Judging Freedom - Man Acquitted of Charges Linked to Jan. 6 Capitol Riot

Episode Date: April 7, 2022

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Before I get to our next story, which is of great interest involving an acquittal in the January 6th prosecutions, two items. I need to remind you to like and subscribe. You've been great at doing it. The more of you that like and subscribe and the more folks you can get to like and subscribe, the broader will be the reach of Judging Freedom. Second announcement, and I've spoken about this before, is we have a very special guest, the Thomas Jefferson of our day, the gold standard in libertarian thinking. My personal hero, Dr. Ron Paul, former member of Congress from Texas, former Republican presidential candidate, well, candidate for the Republican nomination, former libertarian candidate for president. So that's this coming Tuesday, April 12, at 1245 in the afternoon, right here live, Ron Paul on Judging Freedom. Yesterday, a federal judge in Washington, D.C. acquitted a person accused of defiant

trespass in the January 6th riot, insurrection, political demonstration, whatever you want to call it, that happened at the Capitol right before the certification of the electoral votes that Joe Biden had in fact defeated Donald Trump. This is the first acquittal of numerous guilty pleas and one jury trial conviction. It was a bench trial, meaning there was no jury. The case was tried before a judge. Now here's how that works. In the federal system, because of the way the Constitution is worded, if you are indicted for a felony, and a felony is a crime for which the maximum penalty is greater than a year, it could be a year and a day, it could be life, but anywhere in that time period, if you're indicted for a felony, you can't have a bench trial. You have to have a jury trial.

But if you're indicted for a misdemeanor defined as maximum penalty is a year or less, you can have a jury trial or you can have a bench trial. The choice is the defendant's. In this case, the defendant chose to have a bench trial. And after a day and a half of testimony, the judge found that no crime was committed. Now, what is defiant trespass? Well, trespass is entering property, private property, where there's a sign saying or every indication saying no trespassing. You step on my farm and because there's a sign saying here's the borderline between my property and yours, technically you're trespassing. Defiant trespass is trespassing and refusing to leave. That's what this fellow was charged with. So he

entered the Capitol building and refused to leave. The judge found him not guilty because the government was not able to demonstrate any evidence whatsoever that there were signs saying no trespassing or that someone told him not to leave. In fact, when this defendant testified on his own behalf that the police waved him in, the court believed it. This is a boneheaded mistake for prosecutors and the court should have reprimanded them. Why bring me a case that you can't prove? Why bring me a case where you can't even produce a witness necessary to prove your case? Government would, in order to prevail here, would have had to have police officers or government officials or eyewitnesses of some sort

saying he was told to leave of some sort saying he was told to leave and he refused and he was told not to enter and he entered anyway. All the evidence was to the contrary. So this is a breakthrough for human freedom. This is why we have judges in America. As prosecutors pick and choose who they want to try, they rarely lose in federal court because they only pick cases that they think they can win. This time they were wrong. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.