After reading the nice Wikipedia article on the subject, apparently defense attorneys [i]can’t[/i] point out to a jury that nullification is an option as of a 1972 court decision.

It seems the cards were miserably stacked against Dr. Watts.

Google it. You’ll see exactly what i am talking about. Their border agents are notorious, especially in border states like the one I live in.

Looking ahead, if the evidence is as one sided as I am led to believe by the discussion here (i.e.,Mr. Watts simply and nonthreateningly refused to obey a lawful order to remain in his car, and nothing more)then his case may have a chance on appeal based on the sufficiency of the evidence. And if the law under which he was convicted makes it a crime simply to “refuse to follow lawful commands” he may have a challenge to the agents’ actions on constitutional grounds,under the authority of cases like Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47 (1979), and Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352, 362 (1983), as an unlawful seizure of person. I forsee, as a general matter, that the problem with an appeal on fourth amendment grounds will be: 1). that law enforcment has an important interest (security) in demanding that people remain in their automobiles during border searches, and 2). the Supreme Court has sometimes limited due process protections in border cases under the so-called “plenary power doctrine” that governs much of immigration law, see Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678, 693 (2001);Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U.S. 228 (1896).

But please, enough of this nonsense about the United Police States. The comparison to China, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, Oceania, Nazi Germany, and whatever the hell else, are insulting and poorly informed. Mr. Watts has access to an attorney, a neutral judicial decisionmaker, the right to trial by jury, appeal, habeas corpus review, proportionate sentencing. Those are only the procedural protections that we afford criminal defendants. We in the United States have devoted more time and effort than any country on the planet to resolving the issue of an individual’s right say “no” to the police, and the underlying questions of liberty vs. security.

Actually, if I have this right, Peter was on his way out of the country. Not IN. OUT. The border had instituted new searches on the way out, a fact they hadn’t widely publicised, and his car was waved over. He states in his most recent blog post under the Motive section (5) that this was the case, and that further more the officers DID NOT speak to him before beginning the search. Which was unusual in and of itself.

I really don’t think I want to risk ever going back into the United States ever again.

I hate it when I’m mildly inconvenienced by someone being assaulted in front of me.

Yes the justice system failed him in this instant, but, it’s the best we have right now and we have to try to make it work.

Try having this same conversation with China, Myanmar, or Saudi Arabia taking the role of “biggest police state” in a public forum in those countries, and then report back to us with your findings.

Remember, legally, if the president says that you’re a terrorist, you can be disappeared for the duration of the current unpleasantness. All of those laws still apply. Beloved and Respected Comrade Leader hasn’t changed a damn one of those laws, and he’s not gonna.

Face the truth: nobody who mattered gave a damn’ when black people were beaten up on the street: their rights, their dignity, and even their lives were of no account to the pale doughy masses of Middle America – not then, not now, and perhaps not ever: I have yet to be convinced that a belief in the equality of man has taken root outside a narrow intelligencia in the coastal cities.

When the spluttering has stopped and your blood pressure goes down a bit, go and ask a ‘birther’ – they outnumber bloggers and the tiny, tiny minority of college-educated citizens with an interest in news outside the self-centred and self-censored mainstream media.

What we all failed to realise – bloggers and intelligentsia, suburbanites, trailer trash and all – was that white middle-Americans are closer to being colour-blind than we knew, and closer than they ever realised themselves. We’ve learnt today that if the authorities stop a white man’s car, swagger up and make a show of demanding his obedience, and beat the crap out of him for being uppity – or for no reason at all, because they can – it doesn’t matter to other white people.

How’s that for colour-blindness?

If the goons in uniform enjoy the collaboration of the police and the courts in perjuring their way through a tissue of lies – so casual and inept that it is surely an expression of contempt for justice and an utterly convincing demonstration of their belief in privileged impunity – then why should anybody mind?

If the press ignore it – and they have indeed, just try googling for the case and see how pitifully-few hits you get in the mass media – it seems self-evident that white men being beaten up is no more news than black men being beaten up has ever been. It does not matter to anyone who matters: not to anybody of substance, influence and power; and not to any body of citizens who might matter by sheer force of numbers.

And you can all consider this: however hard we all protest, and point to honourable exceptions to the “whites don’t care” canard, there’s no shortage of contemporary cases of brutality against the black man left uninvestigated and unpunished. Why should it be different for white men?

Sit down and think it over, and realise that it was never about race, for all too many cops and goons and thugs; it was all about the opportunity to dominate, to swagger, and commit an act of violence without the fear of retribution. The Brave men of the TSA are little different to the billy-club wielding Bulls of the Deep South, or to the rabble of the Klan: it’s just that the TSA have realised that real people are perfectly legal game, too, and that the Police and the courts and the jury and the press are on-side.

Keep thinking: the latter-day TSA sound a lot like the mixture of swagger and cowardice that ruled the schoolyard in our formative years: bullies acting in the certainty that they will face no consequences – and bullies must stamp down, hard, on anyone who questions their authority. But if they were cowardly, what of their subjects? And what of those whom bullies left alone, unsure if they could really risk the fight? We’ve all learned from an early age that evil offers three easy choices – gleeful participation, submission in suffering, or silent acquiescence; and we learn nothing truly new in studying the TSA.

What we didn’t really need to learn is that cowardice and comfort in injustice turns out to be colour-blind, and it is demonstrably true that a selection of twelve just men, upright citizens and peers of the accused, will not only walk on by, or acquiesce, but will actively collaborate in beating, framing and convicting citizens of *any* race and colour and creed and background.

So why shouldn’t the United States end up with a Security Apparatus of TSA (or Feds, or Police, or private security, or local militia) like the hated, violent and venal ‘cops’ in Lagos? Sit down and list the reasons why you think it couldn’t happen, then ask yourselves: do any of these reasons actually stack up as an effective defence of your freedoms when these ‘reasons’ didn’t protect Peter Watts?

A final question: is there any way of knowing just how many people have been beaten by the TSA? You don’t know, I don’t know, and no-one has the means of finding out: would anybody care to bet a Dollar that the TSA could spend all day beating up a line of blameless joes – just like you and me and Peter Watts – outside the offices of CNN, Fox News and every paper published in Washington and New York, and the only place ‘reporting’ it would be a tiny corner of the blogosphere.

Two words: “Jury nullification”

If I think a law is unjust, I don’t care if the plaintiff violated it. I won’t vote to convict.

When I have been questioned in court concerning being a prospective juror, I tell them, truthfully, that I have great difficulty sitting in judgment of another person. Either the prosecution or the defense challenges my selection, and I am excused.

But really – “emotionally hold the rest of the people in line behind him hostage”? This happens every time I stop at a store. Should the authorities start assaulting every one who wastes my time while they buy scratch tickets?

I share your feelings of funkitude. This whole incident has made me sick. Before Friday I took one consolation: that this would all get sorted out and someone in a position of authority would apologize to Peter for what happened. Well, so much for that.

I feel so ashamed of my country right now. I’m up at 4:30 AM and can’t sleep. I know America has done much worse in the name of keeping me safe, it’s just that this time, we did it to a friend of mine.

If Peter has the grounds and stomach for an appeal, he definitely has my financial support. I have a request for Boing Boing: please, to the extent that you can, keep updating us on this. I assume the court transcripts will available at some point, and the bridge video. It sounds to me that this Officer Beaudry lied in his written report concerning the incident. As an American, I should at least be able to complain to his chain of command over that.

I don’t want to go to G-Point this summer. I don’t want to subject myself to the uncertainties of an international border — any border — but more importantly, I don’t know how to face David and Laurie — and Peter, if he’s not sitting in a US prison. (Just writing that sentence made me gag.)

Where do I go to get my country back?

Steve
thehappyengineer

There is an organization called the Fully Informed Juries Association which has been fighting to get this information out for close to a quarter-century now. Judges like their power and won’t change their ways voluntarily. Legislators are afraid of being seen as “soft on crime” and won’t back up our common-law rights with statutory requirements.

The only way to preserve this last, thin reed of justice in our system is for word to spread far and wide that, despite what our dissembling judges may assert, jurors do have the right to judge the law and its application, as well as the facts, and refuse to convict if doing so creates and injustice.

This is actually incorrect, juries are intentionally led to believe they are legally compelled to follow jury instructions, but they are actually not. A jury may rule in any way it sees fit for any reasons it sees fit. This is actually one of the reasons for a jury, as a jury can prevent the enforcement of a law it sees as unjust. For more information look up “jury nullification.”