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Another Stash House Sting Criticized By The Court... But Lengthy Sentences Left Untouched

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The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has let some more stash house sting convictions stand. But not without considerable discussion of the government's tactics. And not without one judge appending a long rebuke to her reluctant concurrence.Once again, the ATF has managed to secure multiple convictions predicated on nonexistent evidence. The sting, helmed by veteran ATF agent Richard Zayas, involved a made-up drug stash house "containing" at least enough drugs to trigger 10-year mandatory minimum sentences for the defendants. Zayas' sting operations always include fictitious armed stash house guards, otherwise the ATF's involvement would be unnecessary.The end result is multiple convictions. But other than a few seized weapons, nothing contributing to public safety was achieved. No actual drug dealer was targeted, nor was the sting linked with any larger ATF/DEA/FBI operation aimed at curbing inner city drug trade.Nonetheless, the Sixth Circuit Appeals Court upholds everything, rejecting multiple due process challenges from the defendants. The entire opinion [PDF] should be read just to understand the nearly-insurmountable barriers defendants face when challenging questionable government behavior -- both during the sting and during the trial.Judge Jane Stranch's concurrence clearly communicates her displeasure with ATF sting operations in general, even if it's tempered by her inability to move the dial in the appellants' favor.

Because these stings are wholly inventions of law enforcement agents, they can and do include powerful inducements to participate in one big “hit,” a hit that is conveniently large enough to qualify for mandatory minimum sentences. Obtaining the outsized reward is also made to look easy—the agent is a disgruntled insider who knows when and how to stage these “rip-and-runs” and offers to provide all needed assistance, from manpower to transportation. The unseemly nature of the Government’s activity is emphasized by its failure to achieve its declared goals of jailing dangerous criminals and making our streets safer. Evidence showing that these hurry-up set-ups achieve the stated goals was not proffered and the facts here demonstrate why: no known dangerous individuals or criminal enterprises were researched or targeted and no pre-existing drug rings or conspiracies were broken up. In fact, this sting trapped Flowers, a gainfully employed young man with no criminal record.
This sting was like others helmed by Agent Zaya: it targeted impoverished inner city minorities. As the judge notes, the fact that ATF stings are disproportionately resulting in the jailing of minorities has not gone unnoticed. It's not just dissertations or investigations by journalists exposing this fact. The ATF is currently facing a lawsuit in Illinois over the selective targeting shown in sting operations.Stranch goes on to note multiple courts have found the ATF's actions troubling. But, so far, they've been unable to do much to stem the flow of stash house sting cases into the nation's courts. They've also been unable -- with rare, rare exceptions -- to provide any sort of relief for defendants caught up in the government's fictitious drug robbery plans.
Despite increasing awareness of the problems and inequities inherent in fictitious stash house stings, at issue here is whether an appropriate legal path exists for a defendant to successfully challenge the stings. A majority of circuits have recognized the outrageous government defense, but impose such a high burden on defendants that the defense rarely results in dismissal of charges.[...][I]t seems we remain without an established vehicle in the law to define a dividing line between law enforcement practices that are honorable and those that are not. In the interim, these questionable schemes continue to use significant government resources and to adversely impact the poor, minorities, and those attempting to re-integrate into society. And they apparently do so with no increase in public safety and no deterrence of or adverse effect on real stash houses. These costly and concerning sting operations do not accord with the principles of our criminal justice system and I hope they will be discontinued.
The ATF continues to spend considerable amounts of money doing little to stop the flow of contraband. It would rather chalk up easy arrests and convictions while doing almost nothing to contribute to public safety. Taxpayers are already paying the ATF to engage in literal charades. They're also on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars in incarceration costs per sting victim thanks to the ATF's insistence on pretending there's mandatory minimum-triggering amounts of nonexistent drugs in every fake stash house it convinces someone to rob.This is nasty, brutish work by the government. But it works too well to expect the ATF to voluntarily end this program. It produces too many convictions to be considered a waste of time by the ATF, even as its does nothing at all to stop the trafficking of drugs and guns.

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The Price Wolfenstein 2 Had To Pay To Get Around Germany's Anti-Nazi Laws Was Removing A Mustache

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The last time we talked about Germany's Strafgesetzbuch law, specifically section 86a that prohibits the display of Nazi symbols, iconography, or historical figures with few exceptions, was when Ubisoft accidentally sent the country versions of a South Park video game chock full of swastikas. I feel much the same today about the law as I did then: I get why the law was created, but it's probably time for it to be retired. While the law does make room for Nazi symbols to be displayed for the purposes of art and education, too often those exceptions are either not actually adhered to in real-world examples, while those that might be able to fit their work within those exceptions don't bother trying, too chilled by the law that limits their speech. Coupling that along with the simple fact that German citizens who really want to see Nazi symbols don't have to work particularly hard to circumvent the law resolves the whole matter as being somewhat silly.And it produces silly results. For instance, the latest game in the Wolfenstein series got around the law with what appears to be the minimum amount of effort possible.

The German Strafgesetzbuch section 86a outlaws the use of Nazi symbols as part of the denazification of the country post World War II. This law covers not only symbols like the swastika, but gestures like the Nazi salute. It doesn’t explicitly prohibit depictions of Adolf Hitler, but nevertheless, Hitler’s appearance in Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus has been censored: they took his mustache off.
Other than barely changing the Nazi symbols in the game and removing Hitler's initials from what looks to be a monogrammed smoking jacket, that's pretty much it. Compliance with the law resulted in the removal of a 'stache. Meanwhile, anyone playing the game with it's World War 2 themes will know exactly who they are seeing: Hitler.

When a law, well-meaning or not, requires its citizens to be criminally stupid for it to be of benefit, it should be obvious that the law is broken. And it would take someone without a functioning brain to play this scene in this specific game and not realize that Hitler was on the screen. That makes the law useless at anything other than forcing us to notice how much Hitler could have looked just like our own Uncle Larry and causing us to have to deal with that reality.Again, I understand why the law was created. Even so, it's time to sunset it.

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