Letters to the Editor
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po-TAY-toe/po-TAA-toe
It's using lethal violence to force your personal philosphy on other otherwise good people acting legally.
Terrorism, arson, dangerous indifference, attempted murder, facism, whatev.
It's wrong, illegal, lethal, arrogant, dangerous and controlling. I don't really care what you call it. It must not be allowed by anyone, liberal or conservative. Call it flying banannas for all I can. Just. Stop. It.
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brightstar65 on logical equivalence
When a man or woman commits some other act of violence it is suddenly good?
"Is not terrorism" is not the same as "is good."
And since the discussion here is (in part) about the blanket use of anti-terrorism laws to prosecute enemies of corporate interest, that's an important fact to get tight with before proceeding.
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To Amerigo
3) If you have heard everything and you still honestly don't know who is telling the truth, you vote 'not guilty'.
And that's the point. Regardless of whether she actually did it or not, if I was put into those shoes, from what I know now, I don't have enough evidence to state flat out she's guilty. Even if she did do it, the duty of a juror at that point is to say 'not guilty'.
Now did she or did she not do it? Who knows, and that's the problem. Now could there have been a real reason that the whole '65 miles away, 45 minutes before' thing could have been explained? Maybe. But it raises doubts, in my mind enough that I wouldn't say she was guilty.
Like someone pointed out, there's a problem if there is a real lingering doubt overhead, but jurors are pressured into a guilty verdict because 'it's what's wanted of them'.
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vermontague on what is terrorism
Anyone who assists someone to set off an incendiary device (essentially a bomb) in a university office is indeed a terrorist
So that's your definition of terrorism? "Setting off an incendiary device?"
That's how you would like to see the single most heinous crime we can imagine — one that permits extrajudicial investigation and arrest, that warrants torture and even secret murder because of the extremity of the threat it apparently represents to our civilization — defined in our legal system?
"Setting off an incendiary device?"
Really?
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"war on terror"
The basic conundrum of a "war on terror" has been from the beginning: Who gets to decide who is a terrorist? Is not the prosecution of Briana Waters an "attempt to coerce a civilian population?" So are not the FBI and the prosecutors "terrorists" by their own definition? Defining 'terrorism' presents related problems; the US has had great difficulty defining it in a way that includes what the bad-guys do but excludes what we, the good-guys, (also) do. The result: broad (indeed, I would suggest, constitutionally overbroad) definitions are written and enacted, with the result that terrorism is what we say it is, and terrorists are who we say they are, and if you disagree with our designations -- well, then, you must be a terrorist too.
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@jebldmm
The fact that the jury did not convice on the more serious charges is telling. If this woman was guilty of participating in this serious crime, why did they not convict her of everything? I suspect that the jury was compromising. They weren't sure of her guilt, but they didn't want to let a possible terrorist out onto the street, so they compromised and found her partially guilty.
Or they believed she was there, so they convicted her of arson, but they were deadlocked on the charges of whether she helped to build or transport an explosive device. Some of the jurors apparently favored a conviction on the latter charges, and some didn't.
Incidentally, how do you feel about your jury case now? Do you think justice was served? If the jury had convicted, do you think you would be regretting it to this day?
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Amerigo and you examples of jury behavior
There is a case where your examples don't fit, and I assume what the person you were replying to was referring to - jury nullification. When you believe that the person committed the acts but either don't believe that they should be punished because you support their cause or you believe the government process is so corrupt that you vote not guilty anyway. However, unless you lie in jury selection, that's supposed to winnow these folks out.
For the people who are upset that some of her alleged co-conspirators testified against her for reduced sentences - happens all the time. They would have been asked on either direct, or cross, depending on whether the prosecution wanted to avoid having the defense bring it up first, whether they made a deal for the testimony. The defense would have accused them of perjury in return for the testimony - regardless of whether the prosecution objected and it was upheld, the jury would have heard it - unless the lawyer was brain dead. As Amerigo pointed out, it is then up to the jury to decide who they thought was telling the truth.
I think people just have a basic difference of opinion here. Some people believe some or all of the following (a) some actions will never be criminal because they support a cause some people believe in; (b) if someone claims the government railroaded someone, you were omniscient and they did, and don't dig any further, especially if you support the cause; (c) women are apparently not, at all, responsible for any criminal actions they take part in if they are young, reasonably attractive, support causes people like and can claim they were 'duped' by a man; and (d) if a jury renders a verdict you didn't like, even if you weren't there to see the evidence, they were stupid.
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@ikuiku and @no-dimocrat
ikuiku, I misspoke. I meant to say it was debatable whether it was TERRORISM. Obviously it was arson. Sorry for the confusion.
no-dimocrat, you are making my same point. If she WAS there and involved, even if it was just as a lookout, in most states she is just as guilty as the rest. I was being sarcastic about letting Charles Manson out...
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@ stackey-dackey: but it seems to me that the two woman who made a deal were probably equal to Waters in culpability
Let's clarify something: the two woman were plea bargaining - they pled guilty. Waters pled not guilty. We have an admission of guilt from the two informants as to their culpability and we also have the fact according to Ms. Tullis that "the government's case against Waters rested heavily on the testimony of two informants". They implicated Waters for a reduced sentence, one of them only after four or five interviews in which she hadn't.
That doesn't mean absolutely that Waters wasn't involved but you get it backwards when you say they "were probably equal to Waters in culpability". She may, in fact, have been unjustly accused.
But you're right to bring up the efficacy of the "roll over" method. The idea has been corrupted and rather than being utilized, especially in drug cases, to move up the food chain to nab "kingpins" it has become a way for people caught red-handed to reduce their sentences simply by implicating someone else which, besides easing their burden, also ensures more convictions for prosecutors.
Here's what Ofra Bikel producer of "Snitch" said in an interview:
What disturbed you the most about these laws?
A lot of things disturbed me. Starting with the fact that the only way to escape a huge sentence is to rat on someone, and ending with the fact that you don't have to have any drugs in evidence in order to be convicted on federal drug charges. Informants' testimony is enough. You can get 30 to life in prison because some people said they used to deal drugs with you, nothing more. This was very hard for me to accept. It made me think of all the things that we hated so much in the Soviet system: family members informing on family members, a friend rats on a friend. Now we are encouraged to do it, and we are doing it. We are quickly becoming a society of informants, and this can't be good for us.
You can check it out here:http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/snitch/