United States Magistrate Judge Jolie Ann Russo joined fellow U.S. Magistrate Judge John Victor Acosta's efforts to chill the exercise of free speech in Portland, Oregon this week by ordering people charged with various alleged federal crimes not to participate in peaceful protests as pretrial release conditions. Their abuse of authority is just one example of a much bigger problem due to Congress finding excuses to take Constitutional rights away from people that have not even been convicted of a crime. As a result, pretrial detainees are basically guilty until proven innocent and subject to the same conditions as convicted persons on probation or supervised release.
Under **18 U.S.C. 3142 federal judges can impose pretty much any conditions on pretrial supervisees. Under 18 U.S.C. 3142(c)(B)(iv) specifically allows them to order that pretrial detainees "abide by specified restrictions on personal associations, place of abode, or travel" and 18 U.S.C. 3142(c)(B)(Xiv) allows them to order that they "satisfy any other condition that is reasonably necessary to assure the appearance of the person as required and to assure the safety of any other person and the community." The later allows judges to craft pretty much any condition they like simply by stating that it is "reasonably necessary" to protect the "safety" of the community and "safety" is construed to mean keeping the community safe from any illegal activity whether or not the activity really endangers anyone's safety.
Judges Acosta and Russo are abusing Section 3142 to deprive people that have been convicted of no crimes of the rights afforded to all other innocent people under the Constitution. They are Enemies of Liberty that consider only the statutes given to them by Congress with no regard for the Constitution, morals, or ethics. They took an oath to protect the Constitution but find excuses to disregard the Bill of Rights to get what they want. They are traitors in the true sense of the word. Like the Congress that wrote the statute, they are not part a government that has any legitimate claim to govern at all. Whenever they say that anyone else would have a right under the Bill or Rights they disregard the clear intentions of the founding fathers which was for all people to have those rights. Eventually, people in power realized that they could not control people as much as they wanted to if they honored the Bill or Rights, so they started looking for extreme cases in which they felt they could argue that the founding fathers could not have foreseen the circumstances when they wrote the Bill of Rights. They then expanded to include less extreme cases and eventually anything involving anyone accused of breaking the law.
We are not listing Judge Russo's address due to a truce we have with local law enforcement in which they agreed not to stop doxxing us if we didn't do it to them, but anyone that really wants to find it can fairly easily, so the truce does not do much to protect them. They really need to be more diligent when it comes to suppressing their personal information.
Minor traffic citations:
EXCEED MAX REPEALED/RENUMBERED...
1995
EXCEED MAXIMUM SPEED
1995
VIOL OF BASIC RULE
1996
EXCEED MAXIMUM SPEED
1995
*Learn more about Judge Acosta at https://copblaster.com/blast/2239/judge-john-v-acostas-erroneous-opinion-on-technical-violations
**Learn more about 18 U.S.C. 3142 at https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3142
UPDATE: According to ProPublica, Judge Russo is loosening the protest restrictions in coming days, but we will believe that when we see it. https://www.propublica.org/article/portland-protesters-no-longer-being-banned-from-attending-protests-to-win-release-from-jail