[bawolff]

I don't think that is the relavent question.

Did he move the items because he believed that they were evidence being sought by the police?

I don't really care if they are actually evidence of something or not. I care if the accused believed they were and moved them for that purpose.

[Chinjut]

What if you believe (correctly) that a corrupt government intends to punish you exorbitantly beyond reason for possession of these zines? Is it still immoral to move the zines? Is it so immoral that it therefore justifies 30 years of imprisonment for moving the zines?

[bawolff]

> What if you believe (correctly) that a corrupt government intends to punish you exorbitantly beyond reason for possession of these zines?

Well the belief is incorrect, since to date nobody was punished for possessing them, and there is no reason to suspect anyone would be.

> Is it still immoral to move the zines?

Morality and legality are totally separate things. Whether it is immoral depends on which system of morality you subscribe to, although i think you could make a reasonable argument that it was immoral in most popular morality systems.

That said, i think your framing does a disservice. The question is, is it immoral to cover up a crime. The method used to do the cover up is irrelavent.

> therefore justifies 30 years

I tend to think 30 years is a bit steep, personally.

[vel0city]

Let's say someone is driving 35MPH. They think "oh snap, I think the speed limit is 30MPH here!". The posted speed limit is actually 40MPH.

Was this person speeding or not? Should a cop ticket them for thinking they're doing something wrong, even if everything they were doing was legal?

Did they even think the zines were implicated as evidence? Were the zines implicated as evidence? What crimes were being committed by ownership of these zines?

If there's a warrant issued to search a house, and a resident of that house eats a ham sandwich for lunch while the cops are on their way, did they destroy evidence?

[BobbyJo]

It's not illegal "because you think its illegal", it's illegal because "you had a court order to provide things that are relevant and you instead hid things you thought were relevant".

If I hide someone who I think did a crime to help them escape police, I've now implicated myself in the crime, whether or not my trying to hide them actually caused them to get away with it.

[pcrh]

The crimes here are the injuring of an officer, and causing a disturbance near the ICE facility.

How could the zines be evidence for those crimes?

[bawolff]

Easily? Documents that could speak to the accused intentions, plans and motivations seem very pertinent to an investigation. They may or may not actually contain evidence, but they certainly seem related enough that police obtaining a search warrant for them is reasonable.

[vel0city]

> it's illegal because "you had a court order to provide things that are relevant and you instead hid things you thought were relevant"

And yet when Trump does it with classified documents its not a problem. Where's his 30 years?

Did he even have a warrant issued to him related to these documents?

Are these zines even relevant evidence? Is everyone who has these magazines also now a criminal? What about other radical anti-government political pamphlets like Common Sense?

> If I hide someone who I think did a crime to help them escape police

Seems like quite a different thing than moving some political pamphlets. If they were shredding financial documents while being charged with financial crimes I'd agree. If they were hiding guns with a gun trafficking charge, I'd understand. Flushing drugs down the drain, sure. Moving political zines though? Really? What's the relevance again for the ownership of political pamphlets to committing crimes?

[BobbyJo]

> "but what about.."

I don't know.

> Did he even have a warrant issued to him related to these documents?

Yes. A zine put together by a group that later goes on to commit a crime together, that promotes the ideologies underlying the crime, feels like the kind of thing a search warrant/subpoena would apply to. The fact that the person involved in the crime asked that they be hidden makes it pretty obvious that they saw it that way as well.

> Are these zines even relevant evidence?

Yes.

> Is everyone who has these magazines also now a criminal?

No. Things can be legal and evidence of ill intent at the same time.

> What about other radical anti-government political pamphlets like Common Sense?

If the editor(s) of that pamphlet went on to commit a crime of a political nature, no doubt their relationship with the pamphlet would be evidence used against them. It would also still be perfectly legal to have, and legal for others to continue publishing.

> Seems like quite a different thing than moving some political pamphlets.

It is, but I think the core idea of involving yourself in the crime by way of trying to hide evidence etc. is similar at least.

> What's the relevance again for the ownership of political pamphlets to committing crimes?

Depends on the crime. If they had robbed a Wendy's, probably no relevance. If they attacked an ICE building and the pamphlets established ill intent toward ICE, probably a lot of relevance.

[vel0city]

If these zines were like "here's how to attack an ICE facility" or directly promoting imminent violence against officers I'd understand.

Is that what these zines were about? From the zines I've seen they're all pretty general anarchist kind of materials. One of the zines was arguing the morality of squatting a residence. Is that evidence of committing violence against an ICE facility?

If there really was materials directly related to promoting imminent violence against ICE officers or materials directly related to planning the attack, please do point it out. I haven't seen anything like that yet though. I'd agree that would be evidence of the crimes involved. Just random anarchist ramblings though?

Then, finally on top of that 30 years for this seems incredibly excessive. We let child sexual abusers in Texas walk free after only 30 days in a county jail while moving some magazines gets you 30 years. Tell me again how this is justice.

This is the modern Republican party. 30 years for moving political magazines. 30 days for sexually assaulting a child.

[BobbyJo]

> Is that evidence of committing violence against an ICE facility?

Again, the zines relevance isn't proving they did it. It's providing context and intent. If you can't see the connection between anarchist pamphlets and trying to raid a government facility, then I don't know what else to say.

The "imminent violence" only matters if the pamphlets were themselves the crime, and they were not. To go back toy earlier example, If I buy a criminal a bus ticket to help them escape, I can be charged with a crime even though bus tickets are perfectly legal.

> Then, finally on top of that 30 years for this seems incredibly excessive.

It is, but if it's in the statutes, then its up to the judge. Obviously they wanted to make an example out of these people.

> We let child sexual abusers in Texas walk free after only 30 days

Sounds like a completely separate problem that needs solving IMO.

> This is the modern Republican party. 30 years for moving political magazines. 30 days for sexually assaulting a child.

I think sentencing is mostly left to judges, which are not elected political officials.

[MichaelZuo]

If you knew it’s significantly different from your speeding example… why did you reply with such a misleading example in the first place?

[vel0city]

I mean its a very radically different thing in almost every way than what was originally proposed. The zines didn't commit any crimes.

Let's say you hide someone who didn't actually commit a crime but you thought they did. Are you still guilty of hiding a suspect in the crime that wasn't a crime?

The standard was:

> I care if the accused believed they were and moved them for that purpose

So to that poster what matters was that the zines being useful or not to the investigation was not relevant, it was if the person thought it was potentially relevant or not.

The wife owning some zines is evidence of a crime? Really? Owning some zines is evidence of criminal activity these days?

[bawolff]

> Let's say someone is driving 35MPH. They think "oh snap, I think the speed limit is 30MPH here!". The posted speed limit is actually 40MPH.

There is a difference between incorrect belief in what the law is vs incorrect belief in what actions you are taking. Although maybe that is not the most compelling. If you see the speed limit is 40, but you want to go faster so you hit the gas until you are going 60 and then brag with photo evidence about how you don't believe in speed limits on on facebook. Unbeknownst to you your spedometer was broken and you only hit 40. Should you get a ticket?

That seems like a tougher call, but still a bit silly to give a ticket.

a different example.

You intend to murder someone. The intended victim puts their clothes on a manequin in hopes of distracting you while they make their escape. You shoot the manequin. Did you commit a crime?

[vel0city]

Intending to murder someone is often directly a crime though, so yes. And murdering people is illegal. Moving some magazines isn't normally illegal. I wouldn't normally assume having some magazines is evidence of a crime.

And if they are, what crime was owning the magazines involved in? That you happen to read some of the same articles as someone else who committed a crime? Is sharing the same books as others now implicating you as a terrorist?

[bawolff]

> Moving some magazines isn't normally illegal.

Neither is shooting a gun (at e.g. a gun range). This case has about as much to do with moving magazines as a murder charge has with discharging a firearm. Its intrinsic to the crime, but not what the actual crime is.

> I wouldn't normally assume having some magazines is evidence of a crime.

If someone called you up and told you that the magazine contained evidence of a crime, the police ard looking for them, and asked you to hide the magazines, would your assumptions change? Because that seems to be what happened here.

> And if they are, what crime was owning the magazines involved in? That you happen to read some of the same articles as someone else who committed a crime? Is sharing the same books as others now implicating you as a terrorist?

That is not even remotely what happened here. Nobody got in trouble for owning or reading the magazines in question.

[flossposse]

> If someone called you up and told you that the magazine contained evidence of a crime, the police ard looking for them, and asked you to hide the magazines, would your assumptions change? Because that seems to be what happened here.

Is it? I've read the testimony provided by the FBI agent who was surveilling Rueda and Sanchez, and the quote he provided from her phone call (presumably he would have selected the most incriminating one) was, "whatever you need to do. Move whatever you need to move from the house."

There are many other reasonable interpretations of that sentence other than "please remove incriminating evidence from the house". Like, that could just mean, "If YOU need anything from the house, go ahead and get it."

As far as I've been able to tell from the publicly available documents I've seen, the materials he moved from the house didn't contain any evidence of any crime. I haven't seen any indications as to whether they belonged to Rueda or Sanchez. It seems plausible that he moved the zines from the city of Garland to the city of Denton because Denton is a college town where political demonstrations and the distribution of pamphlets and whatnot is extremely common, and he was intending to distribute the zines there in the coming days.

It seems to me like law enforcement had justifiable cause to be suspicious and to seize the materials, but I haven't yet seen compelling evidence that the investigation was actually hindered by Sanchez or that he had intent to hinder it. I'm open to revising that conclusion if other evidence is provided.

[BeetleB]

> Intending to murder someone is often directly a crime though

Not at all.

Committing an act with the intent to murder is a crime. Actual intent alone isn't.

[Teever]

You might find this interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea

[vel0city]

I'm very aware of mens rea.

Is thinking you're committing a crime when you're not mens rea? That's the hypothetical above.

[Teever]

It’s a good question.

If I buy a bag of white powder thinking that it’s cocaine and it turns out the person selling it to me actually gave me a bag of flour did I commit a crime? What crime?

If I’m angry at someone and I decide to kill them so I go over to their house late at night and see them sitting upright on their couch watching TV and I shoot them from the window and flee but it’s later discovered that they died of a heart attack two hours before I shot them did I commit a crime? What crime?

If someone decides to commit suicide and they jump from an apartment building and coincidentally I decide to fire my gun out my window and as they pass by my window the bullet hits them in the head killing them instantly before they hit the ground am I guilty of a crime? What crime?

These kind of Law & Order / first year law school type hypotheticals are useful ways to analyze the hypothetical that you’re raising.