CV NEWS FEED // A federal judge held that the “selective prosecution” of right-wing demonstrators in California was “textbook viewpoint discrimination,” citing the lack of prosecution against armed far-left Antifa rioters.
U.S. District Court Judge Cormac J. Carney wrote in his ruling last week that the federal government sought to prosecute a pair of right-wing rioters who “engaged in violent acts” at a 2017 Berkley, CA, rally organized by some supporters of then-incumbent President Donald Trump.
“At the same time,” Carney noted, “the government chose not to prosecute far-left extremist groups, such as Antifa, that went to the same protests and rallies and engaged in the same violent acts as alleged against the Defendants.”
He pointed out that
[b]y many accounts, members of Antifa and related far-left groups engaged in worse conduct and in fact instigated much of the violence that broke out at these otherwise constitutionally protected rallies to silence the protected speech of the supporters of President Trump.
“That is constitutionally impermissible,” the judge emphasized.
Carney described that Antifa activists came to the pro-Trump event “prepared for violence, bringing weapons including pepper spray, fireworks, knives, and homemade bombs.”
“And they used those weapons, as well as their bodies, against Trump supporters and law enforcement,” he continued:
One man punched a Trump supporter, threw him onto a park bench to continue the beating, and was in the process of striking him until law enforcement intervened. Another threw eggs across fences to where Trump supporters had congregated. A young woman used pepper spray and hit Trump supporters, explaining that she felt “like fighting a white bitch today.”
“The government cannot prosecute [the] Defendants while ignoring the violence of members of Antifa and related far-left groups because [the Defendants] engaged in what the government and many believe is more offensive speech,” indicated the judge.
Later in his ruling, Carney stated that “the issue in this case is the use of violence to disrupt protected First Amendment speech at political rallies,” but the federal government “only targeted individuals, like Defendants, who expressed far-right beliefs.”
Carney wrote that by contrast,
[n]o individuals associated with the left, who engaged in anti-far-right speech and violently suppressed the protected speech of Trump supporters, were charged with a federal crime for their part in starting riots at political events.
“That is textbook viewpoint discrimination,” he stressed.
>> DC’S DOUBLE STANDARD TREATMENT OF BLM AND PRO-LIFE PROTESTORS <<
Carney has served on the District Court for the Central District of California since 2003. He was appointed to his post by then-President George W. Bush.
The Daily Wire reported that defendants Robert Rundo and Robert Boman
attended a pro-Donald Trump “free speech” rally in Berkeley on April 15, 2017, as members of Rise Against Movement (RAM), a “far-right, white nationalist” group that engaged in violence against left-wing groups like Antifa. One of those groups was By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), which would descend upon right-wing events to shut them down and start fights.
