Posted on 12/30/2015 5:41:36 AM PST by Kaslin
Krister Evertson is the type of person we all strive to be: Eagle Scout, National Honor Society member, worker with the deaf and hearing impaired, and all-around law-abiding citizen.
Krister sold raw sodium, which is perfectly legal and used in variety of applications. Raw sodium must be shipped by ground transportation, not through the air. Unbeknownst to Krister, even when he checked off "ground" on the shipping label, UPS may ship by air.
Krister was arrested at gunpoint. He was found not guilty, but the government wouldn't stop there. After spending $430,000 in tax dollars, the government subsequently tried and convicted Krister for abandoning the "toxic" materials he clearly and carefully stored under another's supervision. Krister spent nearly two years in federal prison.
Krister's story is no far-fetched exception to some arcane law. Thousands of law-abiding citizens have been convicted under the more than 300,000 federal provisions, most of them administrative -- in other words not passed by Congress -- that carry a criminal penalty.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
And what happened to the EPA officials who poisoned an entire river? Oh, look. The EPA has found the EPA is not responsible for poisoning the river. Surprise, surprise.
http://dailysignal.com/2015/12/21/epa-now-says-theyre-not-to-blame-for-gold-king-mine-spill/
If anybody is interested...here’s the legal stuff...
http://www.wlf.org/litigating/case_detail.asp?id=584
I am reluctantly a HAZWOPER. Requires massive amounts of detail and updating. Dealing with no less than 6 government agencies that often have conflicting regulations. I pay a consulting company to insure that we stay in compliance. That said the first thing they tell you in HAZWOPER training is that the shipper is ultimately responsible.
Question: Do I fear the Ferals more than I fear the Federals?.
Answer: NO!
Ayn Rand
I would also add the line from Matt Bracken:
"We could both be facing prison time just for talking like this."
"Not as long as we're in power. You know how I know? Operation Fast and Furious. At least four hundred dead and there was no blowback that we couldn't handle. Our media stuck right with us all the way through. For me, that was the final test. We can do almost anything if we get the timing right, and most of the media stays with us."
Raise your hand if you have ever seen sodium?
Itâs not salt!
Itâs an extremely dangerous metal.
Drop a pea sized piece of sodium in a glass of water and BANG! A very high intensity fire breaks out - in the glass of water.
So what exactly is your point?
It appears you think the man deserves to be in prison because he sold something that is potentially dangerous, even though it's perfectly legal to do so. Itâs extremely dangerous stuff!
To whom and for what purpose?
Me, too. Horrible reporting, it leaves the reader with more questions than answers. So, did UPS actually ship the sodium by air? Under what construct did the fed's claim he 'abandoned' the stuff?
Reading comprehension is not your strong point is it? The article clearly states that he was found not guilty at his first trial. Then the Feds went after him for something else.
So why hasn’t every Congress-critter spent 2 years in federal prison? If they’ve criminalized everything the way to get them to quit is to make them taste their own medicine. That’s the ONLY way we’ll ever get good governance out of any of them.
There are countless dangerous chemicals that have legitimate uses.
How would you ever clean your drains without lye?
Most plastics are safe to have and use, but the materials needed to make them are very dangerous.
Twenty-five or more years ago there was a convicted criminal in a prison cell who wanted to commit suicide, he made an IED from playing cards and successfully offed himself.
There are countless dangerous chemicals that have legitimate uses.
How would you ever clean your drains without lye?
Most plastics are safe to have and use, but the materials needed to make them are very dangerous.
Twenty-five or more years ago there was a convicted criminal in a prison cell who wanted to commit suicide, he made an IED from playing cards and successfully offed himself.
And he was found guilty in the second trial. What did I miss here?
Some info from a Jan 3, 2014 document by the Washington Legal Foundation (WLF):
“The evidence indicates that the chemicals were not abandoned âwasteâ at all but rather were valuable materials that Evertson planned to use in his manufacturing business. To obtain a conviction under RCRA, prosecutors had to show that the defendant abandoned the hazardous chemicals. If allowed to testify, Evertson would have explained that he safely stored the chemicals and left Idaho to earn money needed to restart his business, but he always intended to return and put his temporarily-stored materials to good use. However, his defense attorneys did not permit him to testify, and the jury convicted him without ever hearing him explain this.
Evertson seeks to overturn his conviction on the ground that he was denied effective assistance of counsel, in violation of his Sixth Amendment rights. WLFâs petition noted that the final decision whether a defendant should take the witness stand belongs to the defendant, and defense counsel acts unethically in overruling a clientâs decision to testify. WLF argued that his lawyersâ decision deprived Evertson of the ability to respond to prosecutorsâ claims that he abandoned his chemicals. The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held that Evertson waived his right to testify when he failed to stand up in open court to challenge his counselâs statement that the defense would rest without calling additional witnesses. That waiver rule conflicts with decisions from five other appeals courts, and WLF asked the Supreme Court to review and resolve the conflict. “
I carry that quote in my wallet.
The article doesn’t explain. I googled Krister Evertson and read up more about him.
“So what exactly is your point?”
Most people have never seen sodium. I merely am explaining what it is.
Not enough inmates? Create more laws for people to break.
Job security for federal officials. Job security for for-profit prisons.
They must maintain a steady flow of criminals. If not, then just create more laws or ‘administrative’ as they said... voila... former law abiding citizens are now inmates and the expensive cots in the for-profit prison now have a ‘customer’.
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