tvc184

It depends. From just a new story it appears that he suffered what is usually considered a class A misdemeanor assault or in the Penal Code, an assault with bodily injury. Under the Texas hate crime law, a class A misdemeanor cannot be enhanced to a felony. An Assault could be upgraded to an Aggravated Assault but there are two ways to make that under Texas law. One way is to use a deadly weapon and the other way is to cause serious bodily injury. I have not seen any claim of a weapon so assuming there was none, it goes to serious bodily injury. That is not defined as how it looks. If a person slapped you on the arm and you said you felt pain, it would be the same penalty as getting a blackeye and a busted nose. It is all considered bodily injury. Serious bodily injury is an injury that causes death, could cause death or there protracted/extended loss of a bodily member or organ. So a broken arm in my opinion would be serious bodily injury because for four weeks, you will lose the use of that arm because it will be in a cast. If a person gives you a blackeye but it causes your eyes to be shut for two weeks, could a jury consider that a serious bodily injury? I think they might. If you had broken bones in your face due to such an assault and a surgery to repair the damage caused you to have a patch on your eye for a month, would that be considered serious bodily injury under loss of an organ for an extended period? Just from appearance this appears to be bodily injury only but the video said the man would need surgery to repair the injury. If that is true, I suspect that the man arrested will have the charges enhanced from merely bodily injury to serious bodily injury and therefore Aggravated Asssault. It will depend on the extent of the injuries.

That could be a yes or no answer. Evidence of a crime is whatever can be brought to the witness stand. It can be physical evidence or it can be testimony. A jury is given the task to determine what weight any evidence has. In Texas a hate crime it’s not a crime in itself. It is like conspiracy to commit a felony, an attempted crime or organize crime laws. Those laws are not crimes and have to be attached to other laws either to enhance or lower penalties. To that extent, bias crimes in Texas can be enhanced to a higher level. For example a class A misdemeanor carries up to a year in the county jail but has no minimum. If a jury finds it was due to bias, it has a minimum of 180 days but still a one year maximum. Other crimes to be raised one level such as a B misdemeanor if deemed a hate crime by a jury, can become an A misdemeanor. So to your question, would lack of a video lessen the crime or punishment? Again, yes or no. The law gives no specifics what can be used to prove a crime although there are some limitations such as hearsay for example. Even if there was no video and the DA decided to attempt enhancement of the penalty due to bias, he could do so on testimony from the victim or witnesses. On the other hand, even if video did show a racial slur, a jury could determine that there was an assault but it was not because of bias and that the racial slur was simply an anger reaction. I don’t hate women in any profession or position in life but I can think of some pretty bad names to call them if I was mad. Does that mean I am biased? That is why the answer could be yes or no whether there is video or not. The DA has the authorityi to prosecute for a hate crime enhancement with no video if he wishes or if such a video existed, a jury could give the verdict that it was not a hate crime. Whether a DA attempts to enhance a penalty in this case due to racial bias is completely on him. The weight given to any such evidence, is completely on the jury. You ask a very good question but here is the true answer. Will the DA go to trial for a hate crime if he does not have the video as evidence, particularly if there is only the defendant and the victim as witnesses? It comes down to what we call he said/she said. It is your word against mine and in my experience, most of the time the DA will not bring such an argument to the table. Let’s play the what if game. What if there is video of the man assaulting the victim as claimed in this case? The video is shot from the perspective of the victim. As such, he controls when the video starts and I believe in the article, he said he started it “after” he suspects started advancing on him. Okay…. What if the claimed victim was using racial slurs towards a suspect, flipping him off, etc.? Once he got the reaction he wanted, then he started videoing. Does that change it? I doubt that happened but that is why it is best to wait for all evidence to come out. How many times do we watch football games and a player will shove another player but the referee only sees the retaliation?

The destructi of a booming American economy because of Covid shut downs invigorated people.

….. and my background has nothing to do with it. I don’t think you have to be in law-enforcement to believe that the Constitution should be upheld. My opinion did not change when I was almost 30 years old and was sworn into office. My knowledge has considerably.

No, I put a lot of stock in the Constitution because I believe it. There are plenty of laws that I completely disagree with and have no faith in whatsoever.

What does religion have to do with manners in school? When did we abdicate teaching children manners or discipline to a public school district? None of that is forced in any case. You do not have to send your child to a public school. In fact you don’t have to send him to school at all but the government does require attempted learning even at home. Apparently some people have a very difficult time understanding constitutional rights with laws that have nothing to do with rights. I mean by your argument, we should be able to drive 120 miles an hour do a residential neighborhood because of freedom. That is nonsensical. The freedoms that I am talking about all the freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution of the United States. None of your comment has anything to do with that.

A Republican has not won a state wide office in Virginia for 12 years. Why would this be an easy Republican win? You are correct that people that voted for Biden probably held their nose in voting because he offered nothing. It is a strange campaign when the candidate for the presidency is hitting in a closet. It seems like Biden‘s main campaign strategy was, don’t say anything. I doubt that Trump will win the Republican nomination in 2024. Whoever the nominee is, Trump seems to have invigorated the conservatives and they are not going to vote for the Democrat and it does not matter who the Republican or the Democrat is on the ballot. If the country continues on the same path as the first nine months of the Biden presidency, if Trump wins the nomination in 2024, he will win in a landslide in the general election.

Going by the article with accompanying video, the evidence appears to be overwhelming that it was an assault. I am curious about the cell phone video evidence but I am reasonably certain the suspect probably was motivated by race and use racial slurs. If he actually needs surgery, that might enhance the crime from Assault to Aggravated Assault.

Absolutely true. But being right you’re talking about is it right in your mind only. You’re entitled because no government can tell you what to think. Even China and North Korea cannot control people’s thoughts. They can only control what they say and do in public. So you can pick any topic you wish and say “I disagree”. Of course if you say so publicly, you’re going by the United States Constitution under your freedom of speech. It doesn’t make you right, it just makes you legal.

Youngkin doesn’t matter. He will not run in 2024 but that is not the issue here. What should have been an easy Democrat victory was a loss. Midterms are not usually kind to the party in power in the White House. In Obama‘s first midterm, he lost 63 seats in House. If only five seats flip in 2022, Pelosi will be sent out to pasture. Heck, we might even see Joe Biden get impeached if he is still in office by them. Anybody that thinks this is about Youngkin Is deflecting the issue. Biden carried Virginia by 10 percentage points. He has been in office approximately nine months and Virginia has now gone Republican in the governor, lieutenant governor and Attorney General. Youngkin?

Constitutionally there is absolutely something wrong with it. I find some humor that people fall back on constitutional rights until it goes against one of their beliefs. I have the right to freedom of speech! I have the right to own firearms! I have the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures! i am not to keen on the freedom of religion though….

A lot of things are not harmful. That does not mean you should be forced to do them under the guise of freedom.

I wasn’t either but it was common in most school districts before I started school.

The new Republican Lt. Governor of Virginia.

But the VA Governor and Lieutenant Governor are now Republicans.

Allowed is much different than having children say Christian prayers at the beginning of every day in public schools.

I did not see any of it but I hope so. Had this been locally, I don’t think he would have been indicted.

It seems like they are trying to Weaponized the DOJ. From the Attorney General and it is true, this was not sent to parents it was basically interdepartmental. It was a DOJ prosecutor memo. But…. Unless the congressman lied, he read the phrase, annoying phone calls. The AG deflected and started talking about intimidation which is a threat and we all understand. But apparently the memo said annoying. Annoying just means something I don’t like. If a school board member gets an annoying phone call, is the DOJ even going to contemplate prosecution? Then it goes on to emotional distress. Again, that is like annoying. A person disagrees with me so that causes me stress. Federal crime? He talked bad about me on Facebook, indict him! There is too much to take apart but the AG says, we are concerned about violence and the threat of violence. Sure, we all agree about that. If that is all this was about, do they really need an internal memo to explain to professional prosecutors/lawyers what a threat or what an act of violence is? I was a police supervisor for 20 years. Maybe I’m wrong but I’ve never felt the need to tell one of my patrol officers that if someone shoots someone or threatens to kill them, that is a crime. Apparently in the DOJ at some level, feels the need to remind these professionals of what the law is. I understand that the AG might not have personally seen that memo. It still concerns me that some prosecutor in the DOJ felt it needed to be written after getting complaints from the school board. The AG has now found out about this memo which he apparently disagrees with it by saying he did not know about it, deflecting it to one of his subordinates. Now that he knows what his prosecutors are doing, I wonder if he is going to take action against them. Don’t hold your breath…

I find that on occasion on Facebook because you can always edit or delete your post. It starts when one person will make a really stupid post. People will complain about it and the person making the offending post will change it. Then someone else will come along and say you’re a bunch of idiots because the person never said that. In fact the person did say it and then changed or deleted it.

Unless there is a big improvement within the next year, which I don’t anticipate, it will be a replay of the Obama administration. During his first midterm the Republicans gained 63 seats in the House and 6 in the Senate. Right now the Dems have an eight seat margin in the House and it is 50-50 in the Senate. For all practical purposes, there’s a good chance the Biden administration will be effectively finished within the next 12 months. There is an equal likelihood that the 2024 presidential election, whoever the president will be from whichever party, will have to deal with a Republican Congress.

No. Why should I?

More than likely, that is all he has to offer. He could attempt to run on the coattails of the current administration but appears for some reason not to want to do that.

If they get away with that, the prosecutors should be indicted.