In Washington D.C., the mayor must request permission from the White House to deploy the area’s National Guard in a case of emergency.
"Governors have the power to activate their state’s National Guard, but in Washington D.C., only the president, defense secretary, or the army secretary have the power to activate troops. Eventually, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy approved the request. Some reports claim Vice President Mike Pence helped further the decision to deploy the National Guard troops, while Trump reportedly resisted. "
A Capitol Hill Police officer died of his injuries this evening.
The death penalty should be on the table for every single person arrested for actions on the Hill that can be established to have had reasonable knowledge of violent intent.
Ever looked at one of those cases where the 17 year old in the car is facing the death penalty because he was in the car? It appears to be the officer who was beaten and kicked while prone.
Take a look at some of the executions in the past four months - no direct involvement in the violent action necessary, no advance knowledge of the intent to kill a police officer, just a willingness to go do something illegal that ends up resulting in the death of a police officer has repeatedly been sufficient for a capital sentence.
These are multi-handed offences which are usually triggered by an intent to engage in an earlier criminal act which renders the later offence one of basic intent (recklessness) rather than specific intent. Anyone that can be shown to have assaulted the officer, and indeed jeered on the mob, could be liable. But not everyone that breached the Senate. Im sure there will be CCTV but this one might have some very grey edges.
Sounds akin to joint enterprise in the UK. Except here the individual needs to know (or ought to have reasonably considered a possibility) that harm might result. Plus we don’t have capital punishment, obviously.
Never thought about the jurisdictional division between DC Metro and the FBI. That is possible, I just don’t know. I think what the FBI can assert jurisdiction anywhere is actually quite broad.
I hope Garland goes for the broadest possible interpretation. I hear the current SC bench rather likes a death sentence. Let them hear a couple of thousand of them.
Hopefully at least some will be represented by incompetent counsel…seems to be de rigueur. Maybe a second stage career for Powell.
One defence attorney in St. Louis is responsible for 75% of the death sentences currently on death row in Missouri. Incompetent, but cheap, gets work as a public defender too.
I hope not personally, as I don’t actually like the death penalty in Peace Time. But primarily because I don’t like foot soldiers getting a worse punishment than the officers, unless the soldiers in question goes on murder sprees on their own initiative (which may arguably be the case here). Trump and various people incited them. I would much rather see them get such an awful draconic penalty, though I accept that this is legally impossible. I don’t understand how these people who incited them into storming the Capitol thought it was “low-risk”, so either extremely stupid or cynical. If cynical, maybe the one who incite a mob into action is guilty of graver crimes. Because the storming of the capitol did not happen in a vacuum, but due to incitement. Without it, the mob wouldn’t have stormed the Capitol.
But I understand why you say what you say and many probably agree with you. My opinion, that the ones who incite are worse than the ones who acts due to incitement, is perhaps a bit less popular. I don’t mean to imply that people who kill police when incited have no responsibility of their own, they do of course, and should of course be punished harshly. But even so, if it would not have happened without the lies and the incitement and I think it would be a tragedy if Trump goes free and some of his loony cultists are put on Death Row.
In any case, a tragedy, not matter what your point of view on punishment is. RIP to the officer and everyone else who died (I fear there may be more, as I have read several are in serious conditions).
