LanyrdSkynrd

Pictured: Google trends showing a lot of people just today discovering Joe Biden isn't on the ballot

...when landlords are absolutely perishable.

It's a long article, so I put the most relevant excerpts below, but the whole article is interesting and infuriating. There is a lot more details about the case and lack of evidence.

Richardson and Claiborne's plight is as unique as it is complex. Since they were accused in April 1998 of shooting and killing Officer Allen Gibson, they've faced charges in both the state and federal court systems, and seen their cases go up and down on appeal while seeming to skirt some of the judicial system's most basic rules regarding double jeopardy and the disclosure of exculpatory evidence.

Despite state prosecutors initially charging them with capital murder, the charges were drastically reduced thanks to what court records say was a lack of physical evidence. The two men ultimately pled guilty in 1999 to manslaughter and accessory after the fact, and served little to no time in prison.

Federal prosecutors, however, went on to try them again for the same killing under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act in 2001. In the federal trial, jurors found Richardson and Claiborne not guilty of the murder, but did convict them on drug possession and distribution charges.

Even though they were cleared of the murder, the federal judge overseeing the case sentenced both men to life in prison under U.S. Supreme Court precedent that allows judges to consider conduct for which a defendant has been acquitted to impose a longer sentence. And in making the call to put both men behind bars for life, the judge pointed to their guilty pleas in state court.

"The court is just leaning on the guilty plea instead of trying to find out what happened that day," Adams said. "And the reason, I believe, is they are not looking to find out what happened, because they already know. And what they know is that it ain't Terence and Ferrone."

The Guilty Plea

Nearly a year after the killing, prosecutors reduced the charges against the two defendants from capital murder to involuntary manslaughter in exchange for their guilty pleas. According to the report that attorney general Herring prepared years later in response to Richardson's innocence petition, a state prosecutor had admitted to the press that the case was weak and that "the risks in going to trial with a jury were just astronomical."

"My family ran out of money," Claiborne said. "They were talking about giving us the death penalty. When our attorney came to us and said that this was the best deal, what else was I supposed to do in order to stay alive?"

Richardson said his lawyer told him that, "even though they know that it may not have been y'all that did it, they're going to make somebody wear this case. And it's going to be y'all. You're going to get the death penalty."

"I said, 'Man that's crazy. You're trying to tell me I got to go to prison for something I didn't do?" Richardson said.

The Federal Case

Richardson and Claiborne took the plea deal in December 1999, with Richardson admitting to involuntary manslaughter and Claiborne agreeing he had served as an accessory after the fact.

Richardson was sentenced to 10 years with five suspended based on good behavior, while Claiborne was sentenced to time served.

Adams said there was public outrage at the outcome.

"If you're in D.C. and you're reading that, out of Waverly, Virginia, a cop was killed by two Black guys and they plead guilty, but [one is] given time served, you're going to be like, 'What the hell man?'" Adams said. "You've never seen such concessions made for Black men accused of killing a white guy. It just doesn't happen."

So in December 2000, amid pressure from Gibson's family and others, federal prosecutors indicted Richardson and Claiborne under the RICO Act for one count of conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine, one count of use of a firearm to commit murder during drug trafficking, and one count of murder of a law enforcement officer during drug trafficking.

"These drug charges came out of nowhere. It was a loophole," Adams said. "They couldn't just say, 'We're trying to get to the murder of this officer.' There would have been some sovereignty issues with that. But this way they could do it and say, 'I'm charging you with a RICO case where your drug dealing resulted in the death of an officer.'"

As with the state case, the federal case included no physical evidence in support of the charges.

Guy unloads a truly impressive string of verbal abuse on a cop. Predictably cops don't let that go unpunished

Excellent video about the real reason ADHD drugs are in short supply. Spoiler: it's about profits

The National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA) has cited the infamous 1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, which stated that enslaved people weren’t citizens, to argue that Vice President Kamala Harris is ineligible to run for president according to the Constitution.

The group also challenged the right of Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley to appear on Republican primary ballots.

The Republican group’s platform and policy document noted that “The Constitutional qualifications of Presidential eligibility” states that “No person except a natural born Citizen, shall be eligible, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President

“An originalist and strict constructionist understanding of the Constitution in the Scalia and Thomas tradition, as well as precedent-setting U.S. Supreme Court cases ... have found that a ‘Natural Born Citizen’ is defined as a person born on American soil of parents who are both citizens of the United States at the time of the child’s birth,” the document states.

The group then cites six cases including Dred Scott v Sandford. The 1857 ruling came a few years before the 1861 outbreak of the US Civil War over the issue of slavery, stating that enslaved people could not be citizens, meaning that they couldn’t expect to receive any protection from the courts or the federal government. The ruling also said that Congress did not have the power to ban slavery from a federal territory.

I thought this was some kind of op, like someone making a fake Republican org and putting out an unhinged policy paper. Citing Dred Scott is crazy, especially since it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the argument that she's not a citizen.

Archive link: https://web.archive.org/save/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fworld%2Famericas%2Fus-politics%2Fkamala-harris-president-supreme-court-b2601364.html