{"id":56498,"date":"2015-12-04T05:00:18","date_gmt":"2015-12-04T11:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=56498"},"modified":"2015-12-03T18:56:56","modified_gmt":"2015-12-04T00:56:56","slug":"my-virtual-client-is-obviously-guilty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=56498","title":{"rendered":"My Virtual Client Is Obviously Guilty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joe Doakes from Como Park – who, let the record show, is an attorney – emails:<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t understand Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman\u2019s legal analysis<\/a> in charging the BLM shooter with assault with a deadly weapon.<\/p>\n

When Black people protest, it\u2019s a Constitutionally protected right.\u00a0 If White people counter-protest, it should be just as protected, right?<\/p>\n

Yes, I know, the White people said they were going to stir up trouble.\u00a0 They know somebody who owns a Confederal flag.\u00a0 They talked trash on video.\u00a0 That\u2019s bad manners, agreed.\u00a0 But filming Black protestors and even calling them names is no less protected speech than burning a cross in somebody\u2019s yard and we know that\u2019s constitutional, decided decades ago in RAV v. St. Paul<\/a>.\u00a0 So going to the protest should be good.<\/p>\n

If the White guys were racially offensive in implementing their counter-protest, does that negate the shooters self-defense claim?\u00a0 The standard is:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Did not initiate the physical conflict, must be a reluctant participant.<\/li>\n
  2. Attempted to retreat by running away<\/li>\n
  3. Reasonably believed they were about to suffer great bodily harm at the hands of an enraged mob<\/li>\n
  4. Used reasonable force to repel the attack by firing a few rounds, only one of which injured anybody<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I\u2019m sure the prosecutor and the media will portray the White men as the aggressors, not as reluctant participants.\u00a0 But that doesn\u2019t sound right to me.\u00a0 If you and I are having a heated discussion, the guy who throws the first punch is the aggressor, regardless how annoying the words are.<\/p>\n

    There might be such a thing as \u201cfighting words\u201d to justify a quick punch.\u00a0 But there\u2019s no such thing as \u201cchasing-down-an-alley\u201d words to justify a mob beating. \u00a0The Black mob initiated the threat of physical violence, the White men attempted to retreat and used reasonable force as a last resort.\u00a0 I would think the shooter has a pretty good case for self-defense.\u00a0 I would expect Mike Freeeman to see that.\u00a0 I therefore conclude the assault charge is grandstanding to pacify the same mob that initiated the violence. \u00a0That\u2019s not a good long-term strategy for maintaining public order.<\/p>\n

    Joe Doakes<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    “Progressive” politics is always a matter of balancing respective mobs of constituents, usually against each other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Joe Doakes from Como Park – who, let the record show, is an attorney – emails: I don\u2019t understand Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman\u2019s legal analysis in charging the BLM shooter with assault with a deadly weapon. When Black people protest, it\u2019s a Constitutionally protected right.\u00a0 If White people counter-protest, it should be just as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,17,320,337],"tags":[342],"class_list":["post-56498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ebony-and-ivory","category-minneapolis","category-mndfl","category-privilege","tag-blm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56498"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56500,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56498\/revisions\/56500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}