We are being conditioned to think there’s nothing unusual about local police being dressed and armed like the military because this type of policing will be necessary as we enter the third world order.

Not fair and balanced, no, but in theory you’re not supposed to make up facts, as Radley seems to have nailed her doing here.

Even the “rant” columns in reason magazine are more than just incoherent sputtering.

She’s an idiot.

She’s not someone I think I could drink a beer with.

I thought self-defense had to do with whether you reasonably thought your life was in danger.

This only counts if you are a police officer anymore. Recent court rulings (like Corey Maye’s) show that it doesn’t matter how scared you were for your life if you are up against a police officer, whether you know they are police or not.

But, just out of curiosity, does that mean that if you think corrupt police are illegally breaking in to your home at night – possibly to frame you, plant drugs, kill your dogs, and kill you – then firing on them would be murder. But, if non-badge-holders are doing the same thing, then it would be self-defense?

I thought self-defense had to do with whether you reasonably thought your life was in danger. There was a time to presume that the police didn’t break into peoples’ homes on drug raids and kill occupants (by accident or otherwise). I don’t know if the current policies and procedures justify that assumption. It is becoming another casualty of the drug “war” and no-knock, militarized raid tactics.

All of this other stuff seems to me a sideshow. Did shady cops hire shady burglars to break into houses and look for dope? Probably–and there should be punishment for that. But does any of this answer the question of whether or not Fredericks knew he was firing on police?

What do you need jury nullification for here? As far as I can see, on the evidence available the proper verdict according to law should be not guilty on all charges.

Now I would give a positive declaration of innocence in addition, that is a declaration that the prosecution’s case had been proven to be false. And in addition I would vote for a write in verdict that the prosecution was guilty of attempting to pervert the course of justice. No legal force of course, but the look on the prosecutors’ faces would be a joy to behold.

The judge asked this question to all potential jurors at once. Jurors just held up their juror number to answer yes to these general questions. The inverse question (more inclined to believe cops) was asked immediately before that.

I had some faith in the judiciary system… until I learned about voir dire. Now my opinion is that it’s just a conviction mill, run to suit judges and prosecutors and put anyone who’s stuck in front of a jury in jail.

Duh! Perhaps the fact that the federal government provides lucrative financial incentives for drug busts has a lot to do with shifting local law enforcement effort away from violent/property crime and toward the continuing insanity that is the federally mandated war on drugs.

It’s just a shame that so few of the 500+ congress critters that could change things won’t even allow a floor discussion on the topic, and the few brave ones that want such are labeled as kooks and nutjobs by otherwise reputable publications and sites.

Let’s face it. The drug prohibition industry has the government wrapped around it’s nasty little finger, and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.

So I was sitting in jury duty the other day (my employment as a lawyer with the state’s public defender made me victim to the prosecutor’s peremptory challenge – though I a practice family law), a question was asked to the pool at alrge of: would you be more inclined to believe a civilian over a police officer simply because they were a civilian? (This was question was aksed immediately after the inverse question.)

While I thought maybe I might agree with this, I felt it would seem silly and unfair to be forced to answer this question in the affirmative and thus possibly disqualified from jury duty as a person of bias. So not only could police officers everywhere lie all the time and benefit from that, but their own track record of horrible lying all over the place would benefit them by keeping liberty-minded, intelligent people off the jury simply becuase they came to the only reasonable conclusion they could?

While we may never know for sure, anyone who thinks that a veteran police officer is unlikely to have told dozens of lies in the line of duty is a moron.