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Home Front: Culture Wars
Ohio Prosecutor threatens more jailtime if people don't stop bashing the Ohioan government
2005-08-01
Stop writing and we’ll reduce your charges, an Ohio prosecutor has told an editor, in essence now publicly admitting that the criminal charges lodged against the website writer are direct retaliation for his exercise of First Amendment rights.

That’s illegal.

Less than two weeks ago, Daniel Kasaris, special prosecutor against two critics of public officials in northern Ohio, stated publicly that the duo’s website which often levels caustic charges against public officials, especially judges, and focuses on alleged governmental wrongdoing, was not a factor in the arrests of the pair.

But now he says if the website editor stops writing for the site, he’ll reduce the felony charges he brought against him to a misdemeanor. Sounds like blackmail to us; also seems to establish that he made a false statement.

Not only is that a blatant violation of First Amendment rights by an agent of government but outright extortion. It would appear to us that Kasaris is the one who should be criminally charged, attempting to force a citizen to give up his constitutionally guaranteed rights in order to regain his freedom.

The constitutional violations keep mounting in this case. Now the government and the editor’s government lawyer, public defender Brad Greene, are allegedly holding hearings without informing the defendant or allowing the defendant to be present.

THAT is a blatant violation of rights. The Sixth Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee a defendant an absolute right to be present at any and all material stages of a proceeding. Clearly, a pre-trial hearing is a material stage. Plenty of case law on that issue.

Read the rest at link. I am not a lawyer and the language makes my head hurt. But what comes clear through the legalise is that there is blatant violations of law and constitution. Time for the people of Ohio to overthrow their socialist overlords.
Posted by:mmurray821

#3  We also have had a problem here in Ohio with moonbats from the "common law" movement who file bogus judgment leins against public officials (and anyone else) who somehow get on their bad side.
Posted by: Mike   2005-08-01 14:59  

#2  OK, after deciding to take the risk and visit that site:

DuBois faces one count of extortion, two counts of intimidation, one count of retaliation, all third-degree felonies, and one count of possession of criminal tools, a fifth-degree felony.

His charges purportedly relate to a note he allegedly handed former School Superintendent Charles Burns after Burns testified against Baumgartner during a libel trial last year in which Burns had sued Baumgartner. DuBois maintains he can prove that Burns allegedly committed perjury.


Doesn't sound like he's being persecuted. Sounds to me like he did something stupid -- libel -- and did something even more stupid at the trial.

n fact, it is alleged that one “threatening email” to Markus was sent in November, 2004, prior to him presiding over that same libel trial. Kasaris said that some of the charges against DuBois stemmed from an email that he allegedly sent to Markus before the libel trial began against Baumgartner. Kasaris labeled the email threatening and said that while it didn’t threaten bodily harm, it threatened the judge’s reputation and on the basis of that, he lodged a charge of extortion against DuBois.

Sending threatening messages to judges is also grade-A stupidity.

These folks sound like self-declared crusaders who don't have a clue how to handle themselves in polite society. It wouldn't be shocking for that type of person to have accidentally broken a law or stepped on their own tongues.
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2005-08-01 13:17  

#1  I'd be real careful going out on a limb here. There are some far-right loons who like to file endless frivolous lawsuits and otherwise screw with the government, and what little I can gather on this case makes that a possibility.

Posted by: Robert Crawford   2005-08-01 12:57  

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