What To Do When the Judge Is More Bloodthirsty than the Prosecutor? Judge Says RaiseTheFist Webaster Should Do More than a Year in Jail.

From LA IMC:

Raisethefist.com’s webmaster, Sherman Austin went to court on Monday, Sept 30th to plead guilty [to a felony charge of 18 U.S.C. 842 (p)(2)(A)]. The plea bargain was to give Austin a felony conviction with 1 month in jail, 5 months in a half-way home and 3 years supervised release.

As the prosecutor read the factual basis of the plea agreement in court, Judge Wilson immediately turned defiant, saying 1 month in jail was not acceptable. He expressed that posting such information regardless of any intent should be illegal, (this of course completely disregarding the 1st amendment and the thousands of NON-ANARCHIST web sites which distribute bomb making instructions), stating that the offense is too serious for Austin to serve only 1 month in jail. Judge Wilson argued that Austin should serve more than 12 months, even though the sentencing is between 6-12 months for Austin’s criminal history category under violation 18 U.S.C. 842.

The judge also attempted to make Austin out as a terrorist, saying he didn’t care how old he was, that his political philosophy behind his reasons of posting the information made it a very serious federal offense, with the intent that the information be used for malicious destruction at international events of foreign commerce.

I am absolutely flabbergasted as I read this. The sheer hostility that Judge Wilson expresses to the principle of free speech makes me wonder what someone has to say to get him to try and push the death penalty. The severity of the Judge’s reaction is even all the more amazing when you consider that all the information posted at Raise The Fist has been mirrored all over the Internet. This has nothing to do with combating terror, and everything to do with crushing dissent. Wilson has Sherman Austin in his court room so he’s going to teach Sherman a hard lesson: don’t disseminate information — even widely available information — if you admit to actually and truly dissenting with the US gov’t. It’s only free speech until you mean it.

More information about Judge Wilson is definitely needed. I did a quick LexisNexis search, but without a first name I wasn’t able to come up with much definitive information. Unfortunately, the website for the US District Court for Southern California doesn’t list anything about any judges, either. What’s this judge’s history? Is he consistently so hostile to speech freedom and political dissent?

Clearly, Sherman Austin needs a better lawyer who can fight this case on the proper grounds. Without a doubt, whatever punishment his judge lays down must be appealed. (Thanks to the Infoshop News Kiosk for finding this story.)