Seven members of a Michigan militia were acquitted Tuesday of all major charges includingsedition and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction after a federal judge said the prosecution failed to show the groupposed a credible threat to the US government. The government s case is built largely of circumstantialevidence. While this evidence could certainly lead a rationalfact-finder to conclude that something fishy was going on, itdoes not prove beyond a reasonable doubt (the militia members) reached a concrete agreement to forcibly oppose thegovernment, wrote US District Judge Victoria Roberts. The case against the Hutaree is just of several cases around thenation involving allegations that radicalized sovereign citizenshave armed, organized and committed themselves to violentresistence against state and federal governments. One of the more high profile among these cases hails fromFairbanks, where a charismatic young militia leader named SchaefferCox and a handful of his associates are accused of plotting to killstate and federal judges and other government employees. Like theHutaree, Cox and two codefendants also face serious weaponscharges. However, it would be premature to use the Michigan case asforetelling the fate of the federal case against Cox and his AlaskaPeacemakers Militia. Unlike the Hutaree, Cox is not chargedspecifically with an attempt to overthrow the government, and isnot accused with seeking or intending to use weapons of massdestruction. Cox and his associates are scheduled to go to trial in May. Defenseattorneys for the men have all along suggested that the case isnothing more than a government attempt to quash speech it findsoffensive. The government insists its case is built on much more --the sustained and methodical planning of violent anti-governmentresistance and harm to government employees. As with the Hutaree, ajudge and jury will have the opportunity to decide on whose sidethe evidence falls. Tuesday's acquittals arrive almost two years after nine members ofthe Hutaree militia were arrested in Michigan, Ohio , and Indiana. FBI intelligence suggested the group was planning to kill a localpolice officer, then to attack the subsequent funeral procession tospark a wider militia uprising against the government. In their raids, the agency confiscated machine guns, assaultrifles, and explosive devices. An informant recorded David Stone Sr. , the group s leader, talking of plans to go to war againstpolice officers and their families. Judge Roberts said that the prosecution could not adequatelydetermine the specifics of the group s plans, and that it wasnever proven that the plot was real and not just idle talk. Theevidence of the necessary next step a retreat to rally pointsfrom where the larger uprising would occur is wholly lacking, she wrote. The judge s decision is a lesson that speech, however disturbing,is protected, says Peter Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit . The message to the FBI is, when you talk about potentiallypolitical speech, you better make sure it moved well outside ofthat realm and much closer to criminal conduct, Henning said. The trial will continue against David Stone and Joshua Stone, hisson, based on lesser weapons charges. Henning says it would be misguided for groups with more sinistergoals than the Hutaree to see this as a legal victory. Instead, hesays, the acquittal results from the Michigan group s cleardisorganization to follow up their words with a precise plan ofaction. Certainly the fringe groups or the militia groups are going toclaim that this is some type of immunity, but that s reading toomuch into this, he says. This was almost a gang that couldn tshoot straight. I am an expert from ethernet-serialconverter.com, while we provides the quality product, such as China Digital IO Controller , PCI Serial Card Manufacturer, Fiber to Serial Converter,and more.
Related Articles -
China Digital IO Controller, PCI Serial Card Manufacturer,
|