Rov_Scam
5hr ago
I haven't seen the video so I'll take you're word on what's in it. That being said, the SAFE Act would only seem to apply if he is doing something to threaten people or restrict egress from the building. He's certainly guilty of whatever the Minnesota equivalent of what would be Defiant Trespass in Pennsylvania, but that's a state level charge, and as far as I can tell there aren't any Federal trespass laws that don't involve Federal property or otherwise apply in very specific situations.
Rov_Scam
6hr ago
I think it comes more down to whether he was engaging in activity that is objectively illegal, since an observer would presumably be less likely to actively obstruct or threaten someone. If he were simply standing there quietly it could even be argued that any requests to vacate the premises were not directed to him, insofar as he was not acting any more disruptive than any member of the congregation. It all depends on the specifics of what they can prove that he actually did, not that he was just present while other people were breaking the law.
Rov_Scam
6hr ago
Not really since it isn't some general law that's being applied in a novel way; there are specific provisions for houses of worship, presumably added to attract support from Republicans and conservative Democrats.
Rov_Scam
14hr ago
At first I thought you were being sarcastic, because by your logic ICE should just get M-16s and spray crowds of protestors. Or for that matter anyone who does anything to openly oppose or disagree with any government policy you personally agree with deserves to be shot. You may wholeheartedly agree with me, in which case, to paraphrase Lincoln, you should consider moving to a place like Russia or Iran, where they don't even pretend that the citizens have any rights.
Rov_Scam
1d ago
Yeah, they can do that, but it's an argument and it might not win. The issue is that if he wanted to make that argument he'd have to surrender to Minnesota authorities and potentially spend a long time in prison while he waits for a hearing, at which point the judge might reject the argument. If he wants to remove the case to Federal court he'd have to file that motion and wait for the case to get on a trial calendar before he could even file the immunity motion.
Rov_Scam
1d ago
The state can still charge. The defendant can remove the case to Federal court, but the state would still be prosecuting,. just with a Federal judge and Federal jury. The advantage is that the judge would theoretically be more neutral and the jury would be drawn from a larger geographic area, but this is more of a consolation prize than anything . For instance, there would be a better argument for change of venire with a Hennepin County jury than with a jury that would be drawn from the entire district.
Rov_Scam
2d ago
That reminds me of a time about a decade ago when a friend of mine gave me something to read. Apparently a friend of his was taking a creative writing class at a community college and asked him to read a story she wrote for an assignment, and he had no clue where to even begin so he gave it to me. I think he was expecting that I'd just proofread it or maybe give a few succinct ideas but the thing was so bad that merely marking it with a red pen would have been impossible; the whole thing required an extensive rewrite of the sort that necessitated a serious discussion with the author. I had no desire to get that involved, especially since I have no special qualifications to have such a conversation with a stranger, so I basically passed on the whole thing and never heard about it again. It was the kind of adjective-heavy creative writing that sounded like it was written in a seventh grade English class where they're specifically asked to do things like this.
I often wonder how much the "rules" of writing in an academic setting are actually making people worse writers. It always stuck me as a bit strange that none of the professional writing I read in my spare time followed the rules that English teachers insisted upon, though I never thought to question why. I understand that certain devices are the mark of immature writers, such as children, and that the first thing that needs to be done is to beat these habits out of them to at least create something presentable, but I think the teachers should at least make it clear that at a certain point the student will have a good enough command of the language to use their own judgment about certain things. I remember writing a paper for a music history class in college that was small enough that the professor met each student individually to go over the rough draft, and he asked me several times "What are you trying to say here?", and when I told him, his response was "Why didn't you just say that?"
Rov_Scam
6d ago
The difference is that Arkansas and Alabama were two of the more adamant segregationist states. Minnesota is not exactly a hotbed of illegal immigration.
Rov_Scam
7d ago
The Ramos Gin Fizz:
2 oz gin 1 oz heavy cream 1/2 oz lemon juice 1/2 oz lime juice 2 tsp sugar 1 egg white a few drops of orange flower water
Put all the ingredients in a shaker and shake with ice for at least a minute, long enough to beat the egg. Then pour into a Collins Glass and top with club soda. Don't try to substitute any ingredients, either. Orange flower water is from the flower of the plant and not the fruit, so substituting orange juice or orange bitters will give an entirely different flavor. It's not a particularly easy ingredient to find, though it should be available at Whole Foods and most Asian grocery stores.
This may be the perfect cocktail, as it checks off every box: The gin does what the gin does, the cream give it richness, the citrus makes it refreshing, the sugar adds sweetness, the egg white gives it body, the soda gives it a crispness and backs the intensity off a bit, and the orange flower water... that's for mystery. It's also completely immune from bastardization, because it's immune from becoming popular enough for that to happen. It has a lot of ingredients, one of which isn't used for anything else (though it isn't expensive). It takes a long time to make, but you can't order one in a bar or make it in huge batches. You have to make them at home, one or two at a time. But I assume you it's worth the effort. That brings me to another favorite gin drink, the Gin Rickey:
Gin Lime Juice Club Soda Just enough sugar to take the edge off
I used to drink Gin and Tonics but after a while the sweetness of the tonic water became cloying, and switching to diet didn't help. These really cut through on those summer days when it feels like a Precambrian swamp outside. And you can order these in a bar. In fact, ordering these in a bar that prides themselves on their cocktails hits a certain sweet spot: Nobody ever orders them, but bartenders feel like they should know how to make them, so you're likely to get a "What's in that again?" Thus, you can avoid some bastardized house version by explaining to the bartender how to make the drink without being one of those assholes who orders drinks the bartender doesn't know how to make.
Rov_Scam
10d ago
They didn't ask the question because he was Jewish, they asked because he lived in a kibbutz in Israel for a while and worked on an army base. They had to ask. The same reason they had to ask Tim Walz if he was an agent of the Chines government because he lived there for a while and took kids on field trips there afterward. They also have to ask these people if they've ever had affairs, if they've ever been arrested, if they have any criminal contacts, if they've ever been treated for a mental condition, if they've ever used drugs, if they've ever embezzled state funds, if they're having financial problems, and any number of countless other things that you'd be embarrassed about if someone asked you because of the implication.
Rov_Scam
10d ago
That quote was referring to Federal Obstruction of Justice charges, which are separate from the interfering charges. These cover things like jury tampering and destroying evidence. Physically obstructing ICE agents would presumably be covered under both state and Federal laws. I was listening to a left-wing radio program last night and the host and his guest were in agreement that protestors shouldn't do anything that physically prevents ICE agents from apprehending their targets, so this doesn't seem controversial to me.
The gang example is complicated. Typically, in order to be liable as an accomplice you have to have knowledge of the crime being committed, not just general knowledge that the people you are dealing with are probably up to no good. The complicating factor is that all 50 states plus the Feds and DC have enacted a cornucopia of anti-gang laws over the past 40 years that, in some cases, expand accomplice liability to "gang members", and may of these laws have been challenged for overbreadth and vagueness, and some were recently modified as part of recent calls for criminal justice reform, so any answer would be highly dependent on jurisdiction, and the constitutionality of some of the more recent reforms may still be an open question (attempts to solve some problems may create others). But based on general principles, I don't think that his knowledge of specifics would be relevant, provided that he knows that a crime is being committed. For example, if he's a lookout for drug dealers and he knows drugs are being sold illegally, I think that would be enough to invoke accomplice liability, even if he didn't know what kind of drugs or what the roles of the other members of the gang were. But again, it really depends on the specific fact pattern.
Rov_Scam
11d ago
I'm going to loop in @zeke5213a because this response acts as one for his comments as well, as I think there's some conflation going on here. Before we get going I want to point out that the original topic of this discussion was relative base rates for certain behaviors, and someone's assertion that opposing ICE was always wrong, to which I responded that that was simply a value judgment and that from a neutral perspective opposing ICE was only wrong if those doing the opposing were breaking the law. From there the discussion seems to have morphed into whether the protestors in Minnesota are breaking any particular laws. To that point, I will concede that there are probably some protestors who are unambiguously breaking the law, and you can count those into whatever base rate discussion you want, but I get the impression that nobody really cares about that anymore and is more concerned about the prospect that the protestors in Minneapolis are, en masse, committing any crimes. And I want to make it clear right now that that makes for a more interesting discussion than whatever stemmed from the half-forgotten base rate comment I tossed off last night before dinner, and I'll be addressing that question and I could care less about base rates at this point, and I get the impression that neither of you care much about that either.
With that out of the way, there's really a two-step analysis involved in all of these questions. The first step is to ask whether the speech in question violates a particular law. The second step is that, if the answer is yes, to determine if the enforcement of that law is precluded by the First Amendment. The conflation I'm referring to comes from the specific conduct of the ICE protestors, which seems to have two components:
- Yelling epithets at ICE agents, videorecording ICE agents, and being boisterous generally
- Alerting neighborhood residents to ICE presence
That being said, I tried to focus on the First Amendment question, because laws vary across jurisdictions but the Constitution is a showstopper. The general rule here is that speech is protected unless it falls into an exception, and I couldn't find any applicable exceptions. What it seems like you're bringing up is the criminal speech exception, which is an exception for speech that is integral to criminal conduct. When discussing criminal conduct, it makes sense to think of various tiers of culpability. I'll use the bank robbery example because it's the most clear-cut:
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Principle: This is what most people think of, i.e., you're the one walking into the bank and pointing a gun at the teller. Pretty much everyone understands that this creates liability for robbery or whatever the relevant crime is.
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Accessory: The liability here is the same as it is for the principal, and it includes anyone who was involved in the crime prior to or during its commission. In your robbery example, the lookout is aware that the crime is going on and is actively participating in it. If you're guilty at this level, you're charged with the underlying crime, in this case robbery. Though liability is the same, some people may think it isn't or shouldn't be because the defendant played a limited role in the crime.
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Accessory After the Fact: This is its own thing and isn't charged as part of the underlying crime but as a stand-alone offense. This liability applies when someone who wasn't involved in the planning or commission of the crime but has knowledge of it provides one of those involved assistance in avoiding capture. If the bank robbery lookout went to his friend's house and told him what happened, and the friend let him lie low at his house for a couple days and arranged for a ride out of town, the brother could be charged as an accessory after the fact, but not with robbery. there are three reasons why this wouldn't apply to the ICE protestors. I'll say as a preliminary that this isn't actually charged very often (it's most often used as leverage to get cooperation) and my cursory Google research revealed very little. What I can tell you from experience is that I've never heard of anyone being charged with this based on a communication alone. Sometimes the communication is part of the evidence, but those are cases where substantial other assistance was also provided. I certainly haven't seen any indication that the activity would override First Amendment concerns, though it is certainly possible. The second problem with applying it to ICE protestors is that it requires that the defendant have knowledge that a crime was committed and attempt to assist a specific person accused of that crime. I can almost guarantee you that very few of the ICE protestors even know the names of the targets let alone know what crimes they may have committed, which brings me to my third point. Much has been made about deportation actions being civil and not criminal, and while this is usually irrelevant to the conversation, this is one of the times when it matters, because, even if the first two concerns weren't a problem in a specific case, you can't be an accessory after the fact to a non-crime. If it were US Marshals trying to execute a warrant for illegal entry, then it would be different, but they don't do that because then they would have to give the guy a lawyer and be subject to heightened procedural safeguards. There are simply too many complexities here to make this something worth pursuing.
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Obstruction/Impeding: This is the level in which the authorities don't have to prove that an underlying crime was committed, just that the legal process was interrupted in an impermissible way. We can forget about any liability at the Federal level, because the statutes simply don't cover it. Charges relating to impeding Federal employees (the once ICE agents most often cite when trying to get protestors to back off) explicitly only include forcible actions. The Obstruction of Justice statute includes an enumerated list of specific activities, none of which the protestors are known to engage in. At the state level, the statute looks more promising, as it doesn't specifically contain any language that would preclude any of the protestors' activities, but the case law interprets the statute as only applying to physical obstruction outside of very specific circumstances that are unlikely to apply. The state courts also specifically rejected the idea that warning someone of their impending arrest was prohibited under the statute, ruling that the obstruction had to be directed at law enforcement and not third parties.
Rov_Scam
11d ago
It could potentially violate noise ordinances, yes. But the way the Minneapolis ordinance is worded makes it clear that it almost certainly doesn't violate the law there:
389.60. What constitutes violation. (a) Any activity, not expressly exempted by section 389.50 or this section which generates sound regardless of frequency that is more than ten (10) decibels (A scale) above the ambient noise level when measured within any dwelling unit (other than the one of sound source) in a condominium, townhouse, apartment house, multi-unit dwelling, single-family dwelling, or similar dwelling between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. All measurements applying to the above shall be made indoors with the doors closed, and within the dwelling.
(b) Any activity not expressly exempted by section 389.50 or this section which generates sound regardless of frequency that is more than five (5) decibels (A) scale above the ambient noise level when measured within any dwelling unit (other than the one of sound source) in a condominium, townhouse, apartment house, multi-unit dwelling, single-family dwelling or similar dwelling between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. All measurements applying to the above shall be made indoors with the doors closed, and within the dwelling.
There are obvious evidentiary problems here in that you have to know what the ambient noise level is and whether the sound exceeds it by the specified amount, but the problems go beyond ones of evidence; the statute is worded in such a way that there is no violation without a measurement. This could be a case of bad drafting, but if you look at noise ordinances generally they seem aimed at specific problems like noise emanating from point sources or adjacent apartments. They aren't really designed for intermittent loud noise coming from outside.
I hope a case like this goes up to the Supreme Court so we can get a clear ruling on this.
At least in the present situation there's no chance of that happening. Federal law requires that any interference with law enforcement be "forcible", and Minnesota caselaw does so as well. On the state side there are some limited exceptions, but warning people of police activity is specifically exempted. I can't speak for other states, but nobody in Minneapolis is able to be prosecuted for this.
Rov_Scam
11d ago
Forget about Nazis doing it and you'll have your answer. If they're using force or threat of force then it could be illegal. If they're merely asking then I'm not even goign to bother with an analysis of the First Amendment laws because, insofar as I'm aware, no state in the Union has laws that make it illegal to talk to strangers. For your second example, again, forget about the Jews and the Hitler speeches. If there is an applicable municipal noise ordinance and you can prove that the driver violated it, then they can be charged with the noise violation.
Rov_Scam
11d ago
Your scenario is a bit vague so I'll dress it up for you: If Alice feels strongly about the wrongness of the murderer's conviction and subsequent incarceration and she decides to engage in a boisterous on-woman protest on a street corner during which she yells words of encouragement for the fugitive and expresses hope that he will escape justice, then yes, she would be engaging in constitutionally-protected speech. As repugnant as one may find her views, opinions about the appropriateness of criminal convictions are a fairly common subject of public protest, and the fact that the police may find them distracting doesn't exempt them from constitutional protection. And even then, this case would still be somewhat stronger than what's going on with ICE, where the protestors don't even know the identities of the people ICE are looking for, or indeed if they're even looking for anyone (Renee Good was shot while ICE was returning to headquarters). They're just generalized warnings about law enforcement presence, and are as illegal as flashing your brights to warn a fellow motorist about a speed trap.
Rov_Scam
11d ago
As I said in another comment, if Nazis marching through the neighborhoods of Holocaust survivors and the Westboro Baptist Church harassing mourners during the funerals of soldiers is constitutionally protected, this certainly is.
Rov_Scam
11d ago
The state legislature can pass all the laws they want, but their application is limited to the bounds of the Constitution. Impeding the path of law enforcement may rise to the level of obstruction depending on the specific circumstances, but blowing whistles and shouting insults are expressive activities that don't fall within any exception to the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has already addressed this directly, and since they've already ruled that Nazis marching through a neighborhood of Holocaust survivors and members of the Westboro Baptist Church yelling insults during soldiers' funerals are protected speech, it's safe to say that people blowing whistles around ICE agents isn't going to cut it.
Rov_Scam
12d ago
There's not a "positive" for which anti-ICE can be in the right. Furthermore, ICE is right X% of the time and wrong (1-X%) of the time, whereas anti-ICE is wrong 100% of the time.
That's simply a value judgment that doesn't get us anywhere. Being anti-ICE is only "wrong" when the activity in furtherance of that position breaks the law. You may not like the fact that people are protesting, recording their activity, or warning the community of their presence, but all of these things are both legal and constitutionally protected.
Rov_Scam
12d ago
There's a degree of equivocation though. The worst thing the mobs you described did was mildly irritate people for periods lasting up to five minutes (if I'm being generous). The feect on one guy was that there was a parade of cars behind him honking, which happens to anyone who drives in rush hour on a daily basis. It's not nothing, but it isn't in the same league as being detained for a day or more. The acceptable false positive rate you're really looking for is the number of people who were accosted by ICE but weren't detained.
Rov_Scam
12d ago
The fact that Jennifer Welch is a divorced divorce attorney probably puts her in the 99th percentile for hatred towards men.
I'm willing to give divorce attorneys a pass on pretty much anything. Back in April I was having a really bad day at work. I was appearing for a Zoom deposition and instead of doing it at a hotel Plaintiff's counsel thought it was a good idea for an old guy with limited technical ability to do it from his home without assistance. He lived in the middle of nowhere. And there had just been major storms in the area. The whole thing was delayed due to technical difficulties beginning about 15 minutes in, and every time we tried to continue with questioning some other issue would occur. After several hours of this the court reporter had a "technical expert" call in and try to walk the guy through some process. This woman had a high, whiny voice and talked to the guy like he was in kindergarten. I was about at the end of my rope, it was 1 pm, and the guy had answered about ten questions so far.
I went into the kitchen to get coffee and the wisened old of-counsel in my office asked me how I was doing. I told him that I probably died in a car wreck on the way to work and was actually in hell, and proceeded to tell him about my shitty morning. He said "Just look on the bright side: You could be practicing family law. And you'd have to carry a gun." That pretty much stopped me cold and I vowed that I wouldn't get too annoyed by minor professional inconveniences anymore.
I would add that I interned for a family law judge in law school, which judge handled child custody, and it's nothing I have any desire to get within a mile of.
Rov_Scam
12d ago
From January to October of last year, only 170 US citizens were detained by ICE as reported by ProPublica. Of those 170, many were arrested for interfering with ICE operations. Compare this with 234,211 removals (I don't have data on arrests or detentions, but I can assume the number of arrests/detentions is greater than removals. The "US Citizen arrest rate" is at most 0.07% of the ICE arrestees, probably much smaller due to fact that there are more detentions than removals.
It's interesting that you preceded this little tidbit with examples of four non-ICE being accused of ICE. How many people accused of being ICE actually were ICE? If you're implying that a certain false positive rate is acceptable, at least show that the behavior you're complaining about is above that rate.
Both Europeans and Americans who favor tort reform like to point this out all the time, but I honestly don't think it would have too much of an effect on the current system. Yes, defending litigation is expensive. But so is suing people. You have a frivolous lawsuit you want to file? Good luck finding an attorney to take it on contingency. Even if the attorney can minimize the amount of time spent on the case and only file necessary motions, you're going to need at least one deposition and at least one expert if you expect to win through anything other than early settlement (which is usually at enough of a discount that most plaintiff's attorneys aren't interested), you're already looking at close to ten grand just in costs. Since the attorney has to recoup the costs from somewhere, and doesn't like to work on cases and not get paid, the standard 1/3 contingency isn't going to apply unless the lawyer is reasonably confident that the case will settle for more than it costs to pursue. That means that if you want to file a questionable suit you'd better be prepared to pay your attorney by the hour and front the costs of all the expenses.
When people talk about frivolous lawsuits, they're often talking about lawsuits where they didn't like how much the plaintiff was awarded, like the McDonald's coffee suit. But these aren't frivolous by definition; the plaintiff won, so there wouldn't be any compensation for attorney's fees in any event. Cases like these would actually be more expensive for the defendants, as the plaintiffs could then go to the court with their hours and rates and bills from all the experts and depositions and such and tacked on a few tens of thousands to the verdict that wouldn't go away on appeal.
Further complicating this is that most normal people who get sued will be sued in situations where either auto or homeowner's liability insurance will cover the costs of both the attorney and the settlement, so they aren't directly impacted by any reforms. The same is true of most businesses; if you slip and fall in the Wal-Mart parking lot, the settlement isn't coming out of the corporate checking account except to the extent that it might have an effect on their premiums. The primary beneficiaries of such a system are insurance companies, who absolutely despise having to pay settlements and legal fees. But general liability insurance is already cheap enough that most companies wouldn't see their premiums appreciably lowered by that kind of reform (medical malpractice is the exception, though plaintiff-side claims are expensive enough that there's very little frivolity to be found here). The tradeoff is that normal people will find it even harder to get compensation than it already is, as it just raises the already high bar for how much a case needs to be worth for an attorney to take it. And I say all this as someone who does civil defense work.
The only instance I see where the process can seriously be abused is when wealthy people like Trump use their ability to pay to bully normal people into settling rather than fighting. But this doesn't happen very often, and when it does happen it's usually in a few select areas that can be addressed through more targeted legislation, like anti-SLAPP statutes. I wouldn't even be opposed to a wider procedural change that required you to show evidence that a case wasn't frivolous, or gave defendants a mechanism to require such a showing, and to award attorney's fees if evidence is lacking. But it's probably better to leave this for specific situations, since it most cases it would simply be a waste of time.
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