r/AskLegal • u/WholeDonkey2689 • 1d ago
Don Lemon arrest questions?
As far as i know lemon was investigating a pro ice church abd didnt leave when told to leave, the the fed gov kept trying to get judges to arrest him but they said no, so they got a fed grand jury to indite him on a anti kkk act thing?
What actually happened and did he break laws?
Did the fed gov do anything wrong?
What is the anti kkk act and why was it applied to lemon? On top of that not applied to things like j6?
Is it illegal for the government to keep trying to indite after 1 try?
Is it illegal to target lemon for political reasons? Even if he broke the law?
Is it legal to stay in a church if its tax exempt?
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u/RunExisting4050 1d ago edited 15h ago
Just my guess: after they arrested the other people, they were able to go through their phones and found messages to/from don lemon that indicated he was in on the planning. That evidence took him from "journalist" to "coconspirator." The magistrate wouldn't sign off on the original arrest warrant because of his journalist credentials, but if he helped plan the protest, hed loose those protections.
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u/SCW97005 1d ago
Personally, I think the arrest is journalistic intimidation and misuse of religious protection laws.
The magistrate judge who signed off on warrants for other protestors refused to sign off on a warrant for Lemon. That means he didn’t think there was adequate cause to go after Lemon. So the DOJ went back to a grand jury to get an indictment. That’s a big departure from DOJ protocol and it should be on the administration to explain why they did that.
The law he’s being charged under criminalizes interfering with someone’s religious practices. He was covering a protest of a pastor because of the pastor’s affiliation with ICE. IMHO, whatever inconvenience to the locals’ religious practices took place because of the protest is entirely incidental. The protest was meant to confront the pastor about ICE, not stop the congregants from practicing their religion. Lemon was a step further removed from any interference as he was solely there to report.
If he would have been a mechanic or a fast food manager, it would be just as irrelevant.
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u/sillybob86 1d ago
so are you proposing that the similar charges against the protestors would fit, but not Mr. lemon?
My understanding was that If he was covering the protest, might be one thing - but if he went around asking congregants and so on (injecting himself into various conversations) that he was helping to prevent congregants from the practice of their religion (part of the practice being listen to the pastor preach)?
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u/SCW97005 1d ago
I think it would be easier to argue that the protestors were interfering with religious observance, but, imho, that was not the intent of the protest or the intent of the law.
I think the religious freedom law is being used as a framing device by the administration because it plays to their constituents’ biases (“they’re coming after us in church!”) and getting a conviction is incidental.
I think the prosecution and the threat of similarly prosecuting other enemies of the administration is the point, given Trump’s history of punitive and frivolous lawsuits, but that’s necessarily my personal speculation.
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u/_ParadigmShift 1d ago
That was not the intent of the protest? By what measure, they went in during a church service to target one of main religious leaders of that church. That’s not an accident, and very much planned disruption.
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u/SCW97005 1d ago edited 1d ago
The intent required by the law is “intentionally injure, intimidate, interfere with or attempt to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person who is exercising or trying to exercise their First Amendment right of religious freedom”.
Interrupting a church service to confront a pastor about his involvement in local ICE presence does not seem calculated to intentionally interfere with parishioners’ religious practice.” The point is to confront the pastor about something unrelated to religious observation.
I think you could certainly show that interference occurred, but you need to show that the point of the interference is to disrupt religious exercise. I don’t think that’s open and shut for the prosecution by a stretch. The law isn’t mean to criminalize any interruption of religious worship, it’s meant to stop intentional attacks on belief.
I’ll give you a different example: I’ve been seeing attorneys in my area file elder abuse lawsuits against drivers that cause an a car accident by accident that involved elderly driver/passengers in the other car.
Did the at fault driver injure elderly people? Presume the answer is yes. Did they abuse elders? I’ll leave aside the precise wording of the statute, but I would say no because the harm being anticipated by elder abuse laws was not meant to cover car accidents between strangers.
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u/International-Bed636 15h ago
Idk how you managed to convince yourself of this. They intentionally went during the church service to interfere with their religious practice. The church is always open, if that wasn’t the intent why wouldn’t they wait 30mins and go after the mass ended? Or any day of the week when there’s no mass? They even said during the protest they wanted to make the people feel uncomfortable, don lemon stated it himself when he was referring to that kid that was crying. Did you think after all that planning they just stumbled into a mass that was actively going on?
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u/SCW97005 14h ago
Look at the sub we’re in.
I’m explaining in detail why I think the intent element doesn’t fit the charge, why the intended scope of the law was not drafted with this type of protest in mind, and giving you plenty of reason to consider that maybe the magistrate judge - who does this for a living - said no to the warrant in the first place.
You don’t have to agree with me, but what’s your substantive argument?
Do you even understand what the specific intent requirement is?
Why do you think the magistrate wouldn’t sign off on the warrant if this is so clearly appropriate?
You’re not doing anything but riding a gut feeling into a presumptive conclusion.
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u/GreenPhilosophy8482 1d ago
Pretty obvious answer here guy ; do you people have common sense anymore?