Johnny Coli

see post to erynthered

I have nothing to do with writing the laws in Arizona, or anywhere else for that matter.

First time border crossings are dealt with as misdemeanors.

We can sympathize with his plight, yet also agree that he broke the law by exceeding what the law allowed him to do to remedy his situation. You can't just allow someone to break a law just because they feel like other laws aren't working for them. In this case the authorities have determined that he went far enough beyond what was reasonable to allow a civil rights suit to be filed by a group of people from another country. In everyone's rush to yell about how extreme that is, entertain the thought that maybe what Burnett did was extreme enough and egregious enough for a Judge to allow this suit to continue to a jury proceeding. Do you not think that if this was some frivilous suit from foreign nationals that a US District Court in Arizona would have thrown it out? Also, this is not the first one. He just lost a seperate case.

If I lived on a 22,000 acre ranch and suspected a group of people were crossing my property to enter the country illegally I would call the authorities.

You can't just shoot someone for being on your property. Do you not see how a ridiculously loose law like that could be abused? You could shoot anyone at all on your property just by saying you were threatened or didn't know who they were.

Arizona treats illegal border crossings as a misdemeanor. Go look it up.

According to the law they committed two misdemeanors. That's how I see it. What I also see, however, and apparently a Judge sees it this way as well, is that Barnett had no justification to go to the extremes he did, which broke both state and federal laws. That's why a Civil Rights suit was filed. That's why a Judge has ruled it can go forward.

Not at all. But there are certain actions that you can and can not take under the law (that varies from state to state). Arizona apparently has very relaxed laws regarding what physical actions property owners can take against trespassers, however I do not believe the plaintiffs in this case fit any of the criteria for it (what has never been in dispute in this case is that these particular individuals, the plaintiffs in the suit, were not vandalizing, stealing, threatening, etc), and in any event a Judge has ruled this is a Civil Rights case--and federal law trumps State law.

Immigrants in general, and not the plaintiffs in this case. A huge and important distinction. If someone vandalizes your neighbors car, and a week later your child goes on to his property and he shoots them, your neighbor can't say "they vandalized my car."

The point is relevant if Barnett wanted to use the defense that he felt threatened, which in this case wouldn't fit because they were hiding and he approached them with a gun. That they were there isn't in dispute by any party.

Who is they? Neither Barnett, nor the authorities, have accused the plaintiffs in this case of doing anything other than trespassing on his land.

It's a big ranch. 22,000 acres. If he was that threatened he could have just called the authorities. In any event, the undisputed facts (here, pdf) show that they were hiding and he approached them. Not very threatening in my opinion.

Here is a Findlaw blurb on the case, with some relevent links to AZ law. However, because this is a Civil Rights violation case, Federal law trumps State law. And, yes, he does come across as a gun-toting wack job, as he has bragged to the USA Today previously about "hunting" illegal Mexicans. The 4th point I made is not absurd at all. He can not just murder someone on his property because someone else ate one of his cows, for the same reason you can't gun down a teenager who is cutting through your yard a week after someone else vandalized your car.

There are scant news reports of what actually happened, but the court records that I actually could find state that he approached them. Were they on his property? Absolutely, that isn't in dispute. However, it is hard to make a case for self-defense if he was the one who approached them, and he was the only one armed. Secondly, neither illegal entry to the US nor trespassing are felonies in AZ, so any citizen's arrest defense isn't applicable. Third, you can't detain someone at gunpoint and threaten to kill them, nor can you threaten them with harm using an animal. That's wrong under any civil rights laws. Fourth, what actions any previous trespassers partook of on his property can't be used to justify detaining and threatening a seperate set of people. They can't be held responsible for the actions of others. Really, I can understand why this guy is pissed, but that's why we have law enforcement in this country. You can't just take the law into your own hands. That is how innocent people get hurt. He's already lost a case where he detained and threatened his neighbors.

The only Con Law explanation I could find was through wiki, and it states: Citizen's Arrest laws only apply in the case of a felony. In Arizona, trespassing is a misdemeanor, not a felony. Also, I believe the majority of illegal entry cases are prosecuted as misdemeanors, as well. So, it is doubtfull any citizen's arrest law could be used in this guy's defense. By detaining and threatening them with harm, he violated what appears to be several civil rights laws. That's probably why the Judge decided the merits of the case made it acceptable to move forward to a jury trial.

So, you just want to kick out (and kill on site if they trespass) only the undocumented workers who don't have an Irish accent?

HBD to all!

Here's one. Bonus! He's racist, too.

Yup. Every single irishman living in the US right now is here legally. Call on Obama to regularise undocumented Irish McCain Bemoans Fate of Undocumented Irish in America Hundreds rally at Philly ILIR meet Undocumented Irish React With Caution I could go on and on.

What's your problem with the Irish?

Happy Birthday Darwin!

Let me answer again... They have not gone down. That is entirely false. And the data is pretty clear for one side of the "debate." What is entirely missing is any data for the opposing point of view. The dissenters' only "data" is in telling everyone else that their data is wrong. And they don't do it in peer reviewed journals, they do it in opinion pieces in the media. Now, we have a few people on this chunk of a football board saying that there is some global conspiracy led by Al Gore to crush all dissent, raise everyone's taxes, and bury any and all scientific studies that don't conform to the veritable consensus of scientists saying global warming is at least partially caused by human activity. They would have everyone believe that the reason there isn't any data supporting their hypothesis is because the global cabal of thousands of scientists led by Al Gore have stacked the decks against them and turned off all funding, and have even shut them out of peer-reviewed journals. That is completely absurd.

How the fug is anyone perverting that data? How is that data set "dishonest" and/or political? Are you suggesting that Hansen is just fabricating data?

Not in any way shape or form has it been cooling over the last eight years. No data on that page even remotely shows that the global surface temp is cooling. In fact, Hanson et al go out of their way to repeatedly make the point that that isn't the case. You know, Tom, just because you say it's stupid doesn't necessarily make it so.