It would be 10 years PER charge, so I think he’s facing 50 years if it runs consecutively. I don’t know the rules in MN regarding consecutive vs. concurrent.
I don’t disagree with you, I’d just like to start seeing some convictions here. I am concerned they wouldn’t be able to land convictions above that threshold.
Why is everyone always picking on white guys just trying to maintain their soon to be lost majority advantage?
Mike Freeman is a good County Attorney who knows his way around a court room.
Any one who jumps to the conclusion that he will cut a deal for a lesser crime doesn’t know this guy.
If you think it is more important to make a “hate crime” charge than it is to lock these scum up for as long as possible you are more interested in form than substance and you should just stfu.
If you are an attorney I am glad that you are not representing me as the DA. You know very little about this case, only what has been reported in the press. You should know that there is much more to trying a case than reading the news clips to a jury.
Mike Freeman is, at this point in his career not looking to build a political base for anything other than to be reflected to his current job. He has already held other elected positions. He has won some and lost some. He has now settled in to a second stent in his current job and is not looking for a different position.
Hope you are correct that it runs consecutively (or that the judge has the latitude at sentencing). I don’t know anything about MN law either but if the prosecutor is bringing a solid case in the effort to get a conviction rather than an iffy long shot, then I’m happy for a win, even if it appears outrageously under-charged to a layman like me.
More rightwing terrorism that is automatically afforded the greatest leniency possible. Imagine if a Muslim had fired into a crowd of Christianic demonstrators.
OK, so you like Mr. Freeman and are all up in his jock. Whoopty-fucking-do. Where’s anything remotely resembling a legal analysis in your post? Hint: attacking me personally and making the trite and insulting observation that there is more to trying a case than reading newspaper clippings to the jury are not legal analysis.
I took FACTS and applied them to my understanding of the LAW and it is my opinion that firing a gun into a crowd in the dark enough times to hit 5 people (a fact nobody is disputing) shows sufficient depraved indifference, etc., to justify some form of inchoate/attempted murder or manslaughter charge. You’ve offered nothing but some insults and a love note to Freeman. Kudos.
If the shoe fits, they should be beaten within an inch of their lives with it…figuratively speaking. I’m not terribly accepting of “well, the charges are good enough to put them away” when a major part of the purpose of criminal prosecutions is to generate a deterrent, not to mention seeking retributive justice. Nothing is preventing this DA from bringing the charges he brought as well as the heavier charges.
I understand, but bringing one charge doesn’t preclude bringing the other and instructing the jury about them all.
I grieve for Minnesota.
My ancestors, Swedish farmers all, settled there before moving on to South Dakota. My family lived there for a time when I was small. My brother and sister went to college there, we visited them often and I always looked forward to it. The Minnesota I knew growing up, the Minnesota of the Humphreys and Wellstones, was the most peace-loving, tolerant, progressive place you could imagine, at least in America, bar none.
It’s all gone now, or most of it, thanks to the haters, the ignorant and the cynical (think Bachmann, Ventura and Coleman if you want to put faces to these strains) and I don’t know if it will ever get back to the way it was. Imagine – and I say this mainly for the younger TPMers out there – a labor party in America, where else could you find such a thing? There was a strain of Scandinavian liberalism there that you couldn’t find anywhere else in the country. It was unique, and now it’s gone.
Not giving up, but it honestly makes me want to puke.
And it makes me angry as hell, too, don’t think I’m not. We have to fight back, all of us. I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but maybe less time on our computers signing petitions (does anyone ever read those things?) and more time out there talking to people, canvassing, twisting arms, ferrying them to the polls, whatever it takes. And opening our pocketbooks, too. I know it seems unjust and even hopeless to have to shell out hard-earned dollars knowing full well that the other side is bankrolled by megabillionaires but what choice do we have? For the moment, none.
Because make no mistake, we’re losing. Even if we win the presidency we’re losing, the dark forces are on the rise everywhere. And if they can do that in the hotbed of progressivism, Minnesota, they can do it anywhere. We need to up our game, big time, before it’s too late.
Could have sworn back in my turbulent younger days that being ‘Accessory to X’ got you the same sentence as ‘X’.
“hates crimes charges could still be brought at the federal level”
Hates crimes?
Anyway, not going to happen. The Justice Department has demonstrated no interest in this type of crime lately.