So #BlackLivesMatter means #Blue/WhiteLivesDon’t, in Dallas and copycat killings across the country. [ It's not just Dallas — police officers have been killed across the country , by Erica Evans, LA Times, June 13, 2016] Naturally the Lying Press is now working especially hard, with cuckservatives compliance, to keep the Narrative focused on white guilt [Enough Already With “All Lives Matter,” by Jeffrey Kluger, Time Magazine, July 11 , 2016] and away from Donald Trump’s potentially embarrassing call for law and order. Already down the Memory Hole: the recent collapse of several other BLM Narratives. Unfortunately also forgotten: the ongoing judicial torture of a white policeman caught in one of these hysterias—South Charleston SC police officer Michael Slager. Last month saw the acquittal of the second of six Baltimore police officers accused in the death of drug dealer Freddie Grey and a Grand Jury refusing even to indict another police officer in the ludicrously-overhyped McKinney pool brawl case (but he’s still unemployed) . [Grand jury declines to indict ex-cop involved in McKinney pool party, by Julieta Chiquillo, Dallas Morning News, June 23, 2016] Nevertheless, the Slager prosecution is still lurching forward, although showing increasing signs of collapsing into judicial chaos.
In April 2015 Slager shot and killed a wanted black fugitive, Walter Scott, who had assaulted him and was fleeing the scene. Slager was immediately dismissed without any sort of due process, charged with murder and held in solitary confinement until after Christmas—nearly nine months—not allowed to see or hold his infant son, who was born shortly after he was charged. On January 8, 2016, a hate crime was reported against the Slagers, when two raceless “people dressed in black” set fire to their home. (Fortunately, the Slagers had already fled but the arsonists had no way to know that).
For the disgraceful details, see my chronicling of the Slager case for VDARE.com:
(I like to think this last finally helped cause someone in Washington D.C. to call presiding Judge Clifton Newman, who is black, and tell him to stop being such a jerk).
Slager’s case is particularly mired in politically-motivated legal chaos because it has been joined by judges (and the Main Stream Media) to the wholly unrelated case of white, alleged mass murderer Dylann Roof, the Charleston church shooter.
Last year, the South Carolina Supreme Court ordered that Slager’s state prosecution take place after Roof’s, even though Roof allegedly committed those crimes over two months after Slager, on June 17, 2015. [In rare move, feds indict former officer in fatal shooting, By Bruce Smith And Meg Kinnard, AP, May 12, 2016] In December 2015, Roof was also charged by U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch with federal hate crimes and murder, in what looks to this layman like a double jeopardy prosecution (See below). [Federal grand jury returns 33-count indictment against Dylann Roof, WISTV, by Clementa Pinckney, December 31st 2015,] On May 24, 2016, Lynch announced that she would pursue a death penalty prosecution against Roof, in addition to the death penalty prosecution already planned by South Carolina state prosecutor Scarlett A. Wilson.
I guess they plan on executing Roof twice.
In April, Circuit Judge J.C. Nicholson postponed Roof’s state prosecution to January 17, 2017. [ More delays in Dylann Roof trial: What's holding it up? , By Max Lewontin, CSM, April 13, 2016] Slager’s state prosecution is now scheduled to begin on October 31, 2016, before Roof’s. That’s still an unconscionable violation of Slager’s VIth Amendment right to a speedy trial. Roof’s federal trial is set to begin on November 7, one week after Slager’s state trial begins, but ten weeks before Roof’s state trial. See what I meant by “chaos”?
Note, too, that Slager’s defense attorney, Andy Savage, is also representing some of the victims’ families in the Roof trials. Savage pleaded with both U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel and Judge Clifton Newman for help with the chaos, but they both rejected his motions. Even pro-prosecution MSM operatives have spoken of federal judges “jockeying” for position with their state counterparts, causing what state prosecutor Wilson called an “untenable situation.” CITE
On May 10, 2016, federal prosecutors of the highly-suspect Obama Justice Department also charged Michael Slager with [pdf] federal civil rights crimes—“deprivation of rights under color of law”; committing a crime while using a firearm; and obstruction of justice etc. [Walter Scott family attorney: Federal charges against Michael Slager could be a ‘turning point in history’ by Andrew Knapp, Post & Courier, May 11, 2016.]
In response to the federal indictment, Slager’s attorney in the state case, and co-counsel (with Shaun Kent) in the federal case, Andy Savage, said, in part [pdf]:
As stated by many already today, this is an unprecedented step by the Department of Justice. It seems very extreme and the timing is very interesting. It really feels as if Officer Slager is carrying the burden of many past cases that were handled differently.
This reporter has never heard of the feds laying charges against someone who has already been charged, but not yet tried in state court. The whole point is get another bite at the apple, i.e., unconstitutional double jeopardy. The feds and their apologists maintain that such prosecutions are not double jeopardy, due to the theory of “dual sovereignty,” but no honest person would conjure up, or be fooled by, such a transparently counterfeit theory. It violates the prohibition against double jeopardy enshrined in the Bill of Rights. It’s that simple.
Thus even as Post & Courier operative Andrew Knapp, cited above [Email him] seeks to rationalize double jeopardy, he implicitly concedes the double jeopardy character of the federal charges:
Former North Charleston officer Michael Slager was indicted this week on a federal civil rights charge in Walter Scott’s death, a rare measure in police shootings that gives authorities another route to reach a conviction….The new charges could serve as a backstop if the state’s case were to fail. Putting him on trial in both state and federal courts for the same shooting would not be double jeopardy because the jurisdictions are considered sovereign.
[Emphases added]
But according to the U.S. Constitution, there is no federal “backstop,” nor “another route to reach a conviction.” (In Slager’s case, unlike Roof’s, the feds apparently intend to wait until after the state trial).
The unique aspect of these prosecutions is their order. To my knowledge, it is unprecedented for the feds to charge, let alone prosecute (in Roof’s case), a defendant who has already been charged but who has yet to be tried in state court. And in politically tying Slager’s case to Roof’s they are insinuating that Slager’s alleged crime is on a par with Roof’s.
The rule of law has been replaced by show trials.
My explanation of the motivation behind Slager’s federal prosecution: a new president is supposed to be sworn in on January 20, 2017, and Barack Hussein Obama wants the satisfaction of seeing yet another white policeman railroaded on his watch.
Given that these are show trials, whose purpose is to set an example for white men, and especially white policemen everywhere, Michael Slager must be tried, convicted, and sentenced as many times in as many courts as our hostile elite demands.
Nicholas Stix [email him] is a New York City-based journalist and researcher, much of whose work focuses on the nexus of race, crime, and education. He spent much of the 1990s teaching college in New York and New Jersey. His work has appeared in Chronicles, The New York Post, Weekly Standard, Daily News, New York Newsday, American Renaissance, Academic Questions, Ideas on Liberty and many other publications. Stix was the project director and principal author of the NPI report, The State of White America-2007. He blogs at Nicholas Stix, Uncensored.