American Greatness
We need to stand with January 6 defendants and all political prisoners being punished chiefly for their beliefs…
Criminal sentencing conveys a society’s moral sense. The worst crimes get the death penalty or life without parole. At the other extreme, misdemeanor offenders may be met with fines, diversion programs, time served in county jail, or probation. In between are many gradations, which reflect the individual characteristics of the offender and the objective aspects of the crime itself.
This week, we saw extreme sentencing for the Capitol protest on January 6, 2021. Specifically, members of the Proud Boys received draconian sentences for the archaic, rarely prosecuted crime of “seditious conspiracy.”
Stretching Archaic Statutes
The offense of seditious conspiracy is incredibly vague, but the Civil War-era statute is aimed at violent attempts to overthrow the government. Under the statute’s language, calling the protests a seditious conspiracy is a real stretch. Almost everyone involved thought they were protesting an unfair electoral count in accordance with their constitutional rights to “peaceably assemble” and “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Obviously, there was no way their protests (and even any violence) would overthrow the government or change the election’s outcome. Julie Kelly deserves credit for exposing the shaky legal foundations for these charges…
