You don't need to be a lawyer to have basic familiarity with the legal process. Knowing that juries issue verdicts and judges issue sentence is something people should have realized by the time they made it out of school.
You know what else people should learn in school? how to recognize a bullshit news article on a site that traffics in conspiracy theories.
>You know what else people should learn in school? how to recognize a bullshit news article on a site that traffics in conspiracy theories.
Judge the article by itself, not by what else the site that has it might show. Not to mention the obvious fact that you can find independent confirmations of the same story elsewhere.
Except if you believe the story in the article is a conspiracy theory itself.
Like, you know, the "conspiracy theory" about Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide after facing a disgusting case of "prosecutorial discretion"?
Or tons of people who were "made an example" or used as a stepping ladder for a political career by some prosecutor?
Judge the article by itself, not by what else the site that has it might show
The quality of stories on the site are a very good indicator of the low editorial standards there.
Not to mention the obvious fact that you can find independent confirmations of the same story elsewhere.
No, it's all just reprints of the same RT article (and RT is well known for poor journalism). This is called churnalism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churnalism
The story itself is flawed because it misleads its readers. It doesn't include any fact-checking on California law, any link to the case, or any kind of meaningful context, like why the judge would have (correctly and appropriately) told Olson's attorney not to bring up the first amendment to the jury - because trial juries are finders of fact, not arbiters of law, and the first amendment does not confer a right to damage or destruction of other people's property, so it wasn't a valid defense.
We have a common law legal system in America. Legal questions are decided by judges (whose decisions can be appealed) and factual questions are decided by juries. A responsibly reported article would have explained why Olson's attorney had no business trying to make a first amendment argument to a jury: the law in America does not work that way, it has never worked that way, and Olson's lawyer could never have passed the bar if he actually thought it worked that way.
Like, you know, the "conspiracy theory" about Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide after facing a disgusting case of "prosecutorial discretion"?
Bullshit. He was facing a 6 month sentence, a very light penalty for actions that were obviously illegal and which he knew to be illegal. I don't know why Swartz killed himself and neither do you.
You know what else people should learn in school? how to recognize a bullshit news article on a site that traffics in conspiracy theories.