The ruling is the latest setback for defense attorneys trying to challenge evidence against Schaeffer Cox, Coleman Barney and Lonnie Vernon, who are scheduled to go to trial in May on charges of planning to kill federal employees and owning illegal weapons.
In court filings and during a two-day evidentiary hearing last month in Anchorage, Tim Dooley, the attorney for defendant Coleman Barney, tried to challenge the search warrant used to search Barney’s North Pole area home and a trailer left in the parking lot of the World Ice Art Championships last year. He argued prosecutors behaved recklessly by depending on Gerald “JR” Olson, a convicted felon who received a lower sentence by helping the FBI infiltrate Cox’s Peacemaker’s militia.
Prosecutors argued investigators were able to verify Olson’s work by listening to recordings he made and by confirming his reports with a second informant, Anchorage military surplus store owner and body guard Bill Fulton.
Unlike a number of evidentiary challenges District Court Judge Robert J. Bryan rejected in court in Anchorage, he asked for more time and more information on the search warrant issue. Eventually, he concluded there were not enough problems with the FBI’s search warrant request to throw out the fruits of the search.
“With the mass of information before him (FBI) Special Agent Westerhaus had to draw some inferences and make some interpretations in preparing the affidavits (to request a search warrant),” he said. “His interpretations and inferences were reasonable under the totality of the information and circumstances known to him.”
Defense attorneys were more successful in challenging the legality of evidence in a related case in state court last fall. That case, which accused these defendants and two others of planning to kill state officials, was thrown out by state prosecutors after a state judge ruled the audio and video recordings made by the informants were not admissible as evidence in state court. Unlike they physical searches, prosecutors did not request warrants before making the recordings.
Contact staff writer Sam Friedman at 459-7545.
You obviously have never had the opportunity [or motivation] to examine an LE 'spin job' in a situation where factual reality is/was know before hand, to compare the spin to the actual context. There are a number of examples involving the very AST detachment that set up this operation. There are even 1 or 2 that got documented, where you can detect actual manipulation of the physical evidence, such as cutting and splicing audio tape to create a false appearance of guilt.
I don't want an LE force that operates outside our Laws. Regardless of the fearmongering.
It was the Troopers and Fbk's ass't DA who stepped outside the Law, inserted an individual whom they KNEW to be skilled at persuading people to act against wiser judgement into peoples' private lives, essentially paying him to lead those people into some/any compromising behavior. Would they have arrived there anyway? No way to know, but the FBI in the lower 48 had listened to Cox rant on, and saw no reason to pursue/investigate his actions.
I don't happen to feel that such behavior is compatible with a free society where people are allowed to express their opinions, even when they are clearly "full of it". I don't want a T.McV or el Quida to be allowed to [or be the excuse for] distroy the freedoms that makes us great.
I feel, in agreement with our founding fathers [who'd had some experience with unfettered gov't power over citizens] there needs to be some limitations, controls, and regulation of gov'tal power, and such needs to be consistently and fairly applied to all, whether or not they're a little cracked, or so foolish as to tell tall tales, verbally and publicly 'disrespecting' police power to it's face, or possibly murderous criminals with no respect for human life.
So, though I'm quite glad TMcV was brought to justice, yes indeed, I would stand up for his constitutional and human rights, right down to the bitter end. It's the citizen support for those rights, not the super-snoop abilities of over-empowered LE, that makes the USA a proud and special nation, and that will keep it that way.
2) I am familiar with John Rawls and don't care much for his foundational "veil of ignorance " appropriation of just rules for the fact the decider of rules is not constrained in matters of time , resources , etc. i.e. , SCARCITY, and as Hans Hermann Hoppe put it , that the decider, without need , has no reason not to just sit and do nothing - " In a world without scarcity, I don't have to write a book at all."
I also don't buy that individual liberty's upsetting patterns of predictability are some ominous forces that equality could remedy without compromising that liberty. I find individual liberty the higher morality and justice.
3) I agree wholeheartedly with your last sentence regarding common law.
And yet, BOTH the Alaskan DA [the head of our own Fbk DA's Office] and the Alaska State Troopers most surely were aware that they had NO legitimate right to be invading privacy and taping these people without first showing sufficient grounds, probable cause, to an Ak Judge, and getting a warrent. This kind of suggests to me that the Troopers and the DA perhaps did not HAVE probable cause for their suspicions.
One wonders, considering that the FBI in the lower 48 had heard Cox's rantings and dismissed him as any kind of threat, what kind of favors the local FBI and/or Fbk Fed DA might have been paying off when they went forward with this farce.
1] when plea bargained informants are allowed [esp without impartial/judical oversight], there is a huge risk that resulting 'info' is contaminated, manipulated, manufactured, and/or largely untrue, because the informant wants his reward and has no vested interest in Truth and Justice. It is essentially purchased testimony, which is not considered acceptable. And stats show that such informants are a very large contributor to false convictions.
2] who defines 'bad guys'? VS say kooks, loudmouths, etc? If there was not enough valid grounds for LE and DA suspicions for them to have applied for and gotten a search warrent, what stops some paranoid DA or vengeful LEO from invading *anybody's* privacy by inserting some phony into your circle of friends, leading and then taping private conversations with the intention to spin doctor the result?
The situation here is that the AK DA and AST KNEW they were committing an illegal act. How is that OK???
aren't going to be able to
play with the walrus
under the wendell st. bridge
for a long time ..
Carry on and I wish you well.
But it's worse than that, because it illustrates that you do not really understand the nature of the conflict in the first place.
As far as I'm concerned, you've had plenty of time to get your s#$t together on this matter, because it is obvious to me that you haven't.
It would be pretty stupid of me to waste more time with you on this matter when it is obvious that you have little genuine interest in it. Your interest appears to lie in repeating the same thing over and over with some idea it becomes more true.
OK it exist because you say it exist, right-o.
OK what’s better?
In Alaska it’s against the “law” to operate motor vehicles under the influence, per AS 28.35.030.
Or
Taking a cue from you saying, in Alaska it’s against the “law” to operate motor vehicles in Alaska because I said so.
It might not be my ability to understand, it might be your ability to explain.
I will look else where for explanations.
Your ' hologram/clone ' argument is a non sequitur of most absurd proportion.
You wouldn’t have responded to me in this manner, if you knew and/or could prove what you’re talking about.
LOL!!!!
Sorry for not following “common law” political correctness.
I have said “common law” probably does exist, BUT NOT as proclaimed by certain people.
Want reality? Statements were made by Schaeffer challenging the authority court system.
The court system seems to think is has him in the court system. So assuming Schaeffer’s brand of common law is correct, Schaeffer is not in prison, since they have no authority.
Getting charged is getting charged, trial are trials, and incarceration is incarceration. For some the reality of this escapes some.
So, how did I do for keeping it short ?
What's your take on "common law"? Jury Trial and U.S.Constitution?
Much like common law is in your mind, eh friend ?
You shouldn't have been so disingenuous. The evidence in your continued use of that ignorant statement . Stop pretending that you're interested in the issue.
How many problems does it take to be a bad search warrant?
Interpretations and inferences, not facts???
What's next??? Hear say? Rumors??
Dishonesty & malpractice of the law.
Justice at it's worse.
I'm not even a Cox & party fan......