On assault, judge gets it right, jury gets it wrong

One newspaper page, two stories about assault.

In the first, a federal judge, according to the Washington Post, delivered a damning condemnation of the use of force in the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement campaign, saying officers have unnecessarily terrorized local residents seeking to peacefully protest or document their actions.

“U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis pointed to numerous examples of immigration officers using tear gas, pepper spray and other crowd control devices in ways that she said amounted to excessive force and contradicted statements from federal authorities,” the Post reported.

The judge was right. As I’ve noted before, the heavy-handed and sometimes excessive force used by authorities have turned the American public against the mass deportation it once favored.

And it doesn’t matter whether those authorities are ICE, national guard, or local police. All are constrained by the First Amendment, which guarantees “the right of the people peaceably to assemble” to air their grievances.

The key word is “peaceably,” and while Judge Ellis got it right, a Washington, D.C., jury got it wrong when it acquitted a man charged with misdemeanor assault for hitting a federal agent with a thrown Subway sandwich. 

It sounds funny, but it is not.

Former Department of Justice paralegal — a self-appointed “resistance fighter”  — Sean Dunn confronted federal agents on the street, calling them “fascists” and “racists,” screaming “shame.” All that is protected speech. Despite what his lawyers said, what he did next was not — he hit the Customs and Border Protection officer with the sandwich. 

There is no dispute that he did it. There is also no dispute that the jury nullified the law because it hates Donald J. Trump, who had sent federal troops into deep blue D.C.

We treat attacks on law enforcement differently, and more harshly, than attacks on civilians.

Why?

Because the officers represent The Law, or Our Society. An attack on them is an attack on our democratic system.

Screaming at an officer is one thing. Physical contact is another. No amount of righteous indignation gives you leave to touch anyone else. “Assault” is defined as a physical attack, no matter how minor. 

If hitting an officer with a sandwich is OK, how about a paper cup? How about an empty plastic water bottle? How about a full water bottle? How about a brick?

With physical contact, the rule ought to be zero tolerance.

In her closing arguments, defense attorney Sabrina Shroff argued that a sandwich could not and did not cause harm. But that is not the point. Harm is not required.

It was an attack on authority.

If you think this is OK, how do you feel about the 1-6 “visitors” to Congress? I don’t mean the actual vandals, and those who attacked cops, I mean the so-called “tourists.”

Just exercising their freedom of speech? No. Trespassing. They broke the law that we all are expected to obey — cops, civilians, and immigrants.

Grand jurors in Washington have rejected several cases brought by the U.S. Attorney's Office for D.C., which has been run by two Trump loyalists: first Ed Martin and now Jeanine Pirro.

I can’t run down all of these cases, but I am certain that some, like Sean Dunn, were based more on politics than on law.

And that is not where we want to be.