In his sentencing memo Thursday, U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney made it clear why he was letting Tyler Laube off lightly.

It wasn’t just because of what Laube did or didn’t do – the defendant had already confessed to beating a journalist at a 2017 Southern California rally and pleaded guilty to violating riot laws as part of a white supremacist gang.

Laube deserved a light sentence, Carney said, because prosecutors should have focused on leftist groups.

In a 22-page memo, Carney repeatedly said prosecutors have “ignored” violence committed by Antifa and instead focused on targeting people like Laube – Trump supporters and members of the far right.

The federal judge’s strong words – and clear political bent – are as unusual as they are uninformed, legal experts told USA TODAY.

He’s really gone off the deep end,” said John Donohue, a professor at Stanford Law School.

    • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
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      3 months ago

      Why would they? They know they have the nearly 30% support it takes to overwhelm a society and, crucially, they know roughly 30% are complacent enough to allow their takeover and whatever atrocities they think are required to ‘fix’ society.

      Remember that when fascism threatened to overwhelm us in the 1930s, only about 30% of society were onboard with it; 30% were actively against it, and roughly 30% were in denial, didn’t want to talk about it, or were just hoping it would go away somehow if they just ignored it.

    • NateNate60@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      This particular judge is a joke. The American legal system is flawed in many ways, but you also have to recognise that no system as large as that can be internally consistent all the time. There are tens of thousands of judges in the US, so it’s expected that every so often you will see a particularly unfair or strange ruling.

      • Cosmonauticus@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        There are tens of thousands of judges in the US, so it’s expected that every so often you will see a particularly unfair or strange ruling.

        Except it’s proven particular groups are more likely to receive harsher sentences than others (brown men). It a corrupt hypocritical system that was intentionally made to give justice to some and not others. It was designed to be unfair

        • NateNate60@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          I quite literally said—

          The American legal system is flawed in many ways…

          This outcome is not a product of the systematic problems you describe. The average January 6 defendant received sentences of several months to several years imprisonment. This case (and I’m only talking about this case) is a statistical outlier.

          I swear, whenever I try to make a nuanced point the people on this site can be dense as fuck and it goes right over their heads and they think that I’m claiming everything’s perfect

          • Cosmonauticus@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            I know what you said. My argument is the system isn’t flawed. It’s working as it is intended.

            This outcome is not a product of the systematic problems you describe.

            The entire system uses prejudice to sentence those it considers outliers harsher than others. Whether it be race, gender, political ideology, etc. As well as DA’s being more concerned with getting a conviction no matter the cost instead of actual justice.

            This case (and I’m only talking about this case) is a statistical outlier

            Yet even you bring up the fact that the VAST majority of Jan 6 defendant receive less time (especially compared to BLM protestors) yet somehow this case is seperate from the issues that plague our justice system? Couldn’t have anything to do with their races and political affiliation right?

          • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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            3 months ago

            I mean, increased scrutiny and harsher penalties applied to left-wing radical groups and amnesty for right-wing radical groups has been a pretty consistent problem for decades at minimum. This is a prominent example of a more widespread problem.

      • solrize@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        tens of thousands of judges

        Less than 1000 at that level (US district judge) I’m pretty sure. It is a pretty big deal. They are confirmed by the Senate and serve for life. Real zanies are not supposed to get through.

      • Veraxus@lemmy.world
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        I get what you’re saying, but there needs to strong and effective remedies for situations like this.

        This judge needs to be removed and barred from any public office or service, and every ruling they ever made carefully re-evaluated.

        • NateNate60@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          I agree. These rulings seem politically motivated and, as the experts in the article said, reflect shocking ignorance of the situation. Unfortunately, unlike most state judiciaries, there is no body set up to scrutinise federal judges. The only recourse is political, through impeachment.

      • Aniki 🌱🌿@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        Bullshit. A jury of peers was always supposed to be white men. From the very first moment this shit hole was settled, its been nothing but racism, fascism, and greed.

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    “Sentencing Mr. Laube to additional incarceration would only increase the disparity between his punishment and the lack of punishment (and prosecution) members of far-left groups who have committed the same violent conduct received,” Carney [the judge!] wrote. The sentence: time served, 35 days, rather than the six months prosecutors had sought.

    For punching a journalist on camera, having gone to the protest with the intention to commit violence as part of a right wing fight club.

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    3 months ago

    Sounds like clear grounds for an appeal. I wish that kind of absolute bias would be grounds for removal.

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      Yeah, easy-peasy appeal material. The First Amendment absolutely bans modifying someone’s sentence based on whether they’re left or right wing. This judge just flat-out confessed to violating the Constitution.

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        A not-guilty verdict can’t be appealed, but the length of the sentence resulting from a guilty verdict can be appealed, at least in certain situations.

    • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
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      For the right and the people in power, laws are just a mere suggestion. In fact, them breaking the law is kind of a status symbol for them, note that they often apologizes for being caught, not for the deed they did.

      In their endgame, they’ll be rubbing it into our faces.

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    3 months ago

    Hope that the antifa prisoners get a successful appeal against their excessive sentences out of this.

    And that the fash judge is forced to retire immediately, with a review into all their sentencing decisions.

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    Sounds an awful lot like the trials after hitlers failed coup attempt, after all, the nazis were “guided in their actions by a purely patriotic spirit and the noblest of selfless intentions”

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    Conservatism is a plague of oppression and death. Being conservative should be a disqualifier for positions of authority.

    Conservative policing and conservative courts are moral justification for extrajudicial justice against conservative offenders.

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    3 months ago

    After all those riots, and speaking as a Canadian, it does seem there is a lobsided focus on right wing nut jobs over left wing nut jobs.

    Surely others see this as well? Not saying this guy’s sentence should be lighter, I don’t care, but there was a lot of forgiveness for what antifa did.