NBC News: Jury acquits D.C. 'sandwich guy' charged with chucking a sub at a federal agent
Certainly not a great precedent and a decision based on politics rather than legal principles.
But, given it was a DC jury and the person hit by a sandwich was an ICE agent and because Trump, it is easy to understand how the jury ignored the evidence and found the thrower not guilty of a misdemeanor for the assault, buying into the argument that he had a First Amendment right to assault a federal officer.
Whether it would have been the ICE Agent's First Amendment right to then take said sub sandwich and shove it down Sean Dunn's throat is unresolved.
Hitting someone with an object is an assault.
It gets charged as an assault as we want to, theoretically, let the cooler-head government handle the criminal action rather than require the victim of an assault take matters into their own hands and school the assaulter to seek justice and thus lead to more violence.
By allowing politics to degrade what was clearly an assault into a non-crime, the jury just harmed the very basis of the social contract in the District.
At this point, based on this precedent, you can now probably throw a sandwich at someone with no legal repercussions in DC. The knuckle-sandwich you may get in response, however, will be harder to avoid.
It is also an open question as to what else this ruling allows you to throw at federal agents with zero consequences and whether that immunity from criminal charges will continue when the Democrats are in charge.
2 comments:
It could also because the ICE agents acting like little bitches and attacking (and often arresting without charges) anyone that they believe is an impediment to, or an obstacle for, their intended target.
People are growing tired of their heavy handed tactics. I have no doubt the jury saw the sandwich incident as such an example.
Unless, and until, their actions are handled the same way under the law, I would expect that most juries would do the same.
Since they get away with tactics that would get regular police (much less private citizens) arrested, there is very little sympathy for them.
A case of jury nullification? Seems like it.
And I would have thought the charge to have been battery, not just assault. (dealing with just the physical facts of the case)
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