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30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

theintercept.com

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Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#341

Post by mindslight »

Mickelby wrote: post #333

[flagged]

> tampering with evidence in a terrorist-related crime that involved an officer shooting.

Talk about an "emotional-based framing" meant to "radicalize the less-literate" ! For starters, terrorists attack civilians rather than de facto militaries. These are like the opposite of terrorists, however misguided we might think they are.

Regardless of framing, the core argument here is that the contents of political publications (ie protected speech) are not appropriately evidence in a criminal proceeding, therefore attempting to hide them is not tampering with evidence. Anybody who believes in the first amendment to the US Constitution should be receptive to this argument.

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#342

Post by kpennell »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #83

This judge has a very high rate of overturned rulings, and reliably rules for conservative causes. Prosecutors openly acknowledge strategically filing cases in his court for conservative causes. It isn't a mistake that he was the judge here, and there is a very good chance the sentences will be overturned if not entire cases. Of course, that doesn't matter to these defendants, some of whom probably do deserve punishm…

Here's him speaking at the Federalist Society - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMTt9pxWBhA

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#343

Post by [deleted] »

lobf wrote: post #324
mindslight wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawful investigation and prosecution would of course not hinge upon the contents of political publications. As such, any obstruction was purely aimed at the inevitable two minute hate by the addled autocrat about how antifa is hiding everywhere, making his coffee too cold and his food not taste as good as it used to.

Well regardless, the obvious answer is that you simply turn your zines in to slurry in a bucket or sink, you don’t drive them anywhere.

[deleted]

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#344

Post by kristjansson »

Mickelby wrote: post #333

[flagged]

Go read the complaint[0]. The total nexus is (1) he spoke to a jailed suspect on the phone and (2) moved a box of zines from his parent's house to an apartment.

[0]: https://www.nlg.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Fed-Complaint...

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#345

Post by rapidaneurism »

BobbyJo wrote: post #175
godwinson__4-8 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all? To the American founders that would be a psychotic take that is completely at odds with the founding principles of this country. Have you read about the Continental Congress? They thought pretty hard about these questions. They did not engage in insurrection (what would surely today be called "terrorism") against the crown lightly and without great consideration. You should take the opportunity of the 250…

I'm sorry, I meant in terms of discussion, not in terms of legal proceedings. Obviously these people were formally charged in a court of law on legal grounds and I assume had their constitutional rights afforded to them. I meant more along the lines of "30 years for hiding a zine" being a weird take. It is logically inconsistent, IMO, to both want to fight a system, and want to be afforded its privileges.

>It is logically inconsistent, IMO, to both want to fight a system, and want to be afforded its privileges.

But isn't this exactly what people do when they vote for a different government?

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#347

Post by nixon_why69 »

laughing_man wrote: post #320
alterom wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't shoot a cop. A single individual did. What you're calling for is collective punishment (a war crime in Geneva convention), and guilt by association (a perversion of justice). Kindly, abscond and desist.

If you're part of a conspiracy, you take the blame for what other conspirators do. Take a look at felony murder statutes sometime.

Felony murder requires a felony predicate. Protesting isn't a felony.

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#348

Post by kristjansson »

paisawalla wrote: post #52
devmor wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I read, the person who was arrested for transporting zines was not even at the protest or part of the group - just the husband of one of the protestors.

[flagged]

How would possession of political material be evidence one way or the other? She can own, read, share, publish, disseminate all the revolutionary literature she wants

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#349

Post by N_Lens »

antoniojtorres wrote: post #319
dwroberts wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this was an incident in Europe, comments like this would be talking about how clearly the state is corrupt, it’s account cannot be trusted, and obviously civilisation is collapsing because free speech outside of the US is dead. “You can be arrested for zines!” Inside the US though? No, clearly the state’s account is definitely accurate , the citizen is obviously guilty, it’s not only correct they are being jailed…

Yeah I feel like I’m going insane reading some of these comments.

HN swings pretty far right.

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#350

Post by kristjansson »

9x39 wrote: post #227
Chinjut wrote: post #148

A lot of people in these Hacker News comments are accepting the framing that moving the zines is evidence tampering and therefore deserves a 30 year sentence. What crime are zines evidence of?

>What crime are zines evidence of? Not quite the right framing. Look at the chain of events in the probable cause affidavit: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txnd.41... Rueda was in the jail following arrest in an armed group after a firefight at the detention center where 20-30 rifle rounds had been fired, with a police officer killed as a result. In jail, Rueda called her mother to contact Sanch…

Not killed, wounded.
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