The laughter was the central pillar of the prosecution.
And the officer said she was going to be arrested, not ejected.
5 Likes
Many people keep circling back to what a juror said about their deliberative process as evidence of something it is not at all evidence of.
I’ve answered this three times in the thread so far. Why the jury decided to convict her is not what she was charged with. Juries convict people because of the colour of their skin, the way they are dressed, their accent, and a million other totally invalid reasons. the legal system doesn’t ask questions about why a jury reached their verdict and it’s not relevant.
Snopes rules the claim that she was convicted of laughing at sessions “True”. It’s reported by Code Pink but also the New York Times and the Washington Post, many others including many international sources. The linked article to this post is from the independent, a UK publication. I can find experienced court reporters tweeting about it.
She was convicted for laughing at sessions.
Again, I’ve said this multiple times in the thread above, including in my last post to you. A senate hearing is not a court. There is not meaningful analogy between administrative punishment handed out by judges and an offense for which you are arrested and tried. She was not punished for contempt of Congress.
11 Likes
Or, you know, I hadn’t been watching Boing Boing recently due to acquiring Breath of the Wild. And now that I’m here, asshats keen on defending this are short on the ground, leading me to see no need to just contribute one more voice to the dominant condemnations. But sure, I’ll go on record as saying this is awful, bad precedent, etc, and I hope she gets a light sentence, and/or it’s overturned on appeal.
1 Like
The laugh is around the 1:20 minute mark. Around 2 minutes they begin escorting her out.
3 Likes
Several of the jurors indicated they disagreed with the decision of Capitol Police Officer Katherine Coronado to take her into custody because of the laugh.
“We did not agree that she should have been removed for laughing,” the jury foreperson stated. Some jurors indicated they believed Coronado made a mistake.
“The officer, she was a rookie officer, and I think it was her first time involved in an arrest,” another juror stated. “Make of that what you will.”
The jurors indicated they felt they had to convict Fairooz because of the way the laws are written, with yet another juror describing them as “so broad.”
At least three jurors said it was fair to say they felt forced into convicting her. “There’s almost no way that you can find them not guilty,” one said.
“There’s not a lot of wiggle room,” said the jury foreperson.
from huffpost.
4 Likes
I don’t think he was fully informed 
5 Likes
That’s not what Snopes says. Snopes says she was arrested for disorderly conduct after laughing not because she laughed. It’s an important distinction.
People really need to be better informed about jury nullification.
7 Likes
Seems like she has a constitutional challenge to make…
1 Like
If she killed someone on the way out and the claim was, “She was arrested for murder after she laughed at Jeff Sessions” any fact checker would have told you that claim was intentionally grossly misleading.
“Charged with X after Y” is a phrase that means “Charged with X because of Y” not “Charged with X later in the day after Y happened, though it’s unrelated.” Google “charged after” and you’ll find more headlines than you can ever read of the form “charged with X after Y” or “charged after Y” and in every case, Y is the thing they were charged for.
The fact checkers at Snopes know that’s what it means. You know that’s what it means. The idea that I’d have to point out this obvious fact is absurd. But if I were one to walk away from bad faith arguments I wouldn’t have entered this thread to begin with.
I want to say “I can’t believe” that people keep parsing and mincing words to try to justify the arrest of a woman for laughing at the AG. Given the specificity of the first amendment on the issue, it ought to be shocking that a government would even risk the appearance of arresting someone for laughing at them. I’d expect anything short of violence to be given a pass.
But I can believe it. It’s not surprising at all.
8 Likes
It’s funny that libertarians don’t seem to recognize that government regulations are the practical method of ensuring your freedom from other people’s force being applied to you unfairly. Who wants a libertarian utopia where an unregulated corporation can dump poisonous waste in your water supply because “Freedom!”? Who desperately yearns for the freedom to die due to the selfish and greedy (sorry, “Objectivist”) decisions of others?
The other irony I find is the secure borders libertarian contradiction. “I believe in personal and economic liberty, except if you were born somewhere else and want to enjoy the same liberty I have.” “The government should be small, except the border patrol. That should be huge.”
2 Likes
It’s not just the secure borders people. Libertarians mostly want cops to stop theft and violence, an army to defend from outside threats. Basically in their quest for liberty they want to destroy all elements of the state except for the ones that use violence and threat of violence to keep people in line. They define government to be oppressive, and so their ideal government is nothing but an oppressor.
4 Likes
No, Snopes definitely says in plain wording that she was charged with disorderly conduct for laughing out loud and convicted for her actions after.
She very distinctly was arrested for laughing, and the jury found her guilty because what she did after being arrested.
6 Likes
I can’t believe people are arguing that being thrown in jail for a year because you laughed might be excessive, but being thrown in jail for a year because you disrupted a meeting is totally reasonable.
10 Likes
I don’t see that anywhere. Care to share a quote?
A jury has returned a verdict of guilty in the case of 61-year-old Desiree Fairooz of Bluemont, Virginia, who was arrested in the U.S. Capitol Building after laughing out loud during the introduction of Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions at the latter’s Senate confirmation hearing on 10 January 2017. She was prosecuted on charges of disorderly conduct and parading or demonstrating on capitol grounds, both misdemeanors.
Fairooz was found guilty on both counts, the New York Times reported, although jurors who spoke anonymously to Huffington Post said it was her behavior when asked to leave, not her laughter, that resulted in the conviction.
4 Likes
I believe @dark_frog is disputing the idea that “arrested after laughing out loud” means “arrested for laughing out loud” even though that’s how the phrase is always used and @dark_frog almost certainly knows that very well.
4 Likes
I’m afraid my eyesight isn’t good enough anymore for all the hairsplitting. I guess the important part is that people can be thrown in jail for a year because they were nonviolent but rude.
7 Likes
Jezebel’s running an interview with her today.
6 Likes
Which the jury actually thought, but felt that the law was so broad, they couldn’t NOT convict her, ignoring jury nullification.
5 Likes
