The Virginian-Pilot
NOBODY KNOWS what prompted Currituck County District Court Judge Edgar Barnes to throw everybody out of his courtroom Wednesday. But it certainly wasn’t his reverence for American freedoms, or his respect for the U.S. Constitution.
Barnes was presiding over the trials of seven protesters who drove a station wagon onto the Moyock, N.C., campus of security contractor Blackwater back in October. The protesters defaced the company’s signs with red paint, and claimed to be re-enacting the Sept. 16 Nisoor Square massacre, which left 17 Iraqis dead.
Steve Baggarly, a well-known anti-war protester from Norfolk, was the first one tried Wednesday. The trial was uneventful — though Baggarly repeatedly tried to make larger points about the war. Then Baggarly was convicted, and the judge had the bailiffs clear the courtroom so he could convict the other defendants in peace.
Why did he do it? There were no disruptions or outbursts. Still, the judge wouldn’t explain.
Perhaps he’s decided that it’s just easier to administer justice if nobody’s watching. But judicial convenience is not the reason Lady Justice is blind.
Barnes’ actions have prompted an outcry. They should. They were so unconstitutional you could see the violations from outer space.
“In all criminal prosecutions,” reads the Sixth Amendment, “the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.”
There’s not a “but” or “unless” anywhere in there, let alone a provision for a judge fed up with the inconveniences of a public process or unhappy that a local company had simulated blood on its signs.
Trials are public to keep judges honest. When a jurist shuts his courtroom, the public has no alternative but to wonder what’s going on behind those closed doors.
That’s truer now than it has been in many years. Along with American servicemen, the greatest casualty of the U.S. war on terrorism has been our civil liberties.
The government holds citizens in secret without trial or notice, mistakes dissent for disloyalty, eavesdrops on our e-mail and phone calls, authorizes torture and declares habeas corpus obsolete.
In the face of those relentless assaults, in the face of an out-of-control executive, and in the absence of legislative courage, the judiciary is the only remaining safeguard, our last line of defense.
By closing the trial for Blackwater protesters, a Currituck judge has defaulted on that sacred civic duty.
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Spot on!
Regardless of you feel about Blackwater or the war, if you have an interest in the constitution or Bill of Rights, you should sit up - no instead -stand up and take notice. Your silence will not protect you! Consider the words of Pastor Niemöller speaking about Nazi Germany: In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist; And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist; And then they came for the Jews, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew; And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up."
Why cry over editorial commentary and call it leftist.
It's an EDITORIAL. Freedom of the press to make commentary and report, and the reader's freedom not to read it. So stop whining because you don't like the correlation between a Currituck judge barring the public from a trial and the secret courts of the "War on Terrorism". This judge didn't intend to hear the cases at all, he wanted to just wash it away with a mass guilty verdict. "so he could convict the other defendants in peace." The last one arrested did nothing more than walk a few steps, kneel on the pavement, and she was instantly arrested. If it weren't for peaceful protesting, we would still be in 1950's America. Maybe Basnight can pay attention once he gets his restaurant straightened out and gets involved in his district.
Missing the point
The writers who have posted here have either missed or are deliberately misrepresenting the point of this editorial - that U.S. citizens have been denied their constitutional rights by a Currituck District Court Judge. The quoted passage from the Sixth Amendment clearly spells out the right of all U.S. citizens to a public trial. That any reader of this editorial would argue that a citizen should be denied Sixth Amendment rights in order to take away the "soapbox" of an open courtroom is a disturbing example of allowing politics to trump the rule of law. How would you react, Curtis J., to a similar circumstance involving a pro-war demonstrator denied a public trial for no clear reason? Are your own rights also dependent upon your politics?
There You Go Again.
I take it from this opinion piece that the Pilot Editorial Staff are also Big Fans of Judge Ito and think that the O.J. case was a Beautiful Thing, a Monument to the Judicial System.
What is left-wing bias?
What is "anti-US left bias"? Now we're no longer allowed to rightfully criticize a president who lied to start a war, and until two days ago, seemed to be lying again to start another war, until the NIE debunked his warmongering. It's scary that some in America Reid of Sandbridge actually believe that secret prisons, mercernaries killing civilians, and authorized torture are American values. I happen to disagree, with him, and others like him.
Is it ??
Is it their rights or a stage being taken away. It's not the arrest they disagree with, it's the fact they don't have a camera or mike in from of them to voice their anti military opinions to the world. Kinda like what Bin Laden and other terrorist of the world do with the media.
Not Only..
..is the country that Jefferson founded gone, but the country that Eisenhower stated would develop has taken its place. Now, someone tell me, what are the chances of this judge being arrested and fined for violation of our most basic and sacred right? I already know the answer to that one! Judicial interpretation..just because he is a "Judge"! RIP Constitution and Bill of Rights! They are an anachronism of the times that have been set by the wayside of those in a "power position" if you will and more importantly the times ahead. Which by the way, bodes very ill to the common citizen!
If the courtroom was orderly...
Then the judge was dead wrong in clearing the courtroom of the public. I am totally against our presence in Iraq, but I dont like trespassing and vandalism either. The judge should have let the public remain for the trial. Now he is the one that appears suspect.
God Bless America
The America that Thomas Jefferson created with our constitution and not the one that allows those to stunt these fundamental freedoms that make this country
Here is to the next election and return to Eisenhower's America.
Beware of the Military industrial complex. Currituck county's Judges have been infiltrated by
Cowardice?
Would you also include the practice of spewing liberal pap without signing your name to it as cowardice?
Protestors?
I don't know the details of this case so I'm not arguing the overall point of the piece; but based upon the editorialist's description, the defendants were not "Protesters", they were trespassers and vandals. One person's rights end where another's begin. A war protester's first amendment rights don't abrogate the property rights of a business owner. Characterizing the defendants as being tried for a war protest is misleading and meretricious.
Pilot's false "facts" reveal a anti-USA Leftist bias - once ag
Folks, the Leftist Bush-bashing continues by the Pilot staff. Incredible. Read the following lines that had nothing to do with the trial in Currituck; "The government holds citizens in secret without trial or notice, mistakes dissent for disloyalty, eavesdrops on our e-mail and phone calls, authorizes torture and declares habeas corpus obsolete. In the face of those relentless assaults, in the face of an out-of-control executive, and in the absence of legislative courage, the judiciary is the only remaining safeguard, our last line of defense." What a false & destorted assault on our government and our President! Frankly, I am sick of it. "Citizens" held in secret without trial? Not US citizen. Authorized "torture"? No. Pilot truthful? No.