Alabama woman s case becomes test of federal anti-riot law msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Woman arrested in protest seeks dismissal of ‘seldom-invoked’ anti-rioting charge
MOBILE, Alabama (WALA) A woman charged under a rarely used federal anti-riot law is scheduled to go on trial next month, but first a judge will have to decide whether to throw the charges out.
A federal grand jury indicted Tia Deyon Pugh in June after Mobile police had arrested her on allegations that she smashed the window of an unoccupied police SUV during a protest in downtown Mobile on May 31.
The defense has argued that “seldom-invoked” statute exceeds the federal government’s authority under the Commerce Clause by intruding on purely local matters that have noting to do with cross-state commerce.
Woman arrested in protest seeks dismissal of seldom-invoked anti-rioting charge ktvz.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from ktvz.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Biden Justice Department wields controversial Trump-era legal tools
Federal prosecutors are invoking a 1968-era statute to pursue rioters, spurring accusations of racism.
Federal prosecutors have employed a controversial 1968-era statute in recent weeks to charge dozens of suspects arrested in the Capitol riot in January. | Win McNamee/Getty Images
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President Joe Biden’s Justice Department is defending its use of an anti-riot statute that critics say is racist a tool the Trump-era DOJ made aggressive use of to pursue some of those accused of violence in connection with last year’s racial justice protests.
Making matters more complicated: Federal prosecutors have employed the controversial statute in recent weeks to charge dozens of suspects arrested in the Capitol riot in January, many of them affiliated with groups that espouse white supremacist views.
Feb 15, 2021
AUSTIN – Throughout Donald Trump’s single term as president of the United States, his opponents in both the Democratic and Republican parties frequently portrayed him as a would-be fascist dictator. But with Trump ousted from the White House, this analogy has become untenable. The Italian leader Trump resembles most is not the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini but rather Silvio Berlusconi, the scandal-prone former prime minister.
Figures like Trump and Berlusconi tycoons or media celebrities who ran for office as anti-establishment populist demagogues are not uncommon in contemporary Western democracies. In Europe, the list includes elected leaders like: Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, one of the country’s wealthiest men; former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, previously his country’s “Chocolate King”; and his successor, Volodymyr Zelensky, a comic actor who had previously played a Ukrainian president on television.