Glenn Greenwald of Britain’s The Guardian newspaper said Edward Snowden chose the semi-autonomous Chinese region Hong Kong because it was the least bad option open to him. Greenwald said that Snowden wanted to remain out of the “clutches” of the U.S. government for as long as possible but is fully aware that he won’t succeed. Snowden MUST go to China where he will be protected. There is ZERO chance for a fair trial. The US system is so bad, the jury means nothing.
People do not realize by if a jury acquits you on 9 out of 10 charges, the judge can STILL sentence you to prison on the very conduct the jury rejected!!!! Yes – this is American Justice rendering the jury nothing but a nuisance. The government does not pay attention to what the jury says in federal court. The landmark Supreme Court decision in United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005) rendered the mandatory and controversial Federal Sentencing Guidelines (“the Guidelines”) merely advisory. In so deciding, the Supreme Court created uncertainty that rippled through the federal circuit and district courts, resulting in inconsistencies regarding several elements of the now “advisory”. Perhaps the most contentious controversy unleashed by the Booker decision is the constitutionality of a judge’s consideration of acquitted conduct in enhanced sentencing (“acquitted-conduct sentencing”).
Judges are word-smiths. They can justify anything. Sentencing you for crimes you were NOT found guilty of is the latest breakdown in the rule of law that means it is IMPOSSIBLE to obtain a fair trial in the United States – PERIOD!!!! In United States v. Watts, 519 U.S. 148, 154 (1997) the Supreme Court justified this practice writing:
“As we explained in Witte, however, sentencing enhancements do not punish a defendant for crimes of which he was not convicted, but rather increase his sentence because of the manner in which he committed the crime of conviction.”.
This is why the government charges so many counts on a single event. They twist each event into so many charges just to get one and then they can sentence you to the whole set of counts even when the jury fails to convict you. Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was the terrorist they did put on trial in New York and was supposed to be their best case. On November 17, 2010, a US jury in New York found him guilty of one count of conspiracy, but acquitted him of 284 other charges including all murder counts. Basically, the jury found he may have “agreed” with the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, but that he did NOT participate himself. Nevertheless, he was sentenced to life imprisonment by Judge Lewis Kaplan for the one count when he was acquited of any murders. Under US law, the Judge has “descretion” to sentence you to whatever he desires for he is not nullifying the jury’s decision, but “increas[ing] his sentence because of the manner in which he committed the crime of conviction.”
This would be like your father beating you for saying you did not do something, but he says it is not whether or not you did what he accused you of, he didn’t like the tone of your answer.
Judges have changed the law so much that what once was respectful of human rights is now considered “liberal” and unpopular. Justice Field wrote in a dissenting opinion what has become standard practice today in the way they charge crime.
“The State may, indeed, make the drinking of one drop of liquor an offense to be punished by imprisonment, but it would be an unheard-of cruelty if it should count the drops in a single glass, and make thereby a thousand offenses, and thus extend the punishment for drinking the single glass of liquor to an imprisonment of almost indefinite duration.”
O’Neil v. Vermont, 144 U.S. 323, 340 (1892)
Back then, it was prohibition. The act that was designed to get the Irish and Italian Catholics who were flooding the country as immigrants and were drinkers. By outlawing booze, they hoped to stop the immigration. The Department of Just-Us can and will take a single event of Snowden revealing the NSA illegal seizure of everything and turn each document into a separate criminal count. Today, they are taking that single glass of wine and criminalizing every individual drop. So the jury can believe you did NOT drink a single drop, but you “agreed” to drink one drop (conspiracy) but did not actually drink it, and then the judge can sentence you as if you drank every drop in that glass because the jury said they believe you intended to drink (conspiracy). Guilty of one drop entitles the judge to do whatever he desires irrespective of the jury decision. Today, you WILL be sentenced for drinking every drop despite the fact you did not.
Neither can Snowden argue that it should be illegal to prosecute a whisleblower. That is called jury nullification. The judge will instruct the jury it is NOT their right to sit in judgment over congress. They can pass a law making it a crime if you do not kill your first born as Abraham was ordered to do. The jury is NOT permitted to say such a law is unprincipled. The only question the jury can decide is if you obeyed the law Congress wrote.
Snowden – I hope someone shows you this. You cannot get a fair trial in the USA. The press in London reported what you revealed. The US press has focused on your girlfriend dancing with a pole and that you dropped out of school. So somehow this makes whatever the NSA does to our rights OK because of what you did in school and your girlfriend dancing with a pole.
The institutionalized American press will ENSURE you are convicted. Even good journalists cannot write the truth for their editors get the last say. The American Press will never print what I have just revealed about the federal jury system because they are part of the propaganda machine that keeps Americans in line and subservient to the non-elected bureaucratic government. In my own case, just days into it, the Assistant US Attorney Brian Coad was in our office joked about my assertion of a constitutional speedy trial right that should have been 90 days max. When an employee asked what about that right, the reply was a laugh bluntly stating then and there that there would never be a trial. That was correct and dictated the entire case.
There is NO federal judge that I am aware of who will defend anyone in New York City against the demands of the government. So forget it, There will NEVER be a fair trial in the USA. It is IMPOSSIBLE! Juries mean nothing. They throw so many counts in there so that the jury feels they have to give the government something as was the case in Ghailani.
