DOJ Racks Up 90% Failure Rate In Inauguration Protest Prosecutions, Dismisses Final Defendants

from the win-some,-lose-a-whole-lot-more dept

Mon, Jul 9th 2018 3:16am — Tim Cushing

The DOJ, after flailing wildly for most of the last 18 months, has dismissed the remaining defendants in its disastrous inauguration day protest prosecutions.

The US attorney's office in Washington, DC, announced Friday that it is dismissing charges against the remaining defendants charged in connection with anti-Trump demonstrations on Inauguration Day.

Police arrested 234 people on Jan. 20, 2017. Twenty-one people pleaded guilty. The final dismissal notice on Friday came after several trials in which prosecutors were unable to secure any convictions — defendants were either acquitted or jurors failed to reach a verdict.

The government still managed to land 21 convictions, even though its statement suggests it feels this isn't nearly enough, what with "$100,000 in damage to public and private property" occurring during the protests. It certainly isn't much considering the DOJ's original (human) dragnet held more than 200 arrestees.

But that wasn't the only dragnet the DOJ deployed. On its way to dismissing charges against 90% of the defendants, the DOJ also:

Demanded access to the identifying info of all 1.2 million visitors to the Disrupt J20 website
Demanded information from the accounts of 6,000 Facebook users
Claimed arrested protesters were "hiding behind the First Amendment"
Stated in court that the "beyond a reasonable doubt" jury instruction "doesn't mean too much"
Hid dozens of videos it planned to use as evidence from defendants
Attempted to prosecute journalists for attending the protests and documenting them
Still wants to be able to jail people for discussing protests/rioting, via broad conspiracy charges

This is how it ends for the DOJ, which has largely lost its bids to install a chilling effect via over-broad "rioting" prosecutions. While it's true property was damaged during the protests, rounding up a couple hundred protesters is the opposite of targeted prosecution. If the DOJ hadn't been shutdown in its attempt to amass personal information on more than a million website visitors and Facebook members, the number of defendants would have been even bigger. The eventual dismissals would also have skyrocketed, so the government probably should be happy it walked away with anything at all.

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Filed Under: 1st amendment, disrupt j20, doj, free speech, inauguration, j20, protests

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That One Guy (profile), 9 Jul 2018 @ 1:40am

Sure about that?
This is how it ends for the DOJ, which has largely lost its bids to install a chilling effect via over-broad "rioting" prosecutions.

Whether they won or, as is the case, fell flat on their faces matters less for instilling a chilling effect than the fact that they were willing to do so in the first place.

'You've got good odds of having the charges dropped or a jury finding you not guilty over a year later' isn't exactly the most comforting thought for someone who might be thinking about joining a protest. Throughout the process they made clear what they were willing to do, and the fact that they were gently chided for parts of it doesn't stop them in any way from doing any of it again should they decide to crack down in the future for whatever reason.

Much like copyright trolling winning the case is just an extra, nice to have but not actually needed. The goal is to make it clear that fighting back at all is going to cost, and cost dearly, and that message they've made crystal clear.
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Zgaidin (profile), 9 Jul 2018 @ 4:29am

Re: Sure about that?
Sadly true on all counts, and they learn from their mistakes. So, now they know which judges aren't going to give them access to Facebook accounts or other website PII, so next time they file elsewhere and try different judges. They figure out ways to tell the 90% who will be dismissed vs. the 10% early on, and don't have to waste any more time and effort on the 90% than it takes to string them along and keep the charges alive long enough to deter people.
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surveilance state, 9 Jul 2018 @ 5:19am

more surveilance statehood
overreach, overbroad, stupid dictatorship regime, America.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2018 @ 6:15am

Of course this becomes an article on Techdirt
Because Techdirt is part of the #resist movement.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2018 @ 6:20am

out_of_the_blue's heroes, ladies and gentlemen! He sure likes supporting things with a success rate roughly between "jack shit" and "fuck all"...
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Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 9 Jul 2018 @ 6:30am

Question for lawyer in the crowd
Are there any opportunities for false arrest lawsuits here?
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2018 @ 6:37am

Re: Question for lawyer in the crowd
Why? Looking to get reimbursed for your missing P hat they confiscated?
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Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 9 Jul 2018 @ 6:57am

Re: Re: Question for lawyer in the crowd
Not me (I wasn't there), but those that have had a year plus of their lives put into turmoil, and cost for lawyers and possibly lost jobs, as well as other impacts; for egregious, ineffective, Constitution busting behavior by the government.

If I had been there, and arrested, I would already have a lawyer, and would ask him/her. For the rest of us non lawyers, seeing into the density that is 'the Law' might be helpful.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2018 @ 7:00am

Re: lol, anti-blue-dude, why don't you make an account?
we need somoene to stick up for us dopers and
rioters, you could like get an icon from genghis
khan like drinking blood out a skull, cool

dude, it's you
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2018 @ 7:19am

At last and at least Techdirt admits was actual property damage.
Should the DOJ not make some effort to prosecute that? That's the only alternative barbarian-friendly Techdirt has to offer.

Prosecutions of actions in riot are ALWAYS difficult to pin on persons. Sometimes different laws apply. In the past (and likely future, way you kids keep going crazy), shoot-to-kill orders have been legal. Civil society MUST stop rioting at some point. -- You should look up the "Riot Act" in English law, if you want to see how seriously rioting is dealt with.

Anyhoo, I'm NOT dismayed at results except by Techdirt's ongoing glee that property was damaged by barbarians and at least some got away with it. Techdirt always sides with those breaking the laws of civil society.
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tom (profile), 9 Jul 2018 @ 7:32am

The timing of these prosecutions means that most were started by folks hired during the Obama or Bush II administrations. Especially since we are talking about folks arrested for suspicion of committing crimes during the Inauguration. Pretty much by definition, very few Trump folks could have been in place when this circus started.

If I read TFA correctly, the DOJ never won a case in a contested court of law. Their only wins were in the pre-trial negotiating rooms where they managed to talk 21 suspects into pleading guilty. Either those were the folks that really did some of the damage or they got real poor legal advice.
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Gary (profile), 9 Jul 2018 @ 7:40am

Re: At last law upheld
So are you gleeful that prosecutors broke the laws they are allegedly supporting by withholding evidence, arresting journalists, and disrespecting due process?
It *seems* that way, but I don't want to assume.
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Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 9 Jul 2018 @ 8:00am

Re:
As to your first point, yes, but even under Obama there was an authoritarian bent to government actions. Only the R vs D fanatics don't understand that there is a direction being assumed by the powerful, from both sides, because power doesn't discriminate between R's and D's. It still corrupts.

As to your second point, it does seem likely, and it makes folks wonder about the process where deal making and winning rather justice is the point of negotiations between prosecutors and the accused. These 21 may be guilty, and if they are then they got a deal rather than what a court might have sentenced them to. On the other hand, what if they were just frightened, and as you point out, poorly or even not represented, then the concept of justice has been harmed once again.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2018 @ 8:10am

It's a clear victory for "Black Block" tactics, having a mob of people dressed all in black with faces masked, with the few active vandals breaking free of the mob to light cars on fire, smash store windows, and whatever else, and then quickly rejoining the mob and blending in.

It's apparently not illegal to serve as a protective screen for rioters, and because the actual rioters can't be sorted out from the screeners upon the expected mass arrests, then everyone gets to go free.

Although it's an obvious mob victory, don't expect it to last. Police will simply revise their tactics, probably with sniper teams of some sort. Hopefully it'll be something like paintball rounds and not live bullets like Israel treats street protests, but you never know.
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Stephen T. Stone (profile), 9 Jul 2018 @ 9:05am

Re:
If the political roles were reversed—if this were a Democrat-controlled DOJ going after Republican/right-wing protesters—how dismissive of this issue would you be?
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Stephen T. Stone (profile), 9 Jul 2018 @ 9:13am

Re:

Prosecutions of actions in riot are ALWAYS difficult to pin on persons.

If the DOJ could not pin actions within a riot on specific people, it should have said so instead of trying to prosecute 200 people for a crime that the majority of that group may have only witnessed.

I'm NOT dismayed at results except by Techdirt's ongoing glee that property was damaged by barbarians and at least some got away with it.

I doubt Techdirt writers were happy to see the property damage. (If you can cite any instance of their celebrating said property damage, please do so.) They were much happier to see people arrested on overblown charges that the DOJ could not make stick finally free from their legal nightmare. Did some of those people “get away with” breaking the law? Maybe. Can you prove it? The DOJ certainly couldn’t; if it could have made the charges stick in more than the relative handful of cases where it secured guilty pleas, we would have seen more guilty pleas.
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Stephen T. Stone (profile), 9 Jul 2018 @ 9:15am

Re:
Please cite, with proper references, the proof that any of the protesters arrested by the DOJ planned to use “black bloc” tactics as a cover for starting a riot and damaging property before the protests ever began.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2018 @ 9:20am

Re: At last and at least Techdirt admits was actual property damage.
Anyhoo, I'm NOT dismayed at results except by Techdirt's ongoing glee that property was damaged by barbarians and at least some got away with it.

I'm not dismayed by the results either. 21 out of 234 is not even a 10% success rate. Law enforcement did a piss poor job, made themselves look like fools, and north of 90% of those accused are free.

Then again, what do you care? Trump lambastes the FBI on a near daily basis. Why on earth should anyone trust the DOJ? They're corrupt as all fuck, remember?
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2018 @ 9:47am

Re: Re:
Why pretend there would be a #resist movement if the politics were reversed? There's only one side constantly virtue signalling and whining.
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alternatives(), 9 Jul 2018 @ 10:35am

Re: Re: Re: Question for lawyer in the crowd
The chance of recovery for the disruption is very small. The legal system via Judges sees the DA as part of itself and won't take kindly to support an attack on itself.

In theory - "the law" is publicly out there so anyone can see into such density. Any given court case is rather dependent on the judge(s) along the way and is dependent on the 'sharpness' of the attorneys involved and what should be a slam-dunk becomes a loss unless you are willing to go to appeal and had the sharpness at the 1st level. Heck, the laziness level of attorneys involved can sink a case, if the Judge allows it.

Lets say you gain this sight into density. Now, do you have the $50-$150K for a fight on the State level? How about the $300K+ at the fed level or the $1M+ for a fed appeal?
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Will B., 9 Jul 2018 @ 11:31am

Re: Re: Re:
...is that why you're here whining?
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2018 @ 11:42am

rename DOJ
The DOJ should be renamed The Dept. of Political Revenge.
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Will B., 9 Jul 2018 @ 11:44am

Re:
"It's apparently not illegal to serve as a protective screen for rioters, and because the actual rioters can't be sorted out from the screeners upon the expected mass arrests, then everyone gets to go free."

That actually is illegal; that would be conspiracy. In fact, if you read the article, it even mentions them trying for conspiracy charges.

The real issue, of course, is that your little fantasy scenario didn't actually happen.
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Will B., 9 Jul 2018 @ 11:50am

Correction
Strike the second to last sentence there; could have sworn the article mentioned conspiracy charges directly, appear to have been mistaken. Rest of the post stands as written though!
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 9 Jul 2018 @ 12:30pm

Of the 21 convictions, how many were because they had shitty representation?
How many were because the charges kept getting piled on to make them plea?
How many did anything beyond be there & be expected to take the blame for all the bad actors?
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Will B., 9 Jul 2018 @ 12:51pm

Indeed...
It didn't escape my notice that there were 21 guilty *pleas,* which suggests that the prosecution was actually *never successful* in the courtroom; whether those guilty pleas were from guilty people or prosecutorial intimidation is the question of the day, but I know which I'm expecting.

Still, it means that in terms of actual adversarial courtroom battles, their success rate wasn't 10%, it was 0%.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2018 @ 1:00pm

I too remember middle school...dude.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2018 @ 1:02pm

It’s amazing that you have enough cognitive dissonance
To be as sovcit and a full blooded fascist at the same time.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2018 @ 1:04pm

Re: Re: Question for lawyer in the crowd
Better wearing one than jerking off into one like you do...
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2018 @ 1:30pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Shouldn't you be gathering your brown-shirt brothers?
There's a protest to get to.
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ECA (profile), 9 Jul 2018 @ 2:13pm

WTF??
It was stupid to do it in the first place..
Unless they saw and Caught those causing the damage..

Otherwise this is a 1 day hold in jail..
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Peter, 9 Jul 2018 @ 2:13pm

Only 10% guilty pleas?
Considering the 'success' of prosecutors generally getting guilty pleas is usually over 90%, that they managed to get only about 10% in this case is a damning indictment in itself.
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Baron von Robber, 9 Jul 2018 @ 2:25pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I'm sure there is a list of Trump rallies someplace.
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Will B., 9 Jul 2018 @ 2:30pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
No, but seriously, you do realize you are currently, right here, doing exactly what you complain about the left doing, right? Whining about pushback, virtue-signalling how right-wing you are and how the right is sooo much netter than the left because they'd never push back against a president just because they don't like them (let's jusr forget about Kenyan Obama and his Obamacare), and responding to criticism with flippant put-downs?

I dunno if pointing this out is going to be of any help, but seriously... you are the very thing you claim to hate.
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Stephen T. Stone (profile), 9 Jul 2018 @ 3:17pm

Re: Re: Re:

Why pretend there would be a #resist movement if the politics were reversed?

Because that was precisely what happened to Obama after his first two years in office, thanks to Republican voters. Or did you forget all about birtherism, the Tea Party, the opposition to the Affordable Care Act, the stolen Supreme Court nomination, and Donald Trump?
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2018 @ 5:07pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Commenting here is equivalent to rioting in the streets? I better be more careful.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2018 @ 5:09pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
HRC owns birtherism, the tea party started under Bush. What stolen nomination?
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2018 @ 5:36pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
That’s some nice Trump approved revisionist history you have there. Shame reality is totally different.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2018 @ 5:39pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Like many RWNJs you have a massive victim complex and a hugely warped sense of both your own self importance in the world and reality itself.
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Will B., 9 Jul 2018 @ 5:43pm

Round and round we go...
...hmm. So, if I may interpret: "Whining and virtue-signaling" = "rioting in the streets" and the entire Left is *constantly* doing so?
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Will B., 9 Jul 2018 @ 5:44pm

Waaaiiiit...
"HRC owns birtherism"

https://www.cnn.com/2016/09/09/politics/donald-trump-birther/index.html

So wait... does HRC own Donald Trump?
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Bergman (profile), 9 Jul 2018 @ 6:02pm

Re: Re:
On the subject of prosecuting witnesses, it's worth noting that if a journalist covering the protest is a 'rioter' then the police who were present are arguably part of the conspiracy to riot too.
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Mike Masnick (profile), 9 Jul 2018 @ 6:06pm

Re: Of course this becomes an article on Techdirt
As if we didn't write about President Obama's attacks on free speech? We did. This site is not for or against any President. We are in favor of the 1st Amendment.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2018 @ 8:51pm

Re: Re: At last and at least Techdirt admits was actual property damage.
out_of_the_blue has a fetish for authoritarianism, which is why he sucks off both Trump and the DOJ/FBI. Even when they disagree with each other. Corruption is just icing on the cake, or - as is known in out_of_the_blue's profession - "not using lube".
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jul 2018 @ 4:22am

Re: It’s amazing that you have enough cognitive dissonance
Well, it is the result of religious conviction that their politics are correct.They are so right that they have to convert everybody else, by force if necessary.
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Dave P., 10 Jul 2018 @ 11:21am

Re: Re: lol, anti-blue-dude, why don't you make an account?
Hmm. That makes about as much sense as this clip from a recent Trumpy speech:
“I have broken more Elton John records, he seems to have a lot of records. And I, by the way, I don’t have a musical instrument. I don’t have a guitar or an organ. No organ. Elton has an organ. And lots of other people helping. No we’ve broken a lot of records. We’ve broken virtually every record. Because you know, look I only need this space. They need much more room. For basketball, for hockey and all of the sports, they need a lot of room. We don’t need it. We have people in that space. So we break all of these records. Really we do it without like, the musical instruments. This is the only musical: the mouth. And hopefully the brain attached to the mouth. Right? The brain, more important than the mouth, is the brain. The brain is much more important.”
I rest my case.
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Gwiz (profile), 10 Jul 2018 @ 1:36pm

Re: Correction
The article did mention conspiracy charges - it's the bottom bullet point.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jul 2018 @ 3:20pm

Re: It’s amazing that you have enough cognitive dissonance
Sovcits are all about selfish cognitive dissonance in the first place. They want the law to apply to other people but not them because they are oh so special. They even have a fantasy about being able to draw upon the special super secret hidden bank account.
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Will B., 10 Jul 2018 @ 7:48pm

Re: Re: Correction
Ah-hah! I KNEW I saw it in there somewhere! Thanks, Gwiz.
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