Roger Stone's Right to a Fair Trial Is Ignored

There is nothing funny or cute about a man spending his
life behind bars without having been convicted of a crime.
Unclear why Ari Melber believes Roger Stone's rights
are to be scoffed at. The Beat with Ari Melber.

Roger Stone has now been deprived of his freedom of speech, of the press (the man has the temerity to pen an update to his book), right to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of his grievances pertaining to United States of America v. Roger Jason Stone, Jr. and pundits are laughing about it.

All of these deprivations are imposed without Stone having been convicted of a crime. The liberty violations come courtesy of a judicial gag order.

A judicial gag order is not unusual, but striking is the unanimity of silence in the liberal political culture as exemplified on MSNBC last night.

The responsible judicial official is United States District Judge Amy Berman Jackson about whom criticism is taboo.

Amy Berman Jackson is irretrievably wedded to the liberal political culture in which civil liberties count for little in federal criminal litigation.

After being goaded by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Jackson won the praise of political liberals for her order of March 5, 2019 in which Jackson pretended Stone had previously voluntarily submitted to anti-speech directives and Stone voluntarily admitted that he "abused the latitude" of the existing order of the judge itching to throw the man in prison for the years that the trial will take to litigate.

If Stone and his lawyers did not continuously humble themselves in the federal courtroom, Stone faced the possibility of immediate imprisonment at several points over the last several weeks. Any commentator or jurist who asserts that Stone is not acting under extreme duress in his judicial communications is lying.

Now, in her new order Jackson demands all manner of private communications be given to her for Stone's sin of penning an update to a book.

Underlying the ridiculous gag order is the assurance by Robert Mueller and Jackson that Stone belongs in prison prior to any conviction because Stone's speech is so powerful and inflammatory that mere utterances at public assembly, on the Internet or in a published book preclude the possibility of a fair trial. You see, the little-ole United States Department of Justice has no resources or power against the behemoth Roger Stone and his laptop, we are to believe.

Actually, I don't think Roger Stone is all that effective of a writer.

But Stone is an American citizen and a human being, a status that should confer to him the rights to which he is being deprived by United States District Judge Amy Berman Jackson and Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

I don't know if Roger Stone is a religious man.

Facing another March 11 deadline by the despot of the District of Columbia, perhaps Stone could formulate a public prayer directed to citizens of a kindred spiritual outlook.

After all, Stone's right to the free exercise of religion is the only First Amendment right Jackson and Mueller have left the man.

Roger Stone could pray to let justice roll on like a river, and righteousness like a never-failing stream in the face of malice from those who would send a man behind bars for life.

Vivid and inflammatory, such words uttered in a public prayer would earn Stone imprisonment in federal holding facilities and federal prison for the rest of his life.

I don't think MSNBC Chief Legal Correspondent Ari Melber, for example, thinks this is fair. But watching his commentary last night, Melber does seem to regard it as funny.

Violations of another's human rights are never humorous and always tragic.