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crime and punishment First Amendment rights

The January Sixers

Paul Jacob applauds a pardon for walking on the grass.

Among the reasons one might be glad Donald Trump won the presidency is the reprieve he has given to many who attended the January 6, 2021, rally in Washington, DC.

While it is true that some who were punished did engage in violence and riot,* many were peaceful but were imprisoned anyway, under horrific conditions. And even some who avoided imprisonment were treated atrociously.

Among the latter is former police officer Michael Daughtry, who recently told his story. A few of the details:

Invited by President Trump to go to the West Lawn to peacefully protest, Daughtry did so. There, “police officers removed the barricades and waved us onto the West Lawn.” The FBI later confiscated Daughtry’s video of this.

On January 16, he was charged with trespassing on the West Lawn.

Though he had been a police officer and had no criminal record, Daughtry was jailed for hours before being brought before a judge … “in handcuffs, leg irons and belly chains.…”

Even after he was released, his home was raided repeatedly.

He was forced to turn over passwords to email, social media, bank accounts and much other private information to federal agents, who threatened him with prison if he did not comply.

Daughtry was under house arrest “for almost two years for a crime that carries a maximum punishment of less than a year. I have not been allowed to plea in this case.”

More here.

Trump pardoned Daughtry for his non-​crime. Would a President Harris have done so?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


* Those who assaulted police officers or plotted to do violence on that day should not have been pardoned — even if deserving of mercy, commuted sentences, without wiping their record, would have sufficed.

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