A Window on Trial
Trial Adjournment #5
Let’s get the update over with: the Oath Keeper defendant trials are now rescheduled from September 26, 2022 to a February 1, 2023 start date.
The change was made July 1. I was unable to dial in to the status conference. Or, in all honesty, I allowed a personal commitment to be scheduled then so that I wouldn’t have to hear, live, what I suspected was coming, in terms of yet another trial adjournment. I then procrastinated looking up the Judge’s “minute entry” until last night. I am giving a talk tonight, and this became one of a string of updates I needed to make.
“07/01/2022 – ORDER – Trial is set to commence in this matter on February 1, 2023 [detained]…”
I shouldn’t be having this level of disappointment. I’m the one who has consistently opted to turn down inquiries into representing January 6 defendants, in favor of continuing to do this independent research, analysis, and commentary. I own this space.
But as I sit here with a freshly-poured cup of hot Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, looking past my computer screen to morning scenes of the Neuse River and all of its shore life, I find myself wondering if they even have a window. However crappy the view may be. Do they even have a window? Harrelson, Watkins, Meggs, Rhodes. The Oath Keeper detainees. Do they even have a window in their cells as they await trial?
Promises. Promises.
I’ve seen the trial date promise before in this case. The February 1, 2023 trial date is the fifth (5th) trial date assigned to the detained defendants, meaning, those in jail since as early as January 18, 2021, awaiting trial.
The non-detained Oath Keeper defendants now have a trial date pushed out to April 4, 2023.
Like the Taylor Swift lyrics, “I knew you were trouble when you walked in/so shame on me now,” the U.S. Department of Justice tactics in U.S. vs. Rhodes, et al. is a string of broken dates and dashed hopes.
With Your Own Eyes
I want you to see the proof of this calendar torture laid out before your own eyes, as these broken dates unfolded.
07/02/2021 – Jury Trials set for 1/31/2021* at 10:00 AM and 4/4/2021* at 10:00 AM. [*should say “2022,” error in original]
07/06/2021 – ORDER – The first trial in this matter shall begin on January 31, 2022. All detained Defendants will be tried in the first trial. The second trial shall begin on April 19, 2022.
09/16/2021 – An additional Jury Trial date is set for 7/11/2022…
10/14/2021 – Additionally, it is ordered that the jury trial scheduled for 1/31/2022 is vacated. The first jury trial is scheduled for 4/19/2022.
01/25/2022 – Jury Trial set for 7/11/2022 at 9:30 AM in Ceremonial Courtroom [detained]… Second Jury Trial set for 9/26/2022 at 9:30 AM in Ceremonial Courtroom [non-detained]…
01/26/2022 – ORDER – Trial is set to commence in this matter [detained] on April 19, 2022…
03/15/2022 – ORDER – Trial is set to commence in this matter [non-detained] on July 11, 2022…
05/12/2022 – ORDER – Trial is set to commence in this matter on September 26, 2022 at 9:30 a.m., for the September Trial Group [detained] and on November 29, 2022, at 9:30 a.m. for the November Trial Group [non-detained].
Which brings us up-to-date, to the current promise, trial dates of January 31, 2023 (detained) + April 4, 2023 (non-detained).
More Like 20 Years of Broken Promises
It’s time for each one of us to ask ourselves: what am I doing to bring attention to the plight of Americans being treated like 9/11 detainees at Guantanamo? We’ve squandered more than twenty years of failures by four, successive United States Presidents to rectify the Bush-Cheney civil rights abuses. More than twenty years. Now here are Jessica Watkins, arrested January 18, 2021. Kelly Meggs, arrested February 19, 2021. Kenneth Harrelson, arrested March 10, 2021. Stewart Rhodes, arrested January 13, 2022. These Americans are the predictable casualty of the unresolved Guantanamo fiasco.
According to the ACLU, since 2002, 779 men and boys have been held at Guantanamo, of which 39 remain “indefinitely detained there.” Hell, five of the 9/11 detainees who have been charged, including with conspiracy, and who have attorneys and a judge and a case in the works have never progressed beyond the pre-trial stage – for years. Would this outcome for these January 6 detainees be acceptable to our 2022 definition of “civil rights?”
The January 6 – Guantanamo comparison must be made. The DOJ has now charged more than 840 men and women, and are continuing to investigate, charge, and change charges. Only three of the January 6 defendant trials have been completed to date: one man was found not guilty on all charges; one man had a split verdict of not guilty of some and guilty of other charges; a third man was guilty on charges. The U.S. Department of Justice is winning “convictions” by bullying defendants into plea deals; not by putting the charges and any purported evidence on trial.
Do they even have a window?
And, as we gaze out of ours, what do we see as the future?
