Case thrown out for “for lack of evidence”? NOT on First Amendment violations?
I find that troublesome.
You make an important point.
Case thrown out for “for lack of evidence”? NOT on First Amendment violations? I find that troublesome.
A procedural error is less time consuming, and far easier to justify to an appellate court, because it doesn't require any analysis of the subject matter. Was there a First Amendment violation? On its fact, the answer appears to be "yes." Did that battle need to be fought? No.
Yes. I know what you mean.
However, this was the conviction...
“Case thrown out for “for lack of evidence”? NOT on First Amendment violations?
I find that troublesome.”
He didn’t argue First Amendment. In fact, the government agreed that merely posting the memes would not have been a crime. The government alleged that he was part of a conspiracy to prevent people from voting by using the memes.
His argument - which the Second Circuit agreed with - was that there was no evidence that he was part of such a conspiracy.
I am okay with that. You are not allowed to intentionally mislead people regarding voting issues under various laws. The lack of evidence is related to the fact that they couldn’t prove he was intending to mislead people rather than be funny.
The biggest 1A tragedy here is that it was even prosecuted in the first place because it is such a common joke over the years from all sides.
The Eastern District of New York judge should be impeached and convicted for even allowing the case to be tried in the first place. The prosecutors in the case should be fired and disbarred.
Given that the conviction was specifically for “conspiring to deprive citizens of their right to vote”, why would the First Amendment necessarily be in play?
Case thrown out for “for lack of evidence”? NOT on First Amendment violations?
I find that troublesome.
If you read the first part of the court ruling, it states that all parties agree that it was not a crime to post the meme. Biden’s DOJ knew they couldn’t charge on the posting itself, so they charged MacKey with a conspiracy and got the conviction (it was New York, so of course they did). THAT is what the appeals court overturned.
I just read the opinion. The appellate court found that the government produced insufficient evidence that Mackey “conspired” with another person. A “conspiracy” is a criminal agreement by 2 or more persons. Basically, the government failed to show proof that Mackey acted in criminal concert with another person to make an attempt to mislead voters. The Court, therefore, did not have to decide the issue whether the memes themselves were First Amendment protected.
Might be a better way. If 1st amend is the issue, you get tied up in all sorts of pre-trial crappola.
OTOHand, a judge can listen to a pre-trial request from defending attorney to summarily dismiss ‘cause of no evidence. If this is the conclusion, then all future judge’s can point to this ruling and convene a pretrial meeting and ask “So, who has evidence to show me? Uhh, none? OK, dismissed with prejudice.”
This approach short-circuits the usual crappola of accusations and such from commie trash just trying to ruin someone’s life by totally fictitious claims knowing that the poor schlub getting attacked cannot financially support his own defense.