doing.
* (or more accurately, refusing to say whether or not they know)
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