Two New York Lawyers Arrested for Molotov Attack on Police in Brooklyn Forum

[JusticeSquee]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/nyre ... ktail.html

https://nypost.com/2020/06/01/brooklyn- ... d-on-bond/

Insane that they were released on bond given the continued rioting.

[lawdog97]

Disbarment? Or a fine?

[Throwaway5818]

Disbarment? Or a fine?

Hopefully both, and prison.

[lawdog97]

Disbarment? Or a fine?

Hopefully both, and prison.

One was Ivy League educated. It is sad really, but people are in control of their own destiny.

[Yugihoe]

I know at least one of the attorneys and I have friends who know the other. It's a small world in NYC and while it was a poor judgement call, I hope they do get leniency and no time served.

[Throwaway5818]

I know at least one of the attorneys and I have friends who know the other. It's a small world in NYC and while it was a poor judgement call, I hope they do get leniency and no time served.

Planning a terrorist attack is a "poor judgment call"?

[LSATWiz.com]

I know at least one of the attorneys and I have friends who know the other. It's a small world in NYC and while it was a poor judgement call, I hope they do get leniency and no time served.

Planning a terrorist attack is a "poor judgment call"?

Well if judgments are either good or poor and it’s not good judgment then it’s poor judgment, but grouping all police together for the actions of a few is similar to the very generalizations that instigated these riots to begin with. The idea all police departments need to change may be credited but the idea random police should be harmed is not.

That said, it does not seem like they were mentally well. The black attorney went to top notch universities all his life, then was furloughed and quarantined for a few months, and right when he came out of quarantine saw this gross injustice, and that probably put his fragile psyche over the top. There’s no way the type of personality that wound up where he is would be driving around carrying molotov cocktails on a willy nilly basis. They’re both obviously unwell.

[Throwaway5818]

I know at least one of the attorneys and I have friends who know the other. It's a small world in NYC and while it was a poor judgement call, I hope they do get leniency and no time served.

Planning a terrorist attack is a "poor judgment call"?

Well if judgments are either good or poor and it’s not good judgment then it’s poor judgment, but grouping all police together for the actions of a few is similar to the very generalizations that instigated these riots to begin with. The idea all police departments need to change may be credited but the idea random police should be harmed is not.

That said, it does not seem like they were mentally well. The black attorney went to top notch universities all his life, then was furloughed and quarantined for a few months, and right when he came out of quarantine saw this gross injustice, and that probably put his fragile psyche over the top. There’s no way the type of personality that wound up where he is would be driving around carrying molotov cocktails on a willy nilly basis. They’re both obviously unwell.

Being black or going to prestigious universities doesn't excuse you for making homemade explosives for violent purposes.

[LSATWiz.com]

I know at least one of the attorneys and I have friends who know the other. It's a small world in NYC and while it was a poor judgement call, I hope they do get leniency and no time served.

Planning a terrorist attack is a "poor judgment call"?

Well if judgments are either good or poor and it’s not good judgment then it’s poor judgment, but grouping all police together for the actions of a few is similar to the very generalizations that instigated these riots to begin with. The idea all police departments need to change may be credited but the idea random police should be harmed is not.

That said, it does not seem like they were mentally well. The black attorney went to top notch universities all his life, then was furloughed and quarantined for a few months, and right when he came out of quarantine saw this gross injustice, and that probably put his fragile psyche over the top. There’s no way the type of personality that wound up where he is would be driving around carrying molotov cocktails on a willy nilly basis. They’re both obviously unwell.

Being black or going to prestigious universities doesn't excuse you for making homemade explosives for violent purposes.

I never said he should be excused but I do think mental state is a significant factor when you look at criminal culpability, and you're speaking about someone who (1) lost his job, which led to a breakdown of his ego and (2) was likely socially isolated, which likely led to a vulnerable emotional state, and (3) felt outrage and was able to convince himself he was justified in outfitting this rage about everything. I obviously don't know what the situation is and am not a shrink, but it's somewhat likely he'd be a peaceful guy if any of 1, 2, or 3 were not present, and while I don't know if he's fit to practice law or should avoid conviction, it's at least sympathetic.

I think race is significant because you're naturally going to feel more outraged if you feel like something can happen to you than if it can only happen to others. We generally have a sense that all people should be treated fairly, but that's not as deeply ingrained into our species on a gut level as the sense that "I" should be treated fairly.

I also think elite universities and the prestigious job are significant, because this person had a certain expectation of where he'd be in 2020 and sense of self-importance that was suddenly taken away. Most people would be psychologically tougher, but it's easy to paint a picture of how he'd have a mental break. Again, it's not an excuse but it's sad and it would be nice to see him be able to restart his life, and I'm saying this as someone who usually has no sympathy towards those who commit acts of terror.

So I completely stand by that but don't know if this conversation is appropriate for an on-topic discussion on law school admissions. I was more replying to the categorization of him as a terrorist, which based on how that term is used somewhat equivocates him with jihadists and mass shooters, and I simply consider that unjust.

[LSATWiz.com]

Sorry, just saw this is actually a legal news section, which I wasn't aware existed, but I stand by all my other comments about this. Just to further delve into why his race is important - I don't know what it's like to be black but imagine that a lot of black law students, probably not most but a lot fantasized at one point in their lives about being a part of legal change so I think the fact George Floyd's death came as the result of a failed justice system is probably uniquely upsetting to black lawyers. I have no idea who he is but I imagine he wouldn't react this way if Floyd were killed by a random racist or the KKK. The fact it's the justice system probably impacted him in a unique way and I think all of that is significant when you think about what's an appropriate punishment.

[objctnyrhnr]

So without directly commenting on the egregious acts that constituted the basis for the protests or the protests themselves, I have always been of the opinion that it’s a very very slippery slope to suggest that recent events in people’s lives should drastically alter their culpability and correspondingly the outcome of their case. I say this in full recognition of the fact, though, that judges do this all the time.

But I mean should the fact that a guy recently got fired really result in a sentence of no immediate time, whereas the exact same situation if he still has a job should result in immediate time? (And for what it’s worth, I actually think this is different from considering past trauma during childhood or something similar to that, which I personally think is more acceptable.)

Moreover if judges start expressly considering people’s skin color in determining how harsh to make the sentence (well he’s black so this behavior is more excusable), isn’t that facially constitutionally problematic?

Just some musings of mine.

[LSATWiz.com]

So without directly commenting on the egregious acts that constituted the basis for the protests or the protests themselves, I have always been of the opinion that it’s a very very slippery slope to suggest that recent events in people’s lives should drastically alter their culpability and correspondingly the outcome of their case. I say this in full recognition of the fact, though, that judges do this all the time.

But I mean should the fact that a guy recently got fired really result in a sentence of no immediate time, whereas the exact same situation if he still has a job should result in immediate time? (And for what it’s worth, I actually think this is different from considering past trauma during childhood or something similar to that, which I personally think is more acceptable.)

Moreover if judges start expressly considering people’s skin color in determining how harsh to make the sentence (well he’s black so this behavior is more excusable), isn’t that facially constitutionally problematic?

Just some musings of mine.

I would actually suggest the opposite. If the guy had a mental break that caused him to commit violent actions, he should be in a hospital pending trial, not out on bail, and definitely should not have been sent home without first meeting with mental health professionals.

I don't think it's any more problematic for judges to consider a defendant's skin color than a victim's and we already charge hate crimes differently than ordinary crimes. My statement isn't that race should factor into sentencing on a general level so much as in one specific circumstance where it's pretty obvious black men will be impacted on average differently than any other group.

The reality is that police brutality poses a unique threat to black men, and on an instinctual level we're more impacted by a danger to us than a danger to others. The outrage you or I feel is motivated by a learned sense of right and wrong. We think what happened is wrong and that makes us angry, but we don't feel afraid or that our lives are less secure because of it.

In addition to feeling that sense of injustice, I imagine many black men also feel a sense of fear and distrust of law enforcement, and fear and distrust are much more powerful drives when we look at behavioral responses not only in human beings, but also in most mammals. These feelings are much more difficult to control our responses to so I absolutely think that has to come into play when we discuss culpability.

Again, it's not this alone but combined with losing his job and having been socially isolated that could have created a perfect storm. Now, if it turns out that he doesn't have mental health issues and this was a calculated decision, then I'd be all for a harsh sentence, but the facts suggest it probably was not.

[objctnyrhnr]

So without directly commenting on the egregious acts that constituted the basis for the protests or the protests themselves, I have always been of the opinion that it’s a very very slippery slope to suggest that recent events in people’s lives should drastically alter their culpability and correspondingly the outcome of their case. I say this in full recognition of the fact, though, that judges do this all the time.

But I mean should the fact that a guy recently got fired really result in a sentence of no immediate time, whereas the exact same situation if he still has a job should result in immediate time? (And for what it’s worth, I actually think this is different from considering past trauma during childhood or something similar to that, which I personally think is more acceptable.)

Moreover if judges start expressly considering people’s skin color in determining how harsh to make the sentence (well he’s black so this behavior is more excusable), isn’t that facially constitutionally problematic?

Just some musings of mine.

I would actually suggest the opposite. If the guy had a mental break that caused him to commit violent actions, he should be in a hospital pending trial, not out on bail, and definitely should not have been sent home without first meeting with mental health professionals.

I don't think it's any more problematic for judges to consider a defendant's skin color than a victim's and we already charge hate crimes differently than ordinary crimes. My statement isn't that race should factor into sentencing on a general level so much as in one specific circumstance where it's pretty obvious black men will be impacted on average differently than any other group.

The reality is that police brutality poses a unique threat to black men, and on an instinctual level we're more impacted by a danger to us than a danger to others. The outrage you or I feel is motivated by a learned sense of right and wrong. We think what happened is wrong and that makes us angry, but we don't feel afraid or that our lives are less secure because of it.

In addition to feeling that sense of injustice, I imagine many black men also feel a sense of fear and distrust of law enforcement, and fear and distrust are much more powerful drives when we look at behavioral responses not only in human beings, but also in most mammals. These feelings are much more difficult to control our responses to so I absolutely think that has to come into play when we discuss culpability.

Again, it's not this alone but combined with losing his job and having been socially isolated that could have created a perfect storm. Now, if it turns out that he doesn't have mental health issues and this was a calculated decision, then I'd be all for a harsh sentence, but the facts suggest it probably was not.

Going to respond to a few things here.

1. hate crimes are not charged differently per se. In most jurisdictions, it’s a new separate charge in and of itself. So it’s not like you start with an assault and battery and then it becomes aggravated because it was racially motivated; you start with an assault and battery then you ADD another charge IF it was racially motivated. That’s an important difference.

2. Hate crimes aren’t charged differently at all (see above), but to the extent that’s a generally accurate statement, it’s isn’t that there charged differently because of the victim’s skin. Using that logic, every white on black crime would be a hate crime. They’re charged differently because of additional evidence evincing the defendant’s subjective motivation behind the underlying crime. Again, that’s a subtle but very important difference.

3. The standard for going to a mental institution rather than go through the normal bail/jail process is extremely high. It’s not like “oh he just got divorced and lost his job so he had a breakdown now mental institution is appropriate while he awaits trial.” You have to be preliminarily deemed incompetent to stand trial which is quite different.

4. I have no dispute with what you describe about the sense of outrage he must have felt. However, as I mentioned, i think that when you start to even a small degree justifying others’ bad actions due to an objectively reasonable sense of outrage, you end up on a very slippery slope. A slope that leads you to slightly justifying a terrorist’s bombing of a French mall because French soldiers bombed his home and killed his family, or slightly justifying g somebody’s sexually assaulting a person’s wife after they sexually assaulted his girlfriend. I honestly think that under that line of thought, you begin slide directly into some partial justifications for vigilante justice which is very problematic for society if you accept it as a whole.

Regardless of how justifiably outraged this person felt as a result of the recent murder, I nevertheless maintain (and reasonable minds could and absolutely would disagree with this sentiment) that this person should be treated exactly the same way as somebody would for the same act if there was no available evidence explaining their motivation behind it.

[nixy]

I agree that generally race isn’t relevant, but if you’re assessing someone’s culpability for an action taken in the middle of nationwide protests about race relations, it might be pertinent. It would probably be more of a proxy for commitment to the cause vs. showing up just to foment unrest/loot, and you wouldn’t want to take that too far, but it could be part of an individualized assessment of culpability.

Re: losing his job - I think there is a VAST spectrum between “I’m upset I lost my job” and “I’m having a mental break.” If he had a legitimate mental break that would be one thing, but I don’t get the inclination to assume that was the case. Being upset at losing your job, even if if it’s under these especially stressful circumstances, isn’t the same as losing your ability to comply with the law.

There’s also a vast spectrum between “calculated decision” and “mental health issues.” People exercise bad judgment in the heat of the moment all the time, and that’s neither a calculated decision nor the result of mental health issues, it’s just how human brains work.

So, for instance, I do think the culpability here is different if, say, the lawyers saw/heard stories about police brutality toward the police that very night, saw the police using tear gas or rubber bullets, heard stories of people burning police cars, and in those moments grabbed what they had to hand and headed out on the spur of the moment, vs. if they’d been stockpiling Molotov cocktail supplies for weeks or something. I’m not saying *either* of those things is what happened, I don’t know the facts, I’m just spitballing possible scenarios.

Also, to be clear - I’m not saying one is acceptable and the other isn’t; I’m not talking punishment or no punishment; just saying that I could understand different punishments for those different circumstances. But one would be a calculated decision and one would be more an instance of bad judgment, without rising to the level of an actual diagnosable mental health issue. Outrage and hurt (if those are what motivated the lawyers here, especially the guy) aren’t mental health issues. They may lead to a different sentence than for someone who does the same thing while not suffering outrage and hurt, but they’re not get out of jail free cards.

[LSATWiz.com]

It may just be causation and correlation but when rap music was much more violent and aggressive about police officers in particular, violence against police wasn't as mainstream following these events, and police were just as brutal then. It does almost seem like rather than incentivizing violence against police, maybe that music that conservatives tried to hard to sensor provided a non-violent outlet for people. It's at least possible this guy and girl would have preferred going to a concert where people rapped about throwing Molotov cocktails at cop cars than actually throwing them.

[nixy]

What?

[person237]

What?

Hard agree. What is happening in this thread. The police are beating people pretty terribly and acting very badly. Have you all not seen the videos?

And ya obviously the guy shouldn’t have done that. What does rap music have to do with this. And footage of civil rights riots from various eras is available so again don’t know what rap music and different eras have to do with this.

[LSATWiz.com]

What?

Hard agree. What is happening in this thread. The police are beating people pretty terribly and acting very badly. Have you all not seen the videos?

And ya obviously the guy shouldn’t have done that. What does rap music have to do with this. And footage of civil rights riots from various eras is available so again don’t know what rap music and different eras have to do with this.

I was referring to some outlet for people to express rage that's more aggressive than peaceful protesting. The purpose of justice is motivated in large part by the need to express rage for social wrongs. My point was that there are healthier outlets for racial injustice rage than throwing Molotov cocktails at random police cars.

[nixy]

Except that this sentence: "It may just be causation and correlation but when rap music was much more violent and aggressive about police officers in particular, violence against police wasn't as mainstream following these events, and police were just as brutal then" is ENTIRELY lacking in any kind of grounding in reality.

[objctnyrhnr]

Speaking of contentions that are grounded in reality, has anybody actually looked into the supposition that police disproportionately fatally kill unarmed black people while also adjusting for the relative charges (Or even convictions) for violent crimes per race, as well as instances where police were actively being seriously attacked or some other race neutral explanation like that?

To be clear, based on my professional experience, I do think that police need to be both defunded (or perhaps that just way more oversight needs to go into his funds are spent) and also that they need to be retrained with an entirely different emphasis (but I actually think this would require more resources and not less), that background checks should become far more extensive (try to do a better job weeding out the psychos, but again this would require more resources), and that state by state jury instructions for the “i was a police officer doing my duty” defense should be tightened considerably which would result in more convictions and charges and therefore more deterrence.

Additionally, I also think that it’s pretty egregious that there has not yet been some (perhaps even broadly defined) reparations to bridge the socioeconomic divide...and that while this idea was actively discussed during the dem primary I haven’t heard anything about it lately. I don’t think affirmative action,alone, cuts it.

but nevertheless, as a fact-based analytical person by nature, I can’t help but notice that there’s been an odd dearth of statistics on this point that seems to have been replaced by rhetoric and specific anecdotes (a tactic typically used by the right). I perused some hard data and frankly I’m not convinced that this whole idea is grounded in aggregate statistics over the past couple years.

Anybody have thoughts on this?

[nixy]

These were in the top 5 results from googling.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... -ferguson/

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/08/ ... ta/595528/

They both seem pretty clear on the numbers?

[objctnyrhnr]

These were in the top 5 results from googling.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... -ferguson/

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/08/ ... ta/595528/

They both seem pretty clear on the numbers?

So maybe I wasn’t clear enough on the question. Yes, black people get fatally shot at 2.5 the rate of others per your source data. But this data doesn’t adjust for violent crime rate.



https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_an ... statistics

Black Americans in 2008 were also responsible for over 6 times the murder of their population representation and over 8 times for burglary.

Logically, notwithstanding any race-based animus, wouldn’t one expect a population that is disproportionately charged with violent crime to also be disproportionately involved in altercations with the police that turn violent?

Put another way: would the reason that police might draw their guns far more often in high crime urban area X with a large black population relative to low crime suburban area Y with a large white population be caused by the fact that they are racist...or maybe because the violent crime rate is much higher in area x?

I’m just saying where is the data that adjusts for these facts? Seems that many are automatically assume racism is the cause—and certainly it’s quite possible that it factors in—but I’m just not sure the data when taken in the aggregate necessarily proves it.

Just because a difference in race might correlate with the difference that those sources highlight, it obviously doesn’t automatically follow that the racial difference is the cause (lsat logic and all that).

[LSATWiz.com]

These were in the top 5 results from googling.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... -ferguson/

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/08/ ... ta/595528/

They both seem pretty clear on the numbers?

So maybe I wasn’t clear enough on the question. Yes, black people get fatally shot at 2.5 the rate of others per your source data. But this data doesn’t adjust for violent crime rate.



https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_an ... statistics

Black Americans in 2008 were also responsible for over 6 times the murder of their population representation and over 8 times for burglary.

Logically, notwithstanding any race-based animus, wouldn’t one expect a population that is disproportionately charged with violent crime to also be disproportionately involved in altercations with the police that turn violent?

Put another way: would the reason that police might draw their guns far more often in high crime urban area X with a large black population relative to low crime suburban area Y with a large white population be caused by the fact that they are racist...or maybe because the violent crime rate is much higher in area x?

I’m just saying where is the data that adjusts for these facts? Seems that many are automatically assume racism is the cause—and certainly it’s quite possible that it factors in—but I’m just not sure the data when taken in the aggregate necessarily proves it.

Just because a difference in race might correlate with the difference that those sources highlight, it obviously doesn’t automatically follow that the racial difference is the cause (lsat logic and all that).

On Statistics of Racist Crime:

I don't know the statistics, but I'm sure police are much more likely to make snap, violent decisions towards black people. In intro to psych in college, we had to participate in various grad school studies, and one of the ones I did showed images of different faces while the people conducting the study looked at activity in the areas of your brain.

What they found is people have more activity in the center of the brain associated with fear the moment they see someone of a different race regardless of gender and regardless of the participant's background. Things like COVID-19 and the spread of smallpox from settlers to Native Americans suggest there's probably an evolutionary basis for this reaction that was favored by natural selection but is horribly inefficient in a multiculturalist society. This doesn't mean that all white people are afraid of black people or vice versa, but does mean that we have an immediate reaction in our brain that we might never be aware of because it's subdued by the tolerance and sense of equality that we've been taught.

Putting the Floyd case aside, most instances of police brutality are the result of immediate snap decisions and it would therefore make sense that the level of aggression varies according to the type of suspect and it's much harder to train someone to change someone's snap judgments than their calculated ones. I don't know how police training works, but I imagine that much of it involves training them how to respond to someone shooting at them or actively resisting them when it's much more likely someone will run away from them so if they're responding to someone running away with the reflexes they were taught when someone is running at them, you're going to have a lot of unnecessary violence.

I think that while there will probably always be some racial discrepancies in the use of unnecessary force to the extent that police are disproportionately white, there clearly need to be changes in how police officers are trained.

On Defunding:

I'd say that the solution would be to just not have police carry guns when responding to non-violent offenses as there are many countries where police do not carry guns but that doesn't help when someone presses their knee against a suspect's windpipe for ten minutes. That said, in situations like a drunk driving arrest it's crazy to shoot a suspect even if the shot were non-lethal when he runs away as you have the license plate, driver's license, and car. It's not like you're going to be unable to find him so there really should not be a gun there to begin with.

I think defunding police altogether raises the same issue that gave rise to the suggestion they should be defunded. A small percentage of police are bad actors really just looking to bully people, and perhaps harm people from a specific race. A small percentage of people would look to capitalize on a lack of law enforcement, and you're ultimately going to have to have some enforcement mechanism in place. That famous case about the hundreds of people who witnessed a woman being raped and didn't call the police because they assumed their neighbor would also applies to enforcement.

Without an enforcement mechanism, you're going to have to have the average person be ready, willing, and able to protect somebody being harmed. You can have local militias but I think that when you remove the pay incentive from the equation, you're more likely to attract overzealous enforcers and one of the main causes of police brutality seems to be overzealousness. A reasonably zealous person responding to the mystery of the counterfeit twenty dollar bill probably wouldn't give a shit. It's twenty bucks. I think defunding police altogether invites overzealousness in private citizens who may just be as foolish and racist.

I do think the government should be able to stop racism in police enforcement. They were able to root out corruption. Today, it's national news when a police officer accepts a bribe but less than a century ago nearly every police officer was on the take so police departments are able to change when they're incentivized to do so. I think the mere threat of defunding or perhaps basing funding on the number of times excessive force is used would reduce the prevalence of police brutality very quickly. I also think that everyone but the most extreme of protestors would support that solution because it would show that the government is acknowledging that there is a problem and at least attempting to resolve it with something more than mere talk.

[dabigchina]

mods - i think its about time this got moved to the lounge?

[LSATWiz.com]

These were in the top 5 results from googling.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... -ferguson/

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/08/ ... ta/595528/

They both seem pretty clear on the numbers?

So maybe I wasn’t clear enough on the question. Yes, black people get fatally shot at 2.5 the rate of others per your source data. But this data doesn’t adjust for violent crime rate.



https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_an ... statistics

Black Americans in 2008 were also responsible for over 6 times the murder of their population representation and over 8 times for burglary.

Logically, notwithstanding any race-based animus, wouldn’t one expect a population that is disproportionately charged with violent crime to also be disproportionately involved in altercations with the police that turn violent?

Put another way: would the reason that police might draw their guns far more often in high crime urban area X with a large black population relative to low crime suburban area Y with a large white population be caused by the fact that they are racist...or maybe because the violent crime rate is much higher in area x?

I’m just saying where is the data that adjusts for these facts? Seems that many are automatically assume racism is the cause—and certainly it’s quite possible that it factors in—but I’m just not sure the data when taken in the aggregate necessarily proves it.

Just because a difference in race might correlate with the difference that those sources highlight, it obviously doesn’t automatically follow that the racial difference is the cause (lsat logic and all that).

Black Americans are also 7x more likely to be wrongly charged with murder and 12x more likely to be wrongly charged with drug offenses so I don't know that statistics on charges are relevant: https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exone ... ort2.7.pdf. You can't defend a population being disproportionately harmed on the basis that they are disproportionately likely to be falsely accused. I'm saying that as someone that used to agree with the opposing viewpoint, but when you dig into the data, that viewpoint simply is not supported.

You have to also figure that there is overzealousness about charging black Americans so they're probably much less likely to get away with crimes. If you overly police a population, you're going to catch a much higher percentage of criminals in that population. This could suggest that the actual rate of criminality is equal between races, but that some races are likelier to get away with it than others.

I think a bigger thing about police brutality, and I don't know if this statistic exists, is the alleged crime that led to the police arrival to begin with. A lot of these cases are DUI's, counterfeit goods, the kinds of things that have to be policed to some extent but are inherently nonviolent.