Proud Boy Joe Biggs sentenced to 17 years in Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy case
www.nbcnews.com
Biggs “served as an instigator and leader" during the Capitol attack, prosecutors said. Zachary Rehl, another Proud Boy convicted of seditious conspiracy, was sentenced to 15 years.

Joe Biggs, a Proud Boys leader convicted of seditious conspiracy who the government says “served as an instigator and leader” during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, was sentenced to 17 years in federal prison on Thursday.

It is among the longest sentences in Capitol riot cases. The record is the 18-year sentence given to Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, also convicted of seditious conspiracy, after prosecutors sought 25 years in federal prison in his case.

  • qprimed@lemmy.mlEnglish
    8·
    1 year ago

    “We have to be careful to count speech for what it is and not what it might do”

    — Biggs’ lawyer, Norm Pattis

    got it! gonna find the nearest crowded movie theatre and yell “FIRE!” at the top of my lungs. thanks, norm!

      • chaogomu@kbin.social
        2·
        1 year ago

        It actually isn’t.

        “Shouting fire in a crowded theater” is a popular analogy for speech or actions whose principal purpose is to create panic, and in particular for speech or actions which may for that reason be thought to be outside the scope of free speech protections. The phrase is a paraphrasing of a dictum, or non-binding statement, from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.'s opinion in the United States Supreme Court case Schenck v. United States in 1919, which held that the defendant’s speech in opposition to the draft during World War I was not protected free speech under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. The case was later partially overturned by Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1969, which limited the scope of banned speech to that which would be directed to and likely to incite imminent lawless action (e.g. a riot).[1]

        The paraphrasing differs from Holmes’s original wording in that it typically does not include the word falsely, while also adding the word “crowded” to describe the theatre.[2]

      • qprimed@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        so is a conspiracy, incitement, etc… we are talking about the freedom of speech vs freedom of concequence from that speech. that is what I take issue with. inciting panic in closed confines has immediate consequences - this is clear and therefore typically prohibited.

        political speech fomenting real-world violence (or panic) should result in the same level of legal consequence when action is taken based on that speech. imho, you can not separate the speech from the act once the act has taken place.