I'm disappointed in Reason magazine. They're usually better than this, but they flubbed the facts on this one. The guy wasn't convicted for "transporting anti-government pamphlets", he was convicted for concealing evidence. His wife called him from the county jail and asked him to hide the documents, and he did it. And that's what he was charged with: not possession of anti-government pamphlets, but trying to hide documents that he knew were going to be used as evidence against someone (his wife) who had been arrested. If you try to hide evidence, you become an accessory after the fact. Reason's article finishes with "possessing "anti-government" documents or ideology is not illegal." Which is totally true, but also irrelevant to this case. That's not what he was charged with, he was charged with trying to hide evidence that he knew the court was going to want. I'm disappointed in Reason for completely failing to report accurately on this one.

As an aside, this was a federal conviction so Texas law doesn't apply to this case. And the defendants are lucky Texas law didn't apply to this case, because in Texas, if you're (for example) the getaway driver for a robbery, but someone is shot and killed during the robbery, then you can be held guilty of murder even though you didn't pull the trigger, if you knew ahead of time that your co-conspirators were likely to end up killing someone. https://www.ericbenavides.com/what-is-the-law-of-parties-in-... has a short discussion of that aspect of Texas law. If the defendants had been charged under Texas law, everyone, including the guy who tried to conceal evidence after the fact (thereby becoming part of the conspiracy in the eyes of state law), could have been convicted of attempted murder: the shooter shot at an ICE officer (and several other people) and hit him in the neck, but the officer survived. But because federal law applied rather than Texas law, only the guy who actually fired the shots was convicted of attempted murder; the jury found the other four, who had been part of the planning but hadn't fired their own guns, not guilty of attempted murder. (But guilty of the other charges, like conspiracy).

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yread 17 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Very reasonable. I'm looking forward to the time when such reasonable laws are applied to execs of companies ordering destruction of evidence. 30 years behind bars

EDIT: or elected officials. Imagine Nixon getting 30 years for tampering with evidence

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spwa4 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

When you get older you sadly find out more and more than all news sources have an ideological bent and a political side they're supporting. I mean if you didn't wake up when Jeff Bezos purchased the Washington Post, then what does it take?

Which sadly changes the whole situation around, say, the bias of Facebook or Twitter. It's not that these new social media are biased vs. the unbiased traditional media. It's that these are more successful and have a different bias, which currently established parties see as a threat to their power.

Now you may still agree with the parties behind, say, a traditional newspaper and be opposed to, say, Twitter because of that. But you can at least be honest about this being the case.

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floor2 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What you are misleadingly calling "evidence" here is constitutionally protected free speech political materials. It's only "evidence" that he disagreed with the president on immigration, not anything related to a crime.

Take a step back and be honest about this situation, even if you dislike the people or disagree with their political views. This is an authoritarian attack on political opponents.

Everyone, regardless of political views or party affiliation should be outraged and horrified by this. This is the type of government violence against dissidents and opposition that we decry when it happens in other countries, and we shouldn't tolerate it here.

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rmunn 13 hours ago | parent [-]

You ... may want to read the indictment before you form an opinion on this one. There were free speech materials in the box, but in the same box there was also evidence of conspiracy to commit violent felonies, and THAT is what the guy's wife had asked him to hide.

EDIT to add: as for a crackdown on dissidents and protestors, how many of the people attending "No Kings" protests have been arrested? How many people attending anti-ICE protests who were not committing other crimes (such as trespassing) in the process have been arrested? And of those arrested, how many of them got length sentences like this?

According to the indictment — and the jury who saw the evidence was convinced enough to convict them on most of the charges — this was a group that had planned ahead to commit violent crimes and claim that they were just protesting. (They showed up with weapons and body armor, clearly prepared ahead of time for violence — and there was more, but the indictment is lengthy and I don't want to repeat all of it). THAT kind of behavior, I want to see cracked down on with as lengthy sentences as the law allows for. Because it endangers everyone, including all the non-violent protestors. (Because at every protest later, the cops will be on edge, wondering at what point someone is going to start shooting at them. And nervous cops are more likely to make mistakes in judgment — and when someone is nervous and armed, mistakes in judgment have a tendency to be lethal.)

I do NOT want peaceful protestors slammed with ridiculous sentences. But these people were NOT peaceful protestors. And I WANT the kind of thing they did cracked down on. My parents lived through the 1970's, with domestic terrorist groups active all over the place, using peaceful protestors as their cover and endangering everyone by their behavior. I do NOT want to live through a repeat of that.

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Planktonne 12 hours ago | parent [-]

> They showed up with weapons and body armor, clearly prepared ahead of time for violence

How come this argument doesn't hold water in so many other cases? Americans can't be anti-second amendment but only for people who disagree with the government.

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rmunn 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Body armor. Showing up with weapons is normal in some places, including Texas. Body armor, not so much. It's the body armor that's the real evidence of preparation.

P.S. Also, there's no inconsistency. Simply apply basic logic. You have the right to be armed. You do not have the right to shoot at law enforcement officials; that's a felony. Nor do you have the right to plan ahead of time to commit a felony, including shooting at law enforcement officials.

	▲	Planktonne 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Is wearing body armour illegal? You're shifting the goalposts rather a lot here; at first you said that just bearing arms (allowed by 2nd amendment) and wearing body armour (not forbidden) was proof that they're 'clearly prepared ahead of time for violence', and now you're saying that they're simply not allowed to shoot at law enforcement, which no one disputed. Which is it? And why don't you apply that standard evenly?