A piece in the Guardian (see link below) does a nice job of outlining the issues. I won't elaborate. Just read the piece.
Cecily McMillan's Occupy trial is a huge test of US civil liberties. Will they survive?| Chase Madar | Comment is free | theguardian.com
She was convicted of felony assault against a police officer and faces up to 7 years in jail. What happened? Read here:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/05/06/cecily_mcmillan_found_guilty_of_elbowing_officer_grantley_bovell_at_an_occupy.html
The Slate article really sums up how having the right lawyers can control the outcome of these trials. The lawyer essentially claims that Cecily is a liar and bruised herself after the incident in order to make a story. It's very scary to me when lawyers are able to influence the law in this way. Perhaps the most grotesque example I can think of is when John Yoo, a law professor at Stanford, essentially re-defined 'interrogation techniques' for Bush to justify what would otherwise have been called torture.
ReplyDeleteAs a read who only gets the second-, third-, or fourth-hand versions of an incomplete story, I find it hard to decide for myself which side is telling more truth than the other. However, I find the last comment of the Slate article noteworthy: "the prosecutor's willingness to get so aggressive in her accusations against McMillan suggests to the public that the justice system is more worried about a protester elbowing a cop than the possibility that a cop is using arrest roundups as an excuse to sexually assault young women." The burden of proof seems to fall on laypeople rather than the police.
ReplyDelete*reader
DeleteI definitely agree with you. I do not trust either source to be truthful and sense that there is another issue that should be addressed: the use of one's authority for self aims.
DeleteI think the policing described in this article is clearly repressive and immoral. The way police treated Cecilia was unacceptable.
ReplyDelete" With this channel of political activity overpoliced to the point of blockage, the result is a positive feedback loop of rising inequality and eroding freedoms."
I couldn't have said it any better
This is actually pretty scary if you think about it. Facts and laws can all be manipulated to distort what actually happened... that is how many companies use loopholes in the system!
ReplyDeletei have a problem with faulting the victim for being victimized. i'll leave it at that.
ReplyDeleteThis is just downright disturbing and scary. The people in authority are granted power, which they misuse, and the state is available to defend this kind of behavior.
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