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The courtroom livestream was spotty, seemingly at some of the most key moments... including right when the verdict was read

ST. LOUIS The moment everyone had been waiting for during the two-week trial involving police officers accused of assaulting one of their own had finally arrived.

You can bring the jury in, District Judge Catherine Perry told the Marshals guarding her courtroom inside the federal courthouse in downtown St. Louis.

After 13 hours, the federal jury deciding the fate of two former officers and one current St. Louis police officer accused of assaulting officer Luther Hall as he worked undercover during 2017 protests had reached its decision.

But they did so during a pandemic.

That means reporters, and the public, had to watch the proceedings as they were streamed live into several televisions inside an overflow courtroom 13 floors above the real action in order to keep a safe social distance.

For weeks, the stream was spotty, seemingly at some of the most key moments including the moment where former officer Dustin Boone invoked his Fifth Amendment right. When First Assistant U.S. Attorney Catherine Costantin was questioning witnesses and making some of her key points.

Those of us who were in there sighed and scoffed every time it went silent, glitched or just all together stopped working.

I documented every outage during my live tweets, which attracted the attention of hundreds of new followers.

Clearly, the public was interested in knowing how this trial was going to turn out.

How three white police officers accused of assaulting a Black colleague working undercover would, or would not, be held accountable.

How a predominantly white jury selected from predominantly rural white counties would judge them in a case prosecutors argued included a racial component.

And how defense attorneys could possibly explain their clients actions and texts.

Surely everything would run smoothly for the biggest moment of the trial.

Instead, Perrys instruction to the Marshals to bring the jury in to read their verdict was the only thing those of us gathered inside the packed overflow courtroom heard.

And it was a sizeable crowd. Attorneys from the U.S. Attorneys Office where there including the Interim U.S. Attorney. An Internal Affairs investigator for the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department was there. Along with reporters. Civil attorneys representing protesters. Friends and family members of the victim and the defendants.

And there were more than sighs and scoffs when the screen turned into a logo of some sort at the moment the verdict was to be read.

I said, This is unbelievable out loud, to which Attorney Javad Khazaeli said, And yet it is.

Only two members of the media were able to be inside the actual courtroom, where Perry doesnt allow us to use our phones or report anything live.

Marshals tried their best to alert the technology staff at the courthouse. I complained to the presiding judge.

But in the end, the only other thing we heard was Perry saying, Thank you for your service, youre free to go and the other officers are free to go on bond.

Of course, we all managed to get the verdict, which included acquittals and mistrials.

But we didnt get to hear them as they were delivered. We didnt get to see what body language we could make out from the screens. We didnt get to hear whether there was any emotion.

Meanwhile, another high profile trial is taking place in Minneapolis right now. The police officer accused of killing George Floyd is on trial.

They have an overflow courtroom, too.

But, in that trial, apparently the judge is being kept informed of any glitches in the overflow courtroom as it is being treated as if it were part of the front-row.

The judge actually postponed the trial until the next day earlier this week when the feed went out.

My former colleague and fellow overflow courtroom watcher St. Louis Post-Dispatch Reporter Robert Patrick brought that to my attention.

At least the public wont be missing a beat in that trial.

Byers' Beat:

Read more here:
Behind the scenes of the officer Luther Hall assault trial - KSDK.com

Narendra Modi was in Bangladesh to attend the countrys Golden Jubilee celebrations of independence.

At least 11 people were killed in Bangladesh over the weekend as protesters clashes with police during demonstrations called by Islamist groups against Prime Minister Narendra Modis Dhaka visit. Mr. Modi was in Bangladesh to attend the countrys Golden Jubilee celebrations of independence. After Mr. Modis visit, violence spread across the country with protesters attacking a train in the eastern district of Brahmanbaria and targeting several Hindu temples. The main group behind the violent protests was Hefazat-e-Islam Bangladesh, an umbrella organisation of radical Islamists that had in the past clashed with the Awami League government.

Hefazat-e-Islam, literally protector of Islam, was formed in 2010 when the country was taking gradual measures to undo the Islamisation of its polity by the military rulers in the late 1970s and 1980s. In 2008, the military-backed caretaker government had proposed the Draft National Womens Development Policy Bill, promising equal rights to women in property through earnings, inheritance, loan, land and market management. In the December 2008 election, the secular Awami League, led by Sheikh Hasina, Sheikh Mujibur Rahmans daughter, was brought to power. The secualrists had demanded repealing the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, which had made sweeping changes to the countrys original secular Constitution during the years of military rule (Later in the year the Supreme Court ruled the amendment was illegal). The Islamist groups saw these developments, along with the shrinking space of clergy politics, as a threat to their core interests, and came together on one platform to form Hefazat-e-Islam. In February 2010, Hefazat called a demonstration in Chittagong against the Womens Bill and the bid to cancel the Fifth Amendment. They clashed with police, injuring over a dozen, and announcing the arrival of a new Islamist group in Bangladeshs political landscape.

Headquartered in Chittagong, Hefazat is a platform of the Sunni clerics of the countrys vast Quami madrassa network and their students. The Economist reported in 2017 that Hefazat madrassas were financed by the Salafi-Wahabi Islamists in Saudi Arabia. If in 2010, they demonstrated their street power by staging the anti-Womens Bill protests, in 2013, they would expand their demands to a 13-point agenda and hold massive rallies in the capital Dhaka. Their demands included enactment of an anti-blasphemy law with provision for death penalty, cancellation of the womens development law (which Ms. Hasinas government passed), a ban on erecting statues in public places (because thats idolatry), a ban on mixing man and woman in public and declaration of Bangladeshs Ahmadiyas, a persecuted minority in Islam, as non-Muslims (like in Pakistan).

The Awami League government initially ignored the protests. But Hefazat members organised many marches to the capital, in what they called the siege of Dhaka, to push for their demands. When the pressure mounted, the government acted swiftly and ruthlessly. In the early hours of May 6, 2013, security forces launched a crackdown on Hefazat activists to oust them from Dhaka. At least 11 people were estimated to have been killed in the operation.

Since the failed Dhaka siege, Hefazat was careful not to run into a direct showdown with the government or the ruling party. But it remained an important hardline voice that often put pressure on the government with its Islamist agenda. For example, when the Fifth Amendment was repealed, the government restored secularism and some other articles of the original Constitution but Islam continued to remain the state religion. Hefazet had threatened violent struggle against the government if Islam is removed as the state religion. The government had also made changes in school texts under pressure from Hefazat and other Islamists. In 2015-16, when Bangladesh was gripped by violence against secular bloggers and activists, Hefazet had demanded action against the writers who insult Islam. In 2017, giving in to Hefazats demands, the government removed the statue of the Greek Goddess Themis from the premises of the Supreme Court. In 2018, the Hasina government passed a Bill recognising DawraeHadith, a top degree of Hefazat-controlled Quami madrassas, as equivalent to a Masters degree in Islamic studies and Arabic, a long-pending demand of Hefazat clerics.

Ms. Hasinas government may have found Hefazat a lesser problem than Jamaat e Islami, the militant religious party whose leaders were put on trial for war crimes committed in 1971 by the war tribunal. The government did not give in to Hefazats key demands that would alter the secular character of the state, but offered small concessions to the group to avoid trouble. These concessions, however, appeared to have made them stronger over the years. And the protests they carried out against the visit of the Indian Prime Minister, at a time when both India and Bangladesh are trying to deepen their ties, pose a new challenge to both Dhaka and New Delhi.

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Analysis | Hefazat-e Islam, the group behind anti-Modi protests in Bangladesh - The Hindu

A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled that the federal governments database of possible terror suspects, also known as the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB) or the terror watchlist, does not violate the constitutional rights of American citizens who are included on the list even if they are not notified or allowed to rebut the governments underlying reason for adding their names to the list.

A three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit all of whom were appointed by Republican presidents unanimously ruled to overturn a lower district court decision which held that a group of 23 Muslim-American citizens suffered a range of adverse consequences in violation of the Fifth Amendment right to due process once they were put on the list.

Speaking for the lower district court, U.S. District Judge Anthony J. Trenga, an appointee of President George W. Bush, ruled in 2019 that the governments justification for placing certain people on the watchlist was too vague and required more specific and concrete parameters. He noted that people listed in the TSDB even inadvertently cannot refute the designation and are often prevented from obtaining certain government benefits and contract opportunities, are restricted in their abilities to travel, and are subjected to intense and sometimes invasive scrutiny at airports across the globe.

But in an opinion penned by Ronald Reagan appointee J. Harvey Wilkinson III, the Fourth Circuit held that the consequences did not unlawfully burden the plaintiffs civil rights, particularly in light of the governments compelling interest in national security.

The appellate panel disagreed with the lower district courts rationale surrounding the plaintiffs ability to challenge their inclusion on the list:

Equating the APA and procedural due process claims, which alleged that plaintiffs were not given notice of their TSDB status nor a meaningful opportunity to refute the information on which the status was based, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs.

[ . . . ]

The court acknowledged that the government had a compelling interest in preventing terrorist attacks and in maintaining secrecy over the underlying intelligence. It thus concluded that such interests precluded any claim to pre-deprivation notice. But the court held plaintiffs were entitled to post-deprivation process and that the current DHS TRIP procedures were inadequate.

The district court was poised to, in essence, demand an overhaul of the system to give the plaintiffs the right to challenge their inclusion on the TSDB list after the fact. The Court of Appeals stepped into the case before the district court had the chance to fashion a remedy.

What history suggests, precedent confirms: the right to travel is qualified, not absolute. Neither plaintiffs nor anyone else have a constitutionally protected interest in being able to travel domestically or internationally without incurring some burdens, Wilkinson wrote.The experiences alleged by plaintiffs do not rise to the level of constitutional concern. Most plaintiffs complain of minor delays in airports of an hour or less. These burdens are not dissimilar from what many travelers routinely face, whether in standard or enhanced screenings, particularly at busy airports. After all, most travelers who face lengthier enhanced screenings are not in the TSDB but are instead chosen randomly. Plaintiffs cite a few instances where the delays took up to three hours, but those are atypical.

The court also rejected the plaintiffs assertion that the inconveniences suffered by those listed on the TSDB deterred them from air travel and in many cases forced them to drive extremely long distances, saying that individuals do not have a protected liberty interest in using a particular mode of transportation.

The court also said it found the claim that additional screenings deterred plaintiffs from traveling outside the country even less persuasive.

[I]t is clear that plaintiffs do not possess a protected liberty interest in being free from screening and delays at the border. No plaintiff alleges he was unable to cross an international border, Wilkinson wrote. The plaintiffs complain of extra delays ranging from a few minutes to twelve hours, with most being on the shorter end of that spectrum. Such delays are not atypical for travelers, particularly at busy ports of entry at land borders. Given the governments broad power to control movement across the nations borders, the burdens experienced by plaintiffs are not infringements of liberty within the meaning of the Due Process Clause.

Read the full ruling below.

4th Circuit TSDB Order by Law&Crime on Scribd

[image via KSHB-TV]

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Federal Appeals Court Says Government Can Put Americans on Terror Watchlist without Notice or Chance to Rebut - Law & Crime

Law360 (April 1, 2021, 3:35 PM EDT) -- Girardi Keese's chief financial officer intends to invoke the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying about the defunct firm's finances because he might be a target in the federal investigation of the firm's theft from client trust accounts, he told a Los Angeles bankruptcy judge Thursday.

Chris Kamon had allegedly prepared checks for a plundered Girardi Keese client trust account, making his right to avoid incriminating himself "self-evident," he said in a court filing prepared by his white-collar defense attorney Richard Steingard.

Kamon, who has been named in court documents as one of the few people privy to the firm's finances besides...

In the legal profession, information is the key to success. You have to know whats happening with clients, competitors, practice areas, and industries. Law360 provides the intelligence you need to remain an expert and beat the competition.

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Girardi Keese CFO Takes The Fifth To Avoid Testifying - Law360

As Womens History month comes to a close, the Daily Sundial has created a list of women who helped shape not just the history of women, but the history of women in the LGBTQ community.

Marsha P. Johnson (Aug. 24,1945 July 6,1992)

Marsha P. Johnson was an activist and drag queen. She was greatly focused on gay rights leading her to become a founder of one of New Yorks safe spaces for transgender and homeless youth. She was one of three people during the Stonewall riots to push back police officers. Later, Johnson and fellow activist Sylvia Rivera established the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries house, a shelter for queer and transgender children in 1972. Johnson worked in order to provide shelter, food, clothing and emotional support for queer, transgender women and gender-nonconforming children living on the streets.

Sylvia Rivera (July 2, 1951 Feb. 19, 2002)

Rivera was a transgender and gay rights activist who worked side by side with Johnson. She was part of the Gay Liberation Front, which was formed right after the Stonewall riots. Rivera was an active member of the Metropolitan Community Church of New York, where she provided food for the hungry. In 2002, civil rights activist and attorney Dean Spade created the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, which provides legal aid to transgender, intersex or gender non-conforming people of color.

Edith Edie Windsor (June 20, 1929 Sept. 12, 2017)

Edith Edie Windsor, an American LGBTQ activist, was the lead plaintiff of United States v. Windsor, which overturned Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, where marriage is defined as between one man and one woman.. On Feb. 5, 2009, her wife Thea Spyer died, making Windsor the sole beneficiary of her estate. Windsor had to pay $363,053 in federal taxes for inheriting her wifes estate, because the federal government didnt recognize their marriage. In 2010, she filed a lawsuit against the federal government. The lawsuit then went to the Supreme Court and in March 2013, the Supreme Court decided that the government benefiting from Spyers estate and trust was unconstitutional as a deprivation of the liberty of the person protected by the fifth amendment.

Frida Kahlo (July 6, 1907 July 13, 1954)

Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist and prominent feminist figure who painted many self-portraits that depicted the female form and struggles. She was born July 6, 1907, in Mexico City. In 1925, a bus accident left her in critical condition, and broke her spinal column, collarbone, pelvis, ribs and her right leg. Due to her mobility limitations, she painted from her bed or from a wheelchair. However, her work and her contributions for Chicanos, the Feminist movement and the LGBTQ movement only gained recognition around 1990.

Barbara Jordan (Feb. 21, 1936 Jan. 17, 1996)

Barbara Jordan, a civil rights leader and activist, was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate in 1966. Jordan, also an attorney, was the first woman and African American since 1883 to be elected to Congress from Texas in 1972. Although she was not an openly queer woman, she had a lifelong partner for over 30 years, Nancy Earl.

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5 women that shaped women's history The Sundial - Daily Sundial