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Comment by nomel | Hacker News Reader

Facts start at the third section, "‘An issue of selective prosecution’", after ~30 paragraphs of character/story/emotion building.

> Mavalwalla was one of hundreds of people to respond to a 11 June social media post from the former president of the Spokane city council that encouraged protesters to block an Ice transport they believed would carry two Venezuelan immigrants who were in the country legally, petitioning for asylum when they were detained.

> “I am going to sit in front of the bus,” Ben Stuckart, the former city council president, wrote. “Feel free to join me.”

With this "problem" for the prosecutors quoted:

> In this case, prosecutors would just have to prove that defendants agreed in concert to impede or injure an officer.

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The Bundy brothers - the ones who led an armed occupation of a wildlife refuge for 41 days - were charged with that same crime, and they were acquitted: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/27/oregon-milit...

So I would caution against reading a short description of the law and thinking it's an open-and-shut case against the protesters.

IANAL, but that cases seem very different. This appears direct (prevent the federal officer from completing their enforcement action), where the Bundy brothers appears to have been indirect (in response to a federal officers that completed their action):

> In response to the imprisonment of two Harney County ranchers, who were prosecuted for arson, Ammon and Ryan led a group of activists in an occupation of the Malheur national wildlife refuge, an obscure sanctuary for birds.

> Ammon declared that he and other protesters, some who openly carried firearms and took over government buildings and equipment, would stay until the ranchers were freed and the refuge land was given to locals to control.

The thing that prompted the occupation isn't relevant. They physically occupied federal property and prevented federal officers from entering or from performing their duties. Much like in this case!

And much like the other case there is a first amendment component, and the balance of how much the government can override ones right to express one's self when doing so impedes the work of the government.

The facts start at the beginning: - the actual US attorney for the area was pressured to resign from Republicans (Trump) - Republicans put in a guy with 0 legal experience who was previously working for a political group. Said guy also wanted the US government overthrown on January 6th as he supports the insurrectionists. This is also the guy who supports the Republican's attempt to illegally erase the 14th amendment. - The person who was arrested and charged was merely exercising his first amendment rights to peacefully assemble and protest. He did nothing violent nor criminal.

> nor criminal

IANAL, but it appears to be criminal: 18 U.S.C. 111

This does not appear to be covered under "peaceful protest": https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/protesters-rights

you're quoting a lot of legal code for someone starting all of their posts with "IANAL"

The point of commenting IANAL, is that legal code is complicated. The ACLU is likely giving "best-practices", but that's not legal code. It's guidelines.

This feels pretty first-amendment to me, but I have little doubt that SCOTUS would think that people's first-amendment rights are less important than the Gov't's ability to do what it's doing.

I just also think that SCOTUS is wrong and full of very political actors who are grossly partial towards the current administration.

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