Good.
A federal appellate court Friday upheld the sentences of four men who plotted to blow up the Ohio 82 bridge that spans the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals said U.S. District Judge David Dowd Jr. acted correctly in doling out prison terms for Douglas Wright, Anthony Hayne, Brandon Baxter and Connor Stevens. The men had pleaded guilty in federal court in Akron to conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and other weapons charges.
At issue here was whether conspiring and attempting to murder several hundred or thousand American civilians – or, as the defense describes these people, activities done by ‘misguided pranksters’ – should have been considered a terrorist action worthy of jail time. The defendants are very lucky that the eventual decision was made by a court, and not, say, anybody who regularly drives on the bridge in question. If it had been the latter, then the defendants might have ended up being a permanent feature of the bridge…
Via
6th Cir. upholds convictions of the Ohio Occupy bomb plotters. http://t.co/5JNfcnSOSP
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) March 31, 2014
Moe Lane
PS: In case it isn’t obvious: I am perfectly fine with the FBI trolling a net through protest movements and netting all of the people who are up to go out and murder American citizens. Because if the FBI doesn’t track down these people, somebody else might.
Personally, I think the appeals court made the correct ruling, however I can see why this case was subject to appeal. The argument involved the possibility of entrapment, that an undercover FBI agent led them down the path they took. It appears that the details that emerged indicate that argument is invalid.
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Fact is, even if they were entrapped, I’d argue that they should be incarcerated to protect people from their stupidity. The idea that they got talked into it when they were drunk or something only goes so far.
Maybe they believed the rumor that if you ask someone if he’s a cop, then it’s entrapment if it turns out that they are.
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Good on the FBI for actually nabbing some bad guys though.
Actually, in federal court, to prevent a conviction using the entrapment defense, the defendant must prove, by a preponderence of evidence (more likely than not) that he has a predisposition NOT to commit the crime. This is an incredibly difficult feat that I have been able to accomplish only once inb the last 21 years of exclusively defefnding criminal cases in federal court. It just is an insurmountable burden. Asking , or even paying someone to commit the offense is not entrapment. Another legal concept ruined by TV lawyer shows.