THIRD WORLD: Jan. 6 Inmates in DC Jail Continue to be Denied Basic Rights, Access to Lawyers, Bail
by Jonathan Davis
about 4 hours ago
American “justice” has been fleeting now for years, and in fact,... View MoreTHIRD WORLD: Jan. 6 Inmates in DC Jail Continue to be Denied Basic Rights, Access to Lawyers, Bail
by Jonathan Davis
about 4 hours ago
American “justice” has been fleeting now for years, and in fact, an astute observer — Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. — opined earlier this week that the FBI has pretty much been a politicized entity since J. Edgar Hoover, its first director, ran the agency.
But at least for the most part the bureau and the Justice Department it served were largely observant of the Constitution’s civil rights provisions, including the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of “cruel and inhuman” punishment, and the right to fair, speedy trials with legal representation.
The DoJ was also pretty conscientious about Supreme Court precedence and rulings, including attorney-client privilege and the right to counsel.
But one event seems to have changed all of that: The Jan. 6 protest at the U.S. Capitol Building.
For reasons we can only assume have to do with the fact that some of the demonstrators were supporters of Donald Trump, the president the same FBI and deep state attempted to take down for four years prior, many of those arrested for essentially trespassing at the Capitol have been treated as badly as convicts in third-world banana republic dictatorships.
Just the News has more regarding the plight of Dominic Pezzola, an accused ‘rioter’:
The 43-year-old veteran, now incarcerated in D.C. jail for 150 days, has been effectively shut out of his own defense in violation of constitutional guarantees specifically for defendants, not just their counsel, the filing says.
Not only is Pezzola unable to “adequately” view the voluminous text, audio and video evidence held by the prosecution, but like all other January 6 defendants housed a short drive from the U.S. Capitol, his right to attorney-client privilege is functionally meaningless, his lawyers Marty Tankleff and Steven Metcalf argue.
They raised similar objections about lack of privacy and access to evidence to Just the News two months ago, following brief outrage from Democratic and Republican lawmakers about Department of Corrections policies for January 6 defendants and other D.C. jail inmates.
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Pezzola has “literally been in his cell for 22 or 23 hours a day,” said the filing. “It is impossible to have a free-flowing conversation” with their client in these “open cages where there is no confidentiality [and] everyone can hear the conversations[,] including prison guards.”
In addition, evidence review policies at the D.C. jail have “the potential to invade attorney-client privilege” along with the practical effect of heaping extra punishment on inmates by placing them in “restrictive housing” for two weeks at a time.
If conditions don’t change, the attorneys suggested they’ll seek a new trial or dismissal of all charges, citing legal precedents that punish a prosecution for “knowingly arrang[ing] or permit[ing] intrusion into the attorney-client relationship.”
“The jail has a record of discriminating against Pezzola, sending him to ‘the hole’ multiple times without a ‘reasonable penological reason’ but rather as retaliation or harassment, the filing claims,” according to Just the News. “One of these — lasting about two weeks, ‘without a single disciplinary charge’ — happened hours after a broadcast interview with his wife.”
This is…crazy. Worse than that, it’s blatantly unconstitutional. But so far, the Biden regime doesn’t seem remotely interested in fixing this injustice, and frankly, neither do too many Republicans in Congress.
What country do we live in again, exactly?
