Attorney for Enrique Tarrio:
“My client is no terrorist. My client is a misguided patriot."
Prosecutor, requesting 33-year sentence:
"We need to be sure that the consequences are abundantly clear to anyone who might be unhappy with the 2024, 2028, 2032 or any future election for as long as this case is remembered."
The judge sentenced Enrique Tarrio to 22 years in prison.
The Proud Boy and Oath Keepers leaders put their intent in writing. They celebrated their success in writing. They were found guilty of seditious conspiracy by a jury. They were sentenced to terms of 15 to 22 years in prison.
So far about 1,000 people who entered the Capitol by force and vandalized it or assaulted police have also been charged. Some people identified and prosecuted received slap-on-the-wrist penalties of a few months of home detention. Others served longer detentions in federal lockups.
Ashli Babbitt was shot and killed as she defied orders to stop while she attempted to crawl through a smashed window in a door inside the Capitol. The door led to a House chamber where Members of Congress and their staffs were sheltering. Her death stopped the crowd's effort to breach that door.
We should celebrate people being arrested, charged, and prosecuted for destroying public property or assaulting police officers. That goes both for Trump supporters on January 6 and for hooligans who found refuge by hiding within Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020. Regardless of the larger context of the "worthy cause" -- be it protesting bad police practices or trying to impede the peaceful transfer of office -- violent behavior is politically bad. It muddles the message of the protest. It is also morally wrong and illegal. Police and prosecutors who were slow to identify and arrest outlaw anarchist hooligans hiding amid lawful BLM protests made a grave error, both politically and in signaling community norms. Republican apologists and minimizers who complain about prosecutions of post-election crimes intended to keep Trump in office, including the crimes committed by Trump's top staff, his lawyers, and by Trump himself, are making a greater one. Throwing rocks at a courthouse in Portland, Oregon is a crime and an offense against public property. Over-throwing an election is a crime and an offense against our democratic republic itself.
The arrests and prosecutions of violent demonstrators have already had a good effect. Had the prosecutions not taken place there might well have been ten thousand, maybe a hundred thousand, people attending the arraignment of Donald Trump in Atlanta, carrying the signs and weapons people from January 6, making gallows, chanting "Hang the Judge," intimidating witnesses and jurors. They might have defied the police again. They might have attempted to break into the courthouse.
This time people thought twice. Good.
I have every presumption that if I were to assault a police officer that I am at risk of immediate death. In a traffic stop, one keeps hands visible, moves slowly, and narrates what one is doing. Courts give officers legal immunity in nearly every circumstance. If they feel at risk, even if in hindsight they confused a flashlight or phone for a gun, they can shoot and kill me. They would still continue to work, get promotions, get their pension. I would still be dead. If one is openly pushing, shoving, stabbing police officers, or crawling through a window amid shouts of intent to do violence, then of course one is at risk of being shot and killed, or prosecuted and imprisoned.
January 6-related defendants may have thought themselves the "good guys," that their cause was noble, and that Trump had authority to authorize what they did. He encouraged it, but did not formally authorizeit. He was careful, then and still, and protecting himself. He cannot say he authorized an insurrection without increasing his own trouble. The perpetrators of violence on January 6 were gullible and foolish and they committed provable crimes.
American prisons are full of people who were gullible and foolish and committed provable crimes. Their imprisonment is pure and vivid body language messaging. The message: Don't let Trump talk you into breaking the law.
Excellent article. I especially liked this: "Throwing rocks at a courthouse in Portland, Oregon is a crime and an offense against public property. Over-throwing an election is a crime and an offense against our democratic republic itself."
Patriotism, like art, is in the eye of the beholder. Fortunately, the law provides clarity as the Proud Boys and their ilk are discovering, much to their shame. Thank you for your analysis.