The two filings accuse the prosecution of treating the grand jury like a high school class, handpicking a foreperson and failing to explain the burden of proof needed to return an indictment.
The filings are the latest in flurry of attempts to get Cox and five alleged co-conspirators released from Fairbanks Correctional Center where they have been held since March 10. They are accused in state Superior Court of creating a plot code-named “241” to kill Alaska State Troopers, an assistant district attorney and court officials.
In Alaska Superior Court, bail was originally set at $2 million for all six, but it was recently dropped to $100,000 for co-defendant Coleman Barney. In federal court, where five of the six, including Barney, face additional charges, none has been granted bail.
In one of the filings in the Cox case, attorney Robert John quotes a prosecutor in the grand jury transcript who appears to pick a foreperson out of the grand jury for arriving late, saying “that’s what you get for showing up late. It’s just like high school.”
The procedure violates the criminal rule that a grand jury itself or a judge should pick the foreperson, John says in the filing.
“Schaeffer Cox has the constitutional right to be indicted by a grand jury, not by a high-school teacher and the class he teaches.”
In the other filing John argues that grand jury was not instructed precisely enough about the standard of proof needed to indict Cox. Grand juries do not need the proof beyond a reasonable doubt needed for a criminal conviction. By criminal rules they need to find evidence that “taken together, if unexplained or uncontradicted, would warrant a conviction of the defendant.”
Contact staff writer Sam Friedman at 459-7545.
If the charges of planning kill are true, we still have to look at it in the context in which it appears to be in - conditional. To say that they just planned to kill is a half-truth of the matter. They planned ' IF '. It appears to have been a plan of reactionary preservation, so I would think it depends on what dynamics took place between the characters involved to come to any conclusions if they deserve long prison sentences or none at all ( barring illegal weapons charges, I suppose ). Those subjects of the condition might have served Cox and Co. an injustice with an impunity expected out of a psychopathic intruder for all I know.
Whether someone is violent or not is rather immaterial until we know the context of the violence. Some of our Founders were very violent at least in one place and time. So was Stalin and Pol Pot, yet we consider these two very different from the other two.
My own conjecture on this matter is that Cox and Co. should have known better, that the route they took would only be used as bait against themselves . If it was a matter of those characters merely harassing Cox and Co. , then I think petition and redress of grievances, public awareness through speeches, lectures and debates , etc. would obviously lent for better results.
But like I said, I don't know what dynamics took place, or for that matter; taking place.
Hopefully , facts will bear out for an accurate picture.
Have they expressed or implied doing so through some self-appointed martial rule , causing injured party and deprivation of rights of constitutionally-fit fellow citizens in the process ? Were they merely expressing or implying rebellion and armed resistance against those , who themselves expressed implied or acted on those violations ? Did they express or imply oppression or punishment to those who lawfully would opt not to follow them ' leading the charge ' ? Would there be a power struggle against another group of citizens who likewise take charge in an emergency ? What kind of emergency were they talking about ?
Is it possible that the media has oversimplified or miscategorized their intent by painting an incomplete picture , thus changing context ? Have you been to the militia meetings where this issue was being discussed ?
Shall I go on ?
By your reasoning , then those who make citizen arrests, protect themselves and other, etc. are vigilantes.
In summary, you haven't answered my question , but don't fret. I'm not sure if I could answer the same question if you asked me, as I'm not privy to all that Cox and Co., in the capacity as a militia , has expressed, implied or thought to fairly answer it.
You are confusing Cox and Co. with the guy I just quoted, and his friends like Rahm Emmanuel and Zbigniew Brzezinski. the " we " in that quote is not referring to " We The People " and unlike your erroneous claim that ' posse comitatus is no more than ...trying to declare THEMSELVES...', like as was the case in England it is suggested to be much more - compulsory.
And that's history, ' man '.
I am pleased that battle is brewing.
So , under the presumption that you also know what it means , one should be able to see the danger in a citizenry accepting some notion that private civilian militias should fall under the auspices of the federal Government. The erosion of the Act for over the last twenty years has placed us once again in a Lincolnesque form of federalized police state , ignoring the fact of states rights and responsibilities to a maintenance of peace and execution of law. When this occurs, there becomes an erasure of civilian government vs military ( federal ) government.
To remove the last check and balance against this when all political relief fails - a citizen's /private militia unfettered by federal control is really facilitating the government's absolute power over a citizenry, as not only does the military becomes an instrument of the Federal Government's policing over that citizenry , but fellow neighbor citizens become so as well. So, if both citizen government and military government become subject under federal control , there's really no one left to resist any tyrannical force without becoming a hunted outlaw.
" Posse Comitatus Act ?" " We don't need no stinking Posse Comitatus Act ! "
All charges are made in the same misguided reasoning & mental control of the masses.
What we have with this modern day so called militia is secret groups that want no association with the military and in most cases see them as the enemy. Its history man...everything doesnt have to be in the constitution. This cox bunch is vigilanties not militia.