Carl

People plead guilty for crimes they didn’t commit every single day. Coercing guilty pleas via lenient sentencing is literally a core feature of the US justice system.

I currently believe that reasonable doubt exists. And since “beyond a reasonable doubt” is the standard for a guilty sentence, I would currently vote Not Guilty if I were sitting on the jury.

“Beyond a reasonable doubt” is meant to be a very large barrier. It’s not “maybe”. It’s not “probably”. It’s not even “I personally think he did it, but I understand how people could think otherwise.” It’s “a reasonable person would have zero doubt that he did it.” Beyond a reasonable person’s ability to doubt. And since that doubt still exists, (due to the bungled investigation, laughably inept police work, him not looking like the shooter in the security footage, etc) he would be not guilty in my eyes. Because a reasonable person would be able to find ways to doubt his guilt.

The overwhelming amount of evidence was actually a large part of why I consistently held that some of it was planted. His bag was initially searched at the scene of the arrest, then it was taken by an officer who wasn’t wearing a body cam. The bag was entirely off camera for around 10 minutes. Then when that officer came back with the bag, they searched it again and “found” the journal, manifesto, ghost gun, etc… None of which was noted during their initial search inside of the restaurant.

The police were under an extreme amount of pressure to arrest somebody. Anybody. They needed a patsy. And so my bet right from the start had always been that the evidence was planted.

You’re telling me the dude managed to evade a nationwide manhunt for an entire week, but didn’t think to break up the untraceable ghost gun? It could have been taken apart and scattered into a dozen trash cans, and they never would have found it.

And when people write manifestos, it’s because they expect to get caught and they want their manifesto to be seen. They want to send a specific message. So why would he hide for an entire week if he wanted the manifesto to be found?

The eyebrows don’t match either. Luigi’s were much bigger than the security camera footage of the killer. And anyone who has accidentally over-plucked their eyebrows can attest that they don’t just grow back in a week.

The Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution, emphasis mine:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Double jeopardy is a legal concept that means a person can’t be tried for the same crime twice. Leading up to the revolution, there was an issue with British authorities charging colonists with trumped up charges just to harass them. And when they’d beat the charges, the authorities would just charge them with the same crime again, starting the entire process all over again. So they specifically listed a “no double jeopardy” clause in the constitution, because they had seen how a prosecutor could abuse the legal system to keep an innocent person perpetually locked up.

However, double jeopardy doesn’t typically protect someone across state and federal crimes. Courts have repeatedly upheld that you can be tried in both, because the two courts are entirely separate. So it’s interesting that they’re trying to use the double jeopardy argument to say that the state can’t charge him.

1A Auditors are people who show up in public buildings and annoy the government employees, with the express purpose of being asked to leave. As soon as an employee asks them to leave, (or even asks them to back up a little bit and give them some space), they make a huge scene about how it’s a public space, “I pay your salary”, and the employee is infringing on the person’s 1st Amendment rights.

Cute quip, but the trans-Atlantic slave trade was specifically trafficking slaves. I even said in my original comment that human trafficking can ferry slaves to slave owners. Human trafficking refers to the broader crime of illegally transporting humans, regardless of their status as slaves.

Someone illegally ferrying immigrants across a border is engaging in human trafficking. Are the immigrants enslaved just because they were illegally trafficked? Even if they go about their merry lives in the new country after crossing the border and shaking hands with the trafficker? Because if we define human trafficking strictly by the trade of slaves, then the immigrants who got trafficked would be slaves, right?

Someone illegally transporting their own child across country lines during a custody dispute is engaging in human trafficking. Is that child now their parent’s slave, just because they were illegally trafficked across country lines? I guess so, because trafficking equals slavery, right?

Or maybe we just accept that the two are different crimes. Words mean things, and falsely equating the two is (at best) disingenuous and misleading.

It’s also proof that people fundamentally don’t understand their immigration rights. You can always go to an embassy and report your passport as stolen. Hell, you don’t even need an embassy. You can go straight to the cops and file a police report. Even if the cops don’t do anything about it, (they probably won’t), the police report alone will be enough to get you on a plane back to your home country. The various governments around the world accept that lost and stolen passports are inevitable, so they have systems set up specifically to deal with them.

But simply saying that they “take passports” is downplaying things. There is an extreme amount of isolation, intimidation, and financial abuse that goes into it as well. All to ensure victims don’t consider fleeing.

Step 1 of an trafficker’s playbook is to isolate the victim. Isolate them from their friends/family/etc by creating physical distance and taking away their means of communication. Isolate them from local peers by bringing them somewhere they don’t speak the local language. Isolate them economically by taking control of their finances and refusing to give them any money to go anywhere or do anything. Isolate them mentally and emotionally by slowly and methodically convincing them that they don’t deserve better.

Simply saying that they “took away their passports” is an extreme oversimplification, because simply taking the passport isn’t enough by itself. The victim could always just file a report and use that instead. It only works because of the other forms of isolation that the victim is simultaneously experiencing. They legitimately don’t believe they can escape, and the stolen passport is only one part of a much larger system of control.

Yeah, human trafficking leads to slavery, actively supports slavery, funnels slaves to slave holders, etc… But trafficking is just that. Moving something (in this case, a human) from A to B.

Saying they’re the same thing is sort of like saying that making meth and smoking meth are the same thing. They each can’t realistically exist on a mass scale without the other, but they’re not the same thing.