Tea at Trianon: Over-sentenced

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Over-sentenced

From American Thinker:

People swept up in the Department of Justice’s January 6 dragnet have been getting extraordinarily harsh sentences. While daily headlines are filled with stories of repeat offenders walking away with slaps on the wrist following brutal crimes, the January 6 defendants, almost every one of whom had no previous criminal record (that I’m aware of), were being sent away for years simply for having stepped onto Capitol grounds. These were insane sentences compared to what happened to violent and destructive Antifa and BLM protestors. Now, though, a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a unanimous decision, held that the prosecutors and the judges improperly used a “multiplier” to reach these sentences.

The decision arises in the case of only one defendant—Larry Brock—a retired Air Force officer who entered the capitol wearing a helmet and tactical vest and who was carrying zip ties that he testified he found on the floor and picked up. There’s no indication that he did anything other than wander through the Capitol.
Nevertheless, for these sins, Brock was sentenced to two years in prison. He filed an appeal alleging that the prosecutors wrongly demanded and the judge gave a sentencing multiplier based upon his having violated U.S.S.G. sec. 2J1.2(b)(2). That provision says that, for Base Offense Level 14, “If the offense resulted in substantial interference with the administration of justice, increase [the Base Offense Level] by 3 levels.” (Read more.)