Defiant Oath Keepers founder gets 18 years in prison, longest 1/6 sentence yet

RocksInMyHead said:

Harsh sentences are to be expected when you try (and fail) to overthrow the government. It's absolutely political, though perhaps not in the way that you're implying - the government (a political entity) has a vested interest in discouraging people from trying to depose it, and when people do make the attempt, they're made an example of to demonstrate the point that subverting the democratic process (or trying to do so) is a Bad Thing.

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18 years is longer than the sentences that some of the people got who were involved with Weather Underground back in the day.

How much time did Bill Ayers end up doing in prison (despite participating in terror activities for years)?

How much time did anyone involved with Chaz/Chop end up doing?


And while it's not a perfect comparison, some BLM activists ran rough shot for months on end, and prominent political figures were even encouraging people to donate to bail funds for them.

Again, that's not to say that burning down an Auto Zone is the equivalent of trying to violently overturn an election. But there has to be a happy medium between "encourage people to help bail out the former, throw the book at the latter"...if there's to be any perception of objectivity.

Bradskii said:

Investigate this further and you might find that judges are frustrated by the leniency of the punishments they are restricted to pass down. Most people have been charged with misdemeanors and given a fine and released almost immediately for time already served if they had been held in custody. Almost certainly because they would plead guilty to that. And a more serious charge would be contested and would be vastly more time consuming.

And as over 1,000 have been charged, there is an understandable tendency to get what you can as regards the general rioters. But hit the ring leaders very hard indeed.

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Judges can be frustrated all they want, but it's not their role in our justice system to quasi-badger prosecutors into charging people with more in order to have more flexibility to "teach people a lesson" based on their own personal viewpoints.

I've always viewed the judicial branch as the branch I could count on to be above the partisan bickering and pettiness that we regularly see in the other 2 branches of government. It was the branch where Antonin Scalia and RBG could (and did) coexist and maintain a friendly relationship while still disagreeing (something you don't see a whole lot from the other branches)

If the prosecutor says "I'm charging this person with XYZ", and the sentencing window for XYZ is $1000 fine and up to 3 months in jail, then that's the window the judge has to work with. If the judge personally thinks "this person should go to jail for 18 months for doing something like this", they should quit their job, run for a position in the legislative branch, and change the law so that XYZ can carry a max sentence of 18 months instead of 3 months.

ThatRobGuy said:

Judges can be frustrated all they want, but it's not their role in our justice system to quasi-badger prosecutors into charging people with more...

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They can't do that. But they can express frustration that the charges which they have to consider have left them no option but to give a limited sentence.

ThatRobGuy said:

18 years is longer than the sentences that some of the people got who were involved with Weather Underground back in the day.

How much time did Bill Ayers end up doing in prison (despite participating in terror activities for years)?

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I have no idea. It should be noted that federal sentencing has change a few times since then so comparisons might be difficult.

ThatRobGuy said:

How much time did anyone involved with Chaz/Chop end up doing?

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Unless there is a federal nexus, it isn't relevant as it would be a state crime and state prosecution.

ThatRobGuy said:

And while it's not a perfect comparison, some BLM activists ran rough shot for months on end, and prominent political figures were even encouraging people to donate to bail funds for them.

Again, that's not to say that burning down an Auto Zone is the equivalent of trying to violently overturn an election. But there has to be a happy medium between "encourage people to help bail out the former, throw the book at the latter"...if there's to be any perception of objectivity.

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And they have been charged in state courts as the local prosecutors see fit. It isn't really relevant to the charging decisions made by the US Attorney for the District of Columbia.

Hans Blaster said:

I have no idea. It should be noted that federal sentencing has change a few times since then so comparisons might be difficult.

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I'll give a hint... federal crimes (and the punishments associated with them) seem to be joined at the hip with whichever party seems to hold the power at the time.

Hans Blaster said:

And they have been charged in state courts as the local prosecutors see fit. It isn't really relevant to the charging decisions made by the US Attorney for the District of Columbia.

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I feel like that's a blatant rationalization...not attacking you personally, but I just feel like that's a similar cop-out to what was used to over-prosecute crack cocaine crimes over powder cocaine crime. (where "a certain type of person" was more likely to commit one over the other, so the laws and judgements were structured around that)

ThatRobGuy said:

Judges can be frustrated all they want, but it's not their role in our justice system to quasi-badger prosecutors into charging people with more in order to have more flexibility to "teach people a lesson" based on their own personal viewpoints.

I've always viewed the judicial branch as the branch I could count on to be above the partisan bickering and pettiness that we regularly see in the other 2 branches of government. It was the branch where Antonin Scalia and RBG could (and did) coexist and maintain a friendly relationship while still disagreeing (something you don't see a whole lot from the other branches)

If the prosecutor says "I'm charging this person with XYZ", and the sentencing window for XYZ is $1000 fine and up to 3 months in jail, then that's the window the judge has to work with. If the judge personally thinks "this person should go to jail for 18 months for doing something like this", they should quit their job, run for a position in the legislative branch, and change the law so that XYZ can carry a max sentence of 18 months instead of 3 months.

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This particular frustration (expressed by a few judges) has been with the restitution. (For the lightest of the crimes charged and plead to, the max sentence is 6 months, though almost no one gets that or even gets a DOJ request for 6 months on those charges.)

Restitution is paid to the victims (unlike fines). In this case early on the DOJ decided to ask for $500 restitution from all misdemeanor cases and $2000 for felony cases. This is paid to the Architect of the Capitol (AOC, responsible for operation and maintenance of the Capitol) and is based on an early estimate for the number of possible defendants and the costs. Judges feel restrained by this precedent even when applying it to those convicted at trial.

I was interested in what his ex-wife had to say.

"Tasha Adams, 49, joined CNN Primetime Thursday night to react to her former husband's sentencing: 'I am very happy about it. It's been a great week for us, really, as a family, we're happy to feel safe. We're happy he's in a place where he can't hurt us, he can't hurt anybody else,' she said.''

ThatRobGuy said:

18 years is longer than the sentences that some of the people got who were involved with Weather Underground back in the day.

How much time did Bill Ayers end up doing in prison (despite participating in terror activities for years)?

How much time did anyone involved with Chaz/Chop end up doing?

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Remind me again - how many of them were leaders in a violent attack on the US Capitol with the intent to overthrow a democratically elected leader?

KCfromNC said:

Remind me again - how many of them were leaders in a violent attack on the US Capitol with the intent to overthrow a democratically elected leader?

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Bill Ayers actually was the leader of that group. (the weather underground)

Ayers participated in the bombings of New York City Police Department headquarters in 1970, the United States Capitol building in 1971, and the Pentagon in 1972, as he noted in his 2001 book, Fugitive Days.


Granted, the details are murky about as to what the motivations were for planting bombs in those locations (accounts vary )

However,
the group's express political goal was to create a revolutionary party to overthrow the United States government, which WUO believed to be imperialist.

ThatRobGuy said:

Do you really think they have the headcount to be able to pull something like that off?

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This is specious reasoning. 19 people with enough backing by powerful ideologues and brainwashing by mind-captivating ideologies are the reason why we still have to submit to a near-probing every time we want to travel by airplane in the United States, nearly 22 years after the fact of what they accomplished. As of May 2023, over 1,000 people have been charged with crimes in connection to the January 6th insurrection. 570 people have pleaded guilty.

ThatRobGuy said:

.trying to avoid talking about the fact that sentencing seems a tad heavy for the Jan 6 perps, and that it's likely there's a political motivation behind it.

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I think that the American legal system is pretty well known around the world for being arbitrary based on race, income, connections, gender etc. But it could also be that the government wants to show how pointless it is for deluded fatsos to believe that just because they own a few guns and do a bit of idiotic paramilitary LARPing they cannot even hope they can have any serious ability to stand up to law and order (or Tyranny, if you are a gun nut).

dzheremi said:

This is specious reasoning. 19 people with enough backing by powerful ideologues and brainwashing by mind-captivating ideologies are the reason why we still have to submit to a near-probing every time we want to travel by airplane in the United States

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I don't think a highly orchestrated terror attack that killed over 2,000 people is an apropos comparison to this though (given the nature of what happened). I'm strictly referring to the sentencing disparities between events that bear some similarities. (even if the motives weren't 100% identical)


For instance the Chaz/Chop thing compared to Jan 6th.

Even if you want to make the assertion that Jan 6th was a 10 on the extreme-o-meter, and Chaz/Chop was only a 6 or 7... would one still be able to rationalize that the ringleader of the former getting 18 years, and the ring leader of the latter gets nothing?

If it were a case where this guy from the Oath Keepers got 18 years for his misdeeds, and Raz Simone got something like 4 or 5 years for his role in orchestrating the Chaz/Chop thing, I'd say "Yeah, that sounds about right given the circumstances and implications"


A couple other events to put in for perspective:
Linda Evans was sentenced to 5 years for the Senate Bombing (and Bill Clinton commuted the sentence)

Gregory Lee Leingang was sentenced 20 years for a Presidential assassination attempt

Larry Russell Dawson (the guy who came into the capitol with a gun and was shouting about how God wanted him to storm the capitol and demand a minimum wage increase) was given 11 months.



Do you feel that an 18 year sentence for this guy "gels" with the sentencing patterns for other political violence?

ThatRobGuy said:

I don't think a highly orchestrated terror attack that killed over 2,000 people is an apropos comparison to this though

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Of course you don't. Unfortunately, that's the argument you made when you wrote "Do you really think they have the headcount to be able to pull something like that off?" When such an argument from numbers is made, I think it is entirely fair to point out how few people are actually necessary to do the 'dirty work' involved in majorly disrupting a society, even a very complex and seemingly powerful society like that of the USA.

ThatRobGuy said:

For instance the Chaz/Chop thing compared to Jan 6th.

Even if you want to make the assertion that Jan 6th was a 10 on the extreme-o-meter, and Chaz/Chop was only a 6 or 7... would one still be able to rationalize that the ringleader of the former getting 18 years, and the ring leader of the latter gets nothing?

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I frankly don't see the need to compare anything to anything, and would not have done so had you not made the argument that you did. The January 6th insurrection and the CHAZ thing have their own rationalizations and routes by which they came to be, so I think that whoever is responsible for whatever happened with CHAZ or with January 6th should be evaluated relative to what they did or caused, not relative to another situation entirely. CHAZ was not about forcibly nullifying the results of an election because they didn't like who won, just like January 6th wasn't about creating some kind of 'autonomous zone' in a major city in the Pacific Northwest.

ThatRobGuy said:

If it were a case where this guy from the Oath Keepers got 18 years for his misdeeds, and Raz Simone got something like 4 or 5 years for his role in orchestrating the Chaz/Chop thing, I'd say "Yeah, that sounds about right given the circumstances and implications"


A couple other events to put in for perspective:
Linda Evans was sentenced to 5 years for the Senate Bombing (and Bill Clinton commuted the sentence)

Gregory Lee Leingang was sentenced 20 years for a Presidential assassination attempt

Larry Russell Dawson (the guy who came into the capitol with a gun and was shouting about how God wanted him to storm the capitol and demand a minimum wage increase) was given 11 months.

Do you feel that an 18 year sentence for this guy "gels" with the sentencing patterns for other political violence?

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Does it matter how I feel when it's not up to goons on some internet forum to eliminate whatever judicial discretion is behind these sentences? To me this is just another manifestation of the same entitled, garbage attitude that causes things like January 6th in the first place: I don't like that things didn't go a certain way, so I'm going to support others using extrajudicial means to change reality until it's acting right! That's not anything you've said, but that's what all this what-aboutism reads like to me. It's really no different than any other outcome or movement based on grievance-bating, score-settling, or whatever you want to call it. Sometimes it's 'leftists' in the PNW setting up some sort of lawless Mad Max world or whatever CHAZ is/was; sometimes it's 'right-wingers' attempting to storm the U.S. capitol building to stop the certification of an election and, if possible, physically assault those who they see as legitimate targets for their partisan anger. In neither case is it justified or something to be encouraged, regardless of whatever sentencing comparisons you want to do. That's nothing but a distraction anyway. Even if you found 500 instances of what you claim are similar circumstances that were handled differently, it would do nothing to change the sentence that has already been given. Feel free to write your representatives to complain, if you wish. That will likely also be ineffective, but it is doing more (and directed at people that can maybe even do something about it) than complaining on the internet that this Oath Keeper terrorist nutjob is being treated unfairly. Boo hoo. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. He and all his 'patriot' buddies are lucky that we don't execute people for treason anymore. (Unless they're Americans in Yemen, I guess.)

Blade said:

Had to come back and delete my post...well not worth it. The "pattern" is here also. Rhodes also gets mad fun.. sorry laughed at for shooting himself in the eye. This is what some call fake news. Well its true but what was left out was it was .22 that fell and went off.

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Not fake news but "based on true events", i.e. fiction.

Its like knowing what happen on Jan 6th not the first time not worse then 9/11 not worse then the Civil War. Yeah those on the left said this.

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Remember, we wrecked two countries over 9/11, one peripherally involved, the other not involved at all, while continuing to be best buds with the country actually involved. It is not really comparable to 9/11 as that was an attack from the outside. It is akin to the Civil War, but a takeover rather than a separation. The Civil War, of course, was devastating - the consequences between the two are in no way comparable.

See this same thing has happened before yet it was by Dems and so is it was ok. This also happened again as of late yet again not done by the right so it was not reported on.

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What same thing? This attempted coup was allegedly incited by the President of the United States. I don't recall that happening before.

We all know some on Jan 6th that did things told others to go in more then once yet was never arrested.

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Do we know that or is that just a story?

But many others were for just standing on the grass never going in never saying a word. Two were old people arrested for 30 days yet never once charged. Many others the same yet longer but never charged. How many were charged with the crime they the left called it? How many?

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That's all very vague and, depending on actual circumstances, possible unfair.

Jan 6th the left hope you don't know how election run. See lets say those that did all that stuff breaking in doing damage and hurting the police did in fact take it over. Did you know it would it can not effect the election. Yeah there was nothing to over turn yet. I have watched read so many posts and never say a word. Its sad that ANYONE in the past has done this set fire to capitals yes? Should not they also be arrested? yeah that never gets talked about. So not here to offend

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Do you know what the actual plan was? The idea that John Eastman, Esq. came up with was to delay the Senate vote long enough to get sufficient "alternate slates of electors" to confirm the election for Trump. These "alternate electors" were actually selected in certain states and some people tried to get them submitted to VP Pence - who, to his credit, refused them.

There was an actual plan of action that they actually tried to implement. The rioters were to be the stalling mechanism. They did their part, but the plan failed.

I don't know if the generals will be held more responsible than the foot soldiers.

ThatRobGuy said:

How much time did Bill Ayers end up doing in prison (despite participating in terror activities for years)?

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Charges were dropped because of illegalities committed in pursuit of him.

ThatRobGuy said:

And while it's not a perfect comparison, some BLM activists ran rough shot for months on end, and prominent political figures were even encouraging people to donate to bail funds for them.

Again, that's not to say that burning down an Auto Zone is the equivalent of trying to violently overturn an election. But there has to be a happy medium between "encourage people to help bail out the former, throw the book at the latter"...if there's to be any perception of objectivity.

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But were the BLM activists the ones who did the violence or was it adjacent groups such as Antifa battling the Proud Boys? And, of course, opportunistic looters with no particular politics.

ThatRobGuy said:

Do you feel that an 18 year sentence for this guy "gels" with the sentencing patterns for other political violence?

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America still kills people for crimes so I'm never surprised by the inadequacy of it's legal system.

DaisyDay said:

Charges were dropped because of illegalities committed in pursuit of him.

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He wasn't the only one who was part of that group though.

Did any of them get any time?

They were also several other crimes committed after the fact by the group post-1973's charges being dropped due to the events you mention.

In November 1977, five WUO members were arrested on conspiracy to bomb the office of California State Senator John Briggs.

Mark Rudd turned himself in to authorities on January 20, 1978. Rudd was fined $4,000 and received two years' probation.[24] Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers turned themselves in on December 3, 1980, in New York, with substantial media coverage. Charges were dropped for Ayers. Dohrn received three years' probation and a $15,000 fine.[24]

DaisyDay said:

But were the BLM activists the ones who did the violence or was it adjacent groups such as Antifa battling the Proud Boys? And, of course, opportunistic looters with no particular politics.

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I think the opportunistic aspect is one that would apply to people involved in Jan 6th as well.

Like this guy:



I could be wrong, but he doesn't strike me as a guy who sincerely thinks he's involved in any type of serious effort to overthrow the government, and looks more like the kind of guy who's "doing something for the likes".

He got 3 months in prison and a year of probation. To put that in perspective, that's almost identical to the sentence of Matthew Banta, Antifa leader who went by "Commander Red" who was arrested for bringing a flamethrower to a Wisconsin protest (and that's while being out on bond for a previous incident involving pointing a loaded gun at a police officer at another protest)


To be clear here, I'm not trying to defend any of the idiots at the Jan 6th event...I said they were idiots then, and that feeling still applies today.

However, if "lack of faith in our institutions" is the sentiment that's stirring up these kinds of bad actions, I don't think that sentiment is remedied by a justice system doing things that are coming across as looking biased.

I think the media and certain politicians have 'blood on their hands' for some of this too. Even if one could make a reasonable assertion that BLM/Antifa activities "weren't as bad", (I think one can make that assertion in terms of nefarious intent and what they were aiming to achieve, no so much on the property damage aspect), there was a reasonable critique that they were being handled with kid gloves (with politicians and pundits either outright defending those activities, or dodging questions with answers like "well, it's not even really a group, it's just an idea")

And it leaves some people seeing it as hypocritical when those same politicians/pundits suddenly adopt a "tough on crime/harshly punish anyone who presents substantial public safety concern" seemingly out of the blue.

ThatRobGuy said:

To be clear here, I'm not trying to defend any of the idiots at the Jan 6th event...I said they were idiots then, and that feeling still applies today.

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Defend them or not, you are certainly giving them cover. The comparisons you make are almost all to state charged crimes (both for prosecution choices and judicial actions at sentencing) and are not relevant. Some of the federal examples (Ayres) are so old as to not be relevant due to changes in the law.

Hans Blaster said:

Defend them or not, you are certainly giving them cover.

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How am I giving them cover if I've said they deserve to be charged and do time?

By simply pointing out that it's a possibility certain people are eager to see them have the book thrown at them for partisan reasons? And further pointing out that the sort of "gloating" occurring isn't necessarily having a productive effect?

And that perhaps the ideological leanings of the judges handling the cases may also play a factor?


If this were a case where, let's say...under a conservative jurisdiction (where conservative judges outnumbered liberal ones 17-10 and the judges selected to handle the cases happened to mostly be ones appointed by conservatives), Doctors who performed abortions were getting the book thrown at them for criminal medical negligence cases involving that, while other non-abortion related cases of criminal medical negligence were getting proportionally lighter sentences, and conservatives were gleefully cheering on the judges for throwing the book at them, would it be controversial for me to point out that a possible (and likely) explanation for why conservatives were so happy about it was because the person getting charged was a political/ideological rival?


And with regards to the sentencing from Judges, we can't ignore the role the ideological leanings of the judges and how it's impacted sentencing


Despite the fact that Republican-appointed judges tend to impose longer sentences than their Democratic-appointed counterparts,
Nearly 60 percent of the 32 Capitol rioters who faced Obama-appointed judges this year received jail time, compared to the 20 percent of 21 Capitol rioters who were sentenced to jail by Trump-appointed judges.

Of the 49 Capitol rioters who pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges, Obama-appointed judges handed down jail sentences in 57 percent of their 28 cases. Trump-appointed judges sentenced 19 percent of the 21 defendants appearing before them to jail.

The most common charge rioters pled guilty to over the last year is the misdemeanor charge of parading, picketing and demonstrating on Capitol grounds. Trump-appointed judges also seem to be more lenient on defendants facing these charges than Obama-appointed judges. They've only sentenced 24 percent of defendants facing that charge to time in prison, with the rest receiving probation. In contrast, Obama-appointed judges have sentenced 54 percent to jail.

and at the time this article was written...
Partially skewing those numbers is the fact that four of the cases that came before Obama-appointed judges were felony cases, so it was unlikely for defendants to avoid jail. Trump-appointed judges have not sentenced anyone who pleaded guilty to a felony charge, yet. However, even without those cases, Obama-appointed judges handed down jail sentences more frequently than Trump-appointed judges.


It's not a good look for impartiality...

Now, one could say that the Trump judges are being too lenient, and that's quite possible, but even that is an acknowledgment that the ideological leanings of judges could be skewing sentencing. If conservative judges aren't immune from that, then the same would be true for liberal leaning judges.

ThatRobGuy said:

He wasn't the only one who was part of that group though.

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He's the only one you asked about though.

Did any of them get any time?

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Kathy Boudin got 20 to life, but there was a murder charge (she was one of the getaway drivers). She served 23 years before getting parole.
Linda Sue Evans got 40 to life for using false id to buy weapons and for harboring a fugitive as well as having a boatload of dynamite and plans to blow up the Capitol. She only served 16 years when President Clinton commuted her sentence.

They were also several other crimes committed after the fact by the group post-1973's charges being dropped due to the events you mention.

In November 1977, five WUO members were arrested on conspiracy to bomb the office of California State Senator John Briggs.

Mark Rudd turned himself in to authorities on January 20, 1978. Rudd was fined $4,000 and received two years' probation.[24] Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers turned themselves in on December 3, 1980, in New York, with substantial media coverage. Charges were dropped for Ayers. Dohrn received three years' probation and a $15,000 fine.[24]

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What I find interesting is how very well so many did afterwards. They were generally privileged, well-educated and had good lawyers.

I think the opportunistic aspect is one that would apply to people involved in Jan 6th as well.

Like this guy:

View attachment 331762

I could be wrong, but he doesn't strike me as a guy who sincerely thinks he's involved in any type of serious effort to overthrow the government, and looks more like the kind of guy who's "doing something for the likes".

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And what was his sentence?

He got 3 months in prison and a year of probation. To put that in perspective, that's almost identical to the sentence of Matthew Banta, Antifa leader who went by "Commander Red" who was arrested for bringing a flamethrower to a Wisconsin protest (and that's while being out on bond for a previous incident involving pointing a loaded gun at a police officer at another protest)


To be clear here, I'm not trying to defend any of the idiots at the Jan 6th event...I said they were idiots then, and that feeling still applies today.

However, if "lack of faith in our institutions" is the sentiment that's stirring up these kinds of bad actions, I don't think that sentiment is remedied by a justice system doing things that are coming across as looking biased.

I think the media and certain politicians have 'blood on their hands' for some of this too. Even if one could make a reasonable assertion that BLM/Antifa activities "weren't as bad", (I think one can make that assertion in terms of nefarious intent and what they were aiming to achieve, no so much on the property damage aspect), there was a reasonable critique that they were being handled with kid gloves (with politicians and pundits either outright defending those activities, or dodging questions with answers like "well, it's not even really a group, it's just an idea")

And it leaves some people seeing it as hypocritical when those same politicians/pundits suddenly adopt a "tough on crime/harshly punish anyone who presents substantial public safety concern" seemingly out of the blue.
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