Capitol Riot Sentences: A Double Standard?
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly began handing down sentences for “Proud Boy” defendants convicted in the turmoil of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Joseph Biggs, who led dozens of demonstrators at the Capitol, was given a 17-year sentence by the judge on Aug. 31. Two more Proud Boy activists were sentenced to a combined 28 years on Friday. Ethan Nordean, the leader of a Seattle chapter, was given an 18-year sentence, and Dominic Pezzola was sentenced to 10 years.
The latest sentence came down on Tuesday for Proud Boy Chairman Enrique Tarrio.
Federal prosecutors used terrorist enhancements to extend the convicts’ sentences over a riot where the only fatal victims were pro-Trump demonstrators. Biggs’ 17-year stay was enhanced over the defendant’s destruction of a fence on Capitol grounds.
Judge Kelly justified the lengthy prison terms during his court address to Nordean and Pezzola by declaring the Capitol riot a “national disgrace.”
The decades-long prison sentences, however, represent a radical departure from how domestic terrorists were treated after far-left revolutionaries catalyzed the most destructive explosion of civil unrest in decades. The riots for social justice that became routine throughout 2020 cost more than 66 times the inflated estimates of the Capitol carnage. That’s just accounting for the two-week aftermath of the riots over George Floyd’s death alone.
Residents in Kenosha, Wisconsin, were still recovering last year from the devastation of the 2020 riots stemming from a police shooting of an armed 29-year-old black man.
Far-left demonstrators went largely unpunished for the carnage that wrecked mainstreets across the nation throughout the presidential election year while Democrats and the corporate press downplayed the damage.
Former Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, who enabled the complete takeover of a city neighborhood to become known as Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ), labeled the turbulent “summer of love.” CNN made a mockery of the network when the channel covered the Kenosha riots as “mostly peaceful” while a car lot burned in the background. Vice President Kamala Harris even encouraged followers to deliver bail money to those arrested for crimes related to the Minneapolis riots. As it turns out, many of the defendants Harris encouraged people to bail out were repeat offenders with violent histories.
[RELATED:[RELATED:28 Times Media And Democrats Excused Or Endorsed Violence Committed By Left-Wing Activists]
The sentences eventually handed down over the eruption of far-left terrorism paled in comparison to the decades in prison given to Jan. 6 demonstrators. A Minnesota man, for example, was sentenced to just four years for lighting the Minneapolis police station on fire.
While standing in front of the burning police headquarters, MSNBC’s Ali Velshi tried to sell the riots around him as not “generally speaking, unruly.”
In January, a federal judge sentenced a pair of disbarred attorneys to just more than a year in prison for setting ablaze a New York City police car with a Molotov cocktail. While prosecutors similarly used terrorist enhancements to recommend longer prison sentences, the requested term was only for 18-24 months for ex-lawyer Colinford Mattis in contrast to the decades sought for Jan. 6 defendants.
Given the contrast between Jan. 6 prisoners and left-wing anarchists, it should come as no surprise that the most vitriolic of the D.C. judges to preside over Capitol riot defendants is also assigned to former President Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 case.
U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan has overseen more than three dozen cases of individuals charged with crimes over the Jan. 6 riot. According to the Associated Press, Chutkan often issued sentences that went far beyond prosecutors’ recommendations.
“Other judges typically have handed down sentences that are more lenient than those requested by prosecutors,” the AP reported. “Chutkan, however, has matched or exceeded prosecutors’ recommendations in 19 of her 38 sentences. In four of those cases, prosecutors weren’t seeking any jail time at all.”
Trump is now expected to face trial during the presidential contest next year presided by a judge in a district where the jury pool voted for President Joe Biden 92 to 5 percent.
[READ:[READ:Judge Tanya Chutkan’s Record Should Disqualify Her From Presiding Over Trump’s J6 Trial]
A poll from last year found that 4 in 5 Americans believe there is a two-tiered system of justice. The 12 months following the survey proved their suspicions correct.
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