A US judge on Monday apologized to the man accused of attempting to assassinate Donald Trump for the “legally deficient” treatment he has faced in a Washington DC, jail, including being placed on suicide watch, separated from other inmates and denied a Bible.
The US magistrate judge Zia Faruqui said he was disturbed by the conditions for Cole Allen, who allegedly fired a shotgun during a foiled attack on Trump and senior officials in his administration at a 25 April press gala. The judge said the conditions were inappropriate for a person with no criminal history.
“Whatever you’ve been through, I apologize,” Faruqui said during a court hearing.
Denying any one of a prisoner’s rights is the first step to denying all of a prisoner’s rights.
If not the right to his religious text, then why the right to be visited by a priest? If not a priest, then why his family? And if not family, then why a lawyer – and if not a lawyer, then why even bother with a trial?
I mean sure, if you completely ignore the slippery slope fallacy.
Allowing a religious figure to meet with an inmate isn’t even close to the same thing as a lawyer or family member.
Did you forget what timeline we’re living in? We’re not slipping down a slope, we’re tumbling off a cliff.
Yeah, in this reality they just start out with refusing access to a lawyer. No slope needed.
No, in this reality they’ve started by denying him access to religious scripture.
Unless they think there’s a bomb in there he’s still protected by first amendment as well as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.
Rights that are negotiable aren’t rights at all.
If nothing else happens, either in this instance or in future arrests, his rights were still violated. Is that okay to you?
“The slippery slope” isn’t inherently a fallacy
Maybe not for you and me. But for someone who is religious, that’s a very big deal.