New Mexico judge gets death threats after granting bail to Muslim compound members

[DonViejo]

Source: Reuters



AUGUST 14, 2018 / 8:23 PM / UPDATED 3 HOURS AGO

Andrew Hay

TAOS, N.M. (Reuters) - A New Mexico judge received death threats and Islamophobic abuse on Tuesday a day after she granted bail to five Muslims charged with child abuse and accused of training children at their compound to carry out attacks, court officials said.

Defendant Subhannah Wahhaj (R) sits next to her husband, defendant Lucas Morton (L), during a hearing on charges of child abuse in which they were granted bail in Taos County, New Mexico, U.S. August 12, 2018. Picture taken August 12, 2018. REUTERS/Andrew Hay
Police raided the compound in Taos County on Aug. 3 following a tip-off that children held there were starving. They found 11 children in need of food and water, and three days later unearthed the body of a toddler.

In an order published on Tuesday, district Judge Sarah Backus said prosecutors had produced evidence that was “troubling and unusual” but failed to show the defendants abused the children and were a threat to society if released on bail.

One caller on Tuesday told Backus “her throat would be slit” while another said he wished “someone would smash her head,” New Mexico courts spokesman Barry Massey said.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-new-mexico-crime/new-mexico-judge-gets-death-threats-after-granting-bail-to-muslim-compound-members-idUSKBN1L0014

[Maine-i-acs]

1. Fox "News", Lou Dobbs, last night

Screeching this travesty at the top of his lungs for as long as his wheezy voice lasted.
It will be no surprise how the death-threatters got whipped up into a frenzy.

[Fred Sanders]

3. Either unable or unwilling to admit he would be screaming for the defendants if they were white

and Christian. Apparently the freedom of religion thingy and the presumption of innocence thingy are too much for fascists to bear. Equality under the law for all is clearly an abomination!

Evil hypocrites on Fox, every last one of them.

[Judi Lynn]

36. Doesn't seem possible they can find enough vicious idiots to staff their "empire" at Fox. Sad. n/t

[marble falls]

7. BTW, thank you for your service, I can't stand Dobbs long enough to get that much from ...

him, but someone has to it.

Fortunately hardly anyone follows Dobbs anymore.

[B2G]

2. Death threats are abhorrent, but

why in the world were they granted $25,000 bail? I don't understand this at all.

[WhoWoodaKnew]

4. Yeah, me either.

[Fred Sanders]

5. The article explains this...

"Another resident, named Quincy, who requested his full name not be used, said he didn’t think the defendants were dangerous, “especially when they came in here using their real names and introduced themselves to every possible person who was their neighbor."

Not exactly secretive...and the judges' decision simply was that the media and social media "facts" are not worthy of being accepted by a court of law that demands actual evidence of those facts...go figure...courts!

Defense attorneys said prosecutors sought to criminalize their clients for being African-Americans of Muslim faith.

“If these people were white and Christian, nobody would bat an eye over the idea of faith healing, or praying over a body or touching a body and quoting scripture,” defense lawyer Thomas Clark told reporters after the hearing. “But when black Muslims do it, there seems to be something nefarious, something evil.”

[B2G]

6. Well let's see here.

They starved 11 kids, one of which died and was buried on the property and were training them in firearms use to attack 'corrupt institutions'.

Not buying it.

If these were white Christians, you'd be going apeshit.

[marble falls]

8. Allegedly. We don't try people in the press. The truth will out, there will be culpability.

[Fred Sanders]

9. Sentence first, verdict later is the internet trial procedure, as you know.

[marble falls]

10. Really hate it when we see it here.

[B2G]

12. Bail is not a sentence.

Good god.

[marble falls]

13. If you're poor bail most definately IS a sentence. Good G*d, indeed.

[B2G]

15. No, it's not. nt

[marble falls]

21. Yes. It most certainly is ...

jail time
Stay Informed

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/incomejails.html

Detaining the Poor:
How money bail perpetuates an endless cycle of poverty and jail time

By Bernadette Rabuy and Daniel Kopf
tweet this

May 10, 2016
Press release
Print/PDF version

In addition to the 1.6 million people incarcerated in federal and state prisons, there are 646,000 people locked up in more than 3,000 local jails throughout the U.S. Seventy percent of these people in local jails are being held pretrial — meaning they have not yet been convicted of a crime and are legally presumed innocent. One reason that the unconvicted population in the U.S. is so large is because our country largely has a system of money bail, in which the constitutional principle of innocent until proven guilty only really applies to the well off. With money bail, a defendant is required to pay a certain amount of money as a pledged guarantee he will attend future court hearings. If he is unable to come up with the money either personally or through a commercial bail bondsman, he can be incarcerated from his arrest until his case is resolved or dismissed in court.


<snip>

Rest of this informative article at link.

[ck4829]

17. +1

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. "bring your guns ... die as a martyr". That's in writing.

On Tuesday, a family member told CNN it was Leveille who wrote a letter to Wahhaj's brother in December, asking for money and weapons.

"Take all your money out the bank and bring your guns," said the letter, addressed to "Muhammad."

"Allah says He will protect you always, so follow until He makes you die as a martyr as you wanted and the only way is by joining the righteous (us)."

Leveille also warns Wahhaj's brother not to tell his father, because if he does, "you will put all of us in danger. So DON'T."

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/14/us/new-mexico-compound-investigation/index.html

So, yeah, they were secretive. We know they had plans to use guns to die as martyrs. That's in writing. Their children have said they were trained to use firearms to attack government entities. They definitely made a secret of that.

[Fred Sanders]

43. The letter could be interpreted many ways...see it through a White Lens...I think the one guy still

in custody was the leader and the rest forced to follow...is that too far out of the imagination if the subjects are not gun toting anti-government Christians?

Of which there are many times more than this bunch of one.

Here I trust the judge who harkened to the evidence and only the evidence at length.

Rule of law and equality of religion and all that stuff liberals believe.

[muriel_volestrangler]

44. Would you let the Manson family out, on the grounds that he was the leader and force them to follow?

He didn't write that letter.

You appear to be saying that if they were "gun toting anti-government Christians" you'd believe that they were following willingly, and could be kept in jail. It is equality of religion I think needs to be applied; we'd want fundamentalist Christians who kidnapped and killed a child in a bizarre ritual, and had a plan to attack the government, to be denies bail, and that should apply in this case too.

[Fred Sanders]

45. Your facts are messed up...what bizarre ritual?...what evidence of that other than a body?

You not trust the judge and the evidence heard in court...not the court of social media, the actual court?

Further discussion is then pointless.

[muriel_volestrangler]

46. "Leveille believed that Abdul-Ghani was her baby and Ramzi had stolen him from her womb ...

... using black magic, Taylor said.

In the rituals, which went on for several days, Abdul-Ghani's father recited verses from the Quran and held his hand on the boy's forehead as he foamed from the mouth, Taylor said. During one of those rituals, according to the children, Abdul-Ghani passed out and his heart stopped beating, the agent testified.

He has passed on, Taylor said, but the family believed he had already died and that his body was inhabited by demons. They believed he would return four months later as Jesus and lead them on their mission, Taylor said.

His body was washed several times, wrapped in sheets and then buried on the compound, the agent testified. As his body deteriorated, he was moved to a tunnel beneath the compound, where two of the adults would wash his body every other day, according to Taylor."

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/13/us/new-mexico-compund-suspects/index.html

Yes, that bizarre ritual. Not "the court of social media", but the evidence presented in court, as reported by CNN. Not "messed up facts", but what witnesses say. And note that, again, it's not the father of the boy doing this, but his partner, who is now free.

Don't stop. I feel I am informing you.

[Fred Sanders]

49. Sure. Information is good. The agent Taylor got his information from who?

Judge heard four hours of presentation and documents I assume...

"After four hours of testimony on Monday, a judge sided with the defense. She ruled that the suspects were not shown to be a threat and allowed them unsecured bond. (Other than one male main defendant)

"What I've heard here today is troubling, definitely. Troubling facts about numerous children in far from ideal circumstances and individuals who are living in a very unconventional way -- although if you have lived in northern New Mexico for any period of time you are aware that many people here live in unconventional ways," Judge Sarah Backus said."

.......

But Siraj Wahhaj's lawyer said "no one would bat an eye" if the suspects were white Christians accused of shooting guns on their property or practicing their religion.

"If these were white people of a Christian faith who owned guns, that's not a big deal because there's a Second Amendment right to own firearms in this country. If these were white Christians, faith healing is of no consequence because we have freedom of religion in this country. But they look different and they worship differently from the rest of us," Thomas Clark said Monday."

How about Rick Santorum's Christian sect where he took a still born daughter home for a proper Christian ritual...bizarre, right? Not criminal though, apparently.

[muriel_volestrangler]

51. "according to the children"

unless, that is, you think they are "child actors".

Jesus fucking Christ, there is all the difference in the world between taking a stillborn baby home for a funeral and a ritual in which a 3 year old is killed (and extreme symptoms like foaming at the mouth get ignored). No, they are not remotely of the same bizarreness. You are really grasping at straws to defend killers.

[marble falls]

65. I'm so shocked that people can't get this. For the local authorities to have charged ...

only child abuse should indicate something about how low of a threat the local authorities think of the suspects. Particularly with the racial and Islamaphobic aspects in whatever it was that happened there. The press doesn't seem to by trying these guys, but the readers sure seem to be.

[LanternWaste]

48. Additionally (as you know), visceral reactions on DU have no legal standing.

They are simply that... visceral reactions rather than actual sentencing, verdicts, trials, indictments, or any other for of jurisprudence.

But I get it... opposition to inconsequential opinions are important.

[Fred Sanders]

50. If no one made or responded to visceral reactions the social media would shut down!

Just doing my duty to correct the quick draw thinking.

Not following your point at all!

[B2G]

11. ALL bail is based on allegations.

It's set on charges, before the trial.

You understand that, right?

[marble falls]

14. Could you be any more patronizing?...

Seeing the condition of their assets where in the hell do you think they'll escape to? Texas? Arizona? Down the street to the next town?

If the news reports are correct you'll have them in jail soon enough after a Constitutionally guaranteed due process. Isn't that the least you'd want at your trial - guilty or not?

[B2G]

16. Yep. nt

[LisaL]

24. I guess we will have to wait and see.

[rusty fender]

47. Exactly!

Shouldn’t starving and subjecting the kids to freezing temperatures in the winter be considered abuse?

I guess that the judge wasn’t paying attention

[LisaL]

25. There was a body of dead child found on the property.

[marble falls]

29. Of which in itself doesn't mean any law was broken or even which law was broken: murder to ...

mishandling a corpse. These guys thought the dead kid was going to be made well and become the Messiah. He was sent to the compound by male members of his family to drive evil spirits thought to cause that poor child's list of disablements.

The prosecutors seem to mulling over a range of things before filing all the charges they may make in the end.

There is no doubt the children were malnourished but aren't the adults from the compound malnourished also? I'd certainly wait for an inquest and a grand jury and a trial before considering sentencing. If it were me, its the least I'd want guilty or not.

[appal_jack]

38. No, the adults do not appear to be malnourished.

I'll re-post the imgur link I originally saw in rely #34:
https://imgur.com/gallery/GNeyX3k

Pretty well-fed adults, if slender by American standards.

This seems like a bad call by the judge. It wouldn't kill you to admit that, sir.

-app

[christx30]

18. It was a signature bond.

They didn’t have to pay a dime.
These people are going to disappear like a fart in the wind. Well, except for the one that ICE arrested. No bail for her.
Probably the only time I’ll say this, but yay ICE.

[B2G]

20. Yeah, I can't belive some here are OK with this. nt

[marble falls]

30. How about an inquest and a grandjury with a finding of fact and a trial before we ...

put them jail. You know: due process? That's what I'd want, wouldn't you want that, too? And neither of us are guilty of anything, right?

[christx30]

34. How about taking the facts of the case,

witness testimony, and holding them pending trial? It’s done all the time. When people are dangerous, when the accusations against them are bad enough, they are held until tiltial. What’s so terrible about that?
These are not just people living life differently than the rest. These are bad guys.
https://imgur.com/gallery/GNeyX3k
What’s this judge going to do when these folks disappear? Cause you gotta know that’s going to happen. They’re gonna cut off their ankle monitors and be out of there. I seriously doubt they’ll voluntarily see the inside of a courtrooom.

[marble falls]

37. This went through the cops, through a prosecutor and at least the arraigning judge ...

I trust them. There's more to this then we know.

Texas executes people who are found later to have been innocent of killing their own children. There is no reason to think that if the authorities thought for a second that murder of a child was committed those men would have walked out of court.

How about we wait until the authorities explain what it is you and I do not know yet?

Save sentencing for the end of the process.

[christx30]

61. I don't trust the authorities to do the right thing.

They’ve already bulldozed the compound.
My guess is that they are hiding what went on there. The people that murdered the child and abused the rest aren’t going to face much of any consequences for their actions. Yay.

[marble falls]

62. But a lynch mob is okey doke? Do you live in New Mexico?

[christx30]

63. I'm not saying lunch mob.

I’m saying that people that are accused of terrible crimes and deemed dangerous or flight risks are frequently held until trial. Hell, OJ Simpson was held before and during his trial for the two murders. This guy is a Sudenese national accused of letting a kid die. Kid was sick, and he tried to perform an exorcism on him. He had weapons on his fortified property. He has been accused of abusing the kids, leaving them in horrible conditions, and training those kids to murder others.
Lynch mob? Hardly. But to release him with nothing but an ankle monitor is just idiotic. He may not have access to the kids or his weapons, but it doesn’t take much to steal a truck and find a street festival somewhere to mow down. I’d love to get the dumbassed judge’s take if he does that. It’d probably be just a shrug and an “oh well”.

[marble falls]

64. You'd like to start punishing these guys for crimes they have't been charged with ...

sounds awfully lynch-y to me. But I will forever appreciate the lunch mob in your title line!

If they are presumed innocent until proven guilty why can't they have a signature bond?

You do know that the dead child was an extremely ill child that was held by this sect as the Messiah, that he would be revealed as Messiah as soon as the demons that gave some extremely grave conditions were driven from him. This was not intentional though it may have been the result of religious fervor. It most certainly was not capitol murder.

There are different levels of child abuse, also. Sometimes its used just to allow the state to take control of unintentionally abused children from adults who for whatever reason haven't been giving good care to the children with no emotional abuse as an element. They love their children, they lost their way.

Please wait for all the elements to come out and the authorities to get their cases in order. Then we can have a trial and maybe come to a justice for all. Trials are not about the person, they're about trying the facts of a charge against a person. Justice is absolutely is not about any individual. Its about society.

No matter what happened to that poor child, he will never get justice in any degree whether these defendants get a medal or get hung. The question is what exactly happened to this child and who or what caused it and how society decides to react to it.

How our society reacts is to rely on due process: trial first with a presumption of innocence and then the hanging.

[christx30]

66. Do you think Ethan Couch's mom

should go free before her trial? She’s being charged with a few things, but nothing riding to the level of those in New Mexico. But she’s being held before her trial because she’s a flight risk. No signature bond for her. What’s the difference, if any?
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142138343

[AncientGeezer]

53. What are your thoughts about the freak that taunted a Bison in Or...

Last edited Thu Aug 16, 2018, 08:03 PM - Edit history (1)

being held w/out bail until his next appearance next week?
I'm pretty sure there were no malnourished kids...let alone dead kids on his property..we could stipulate that right?

[marble falls]

54. He'd spent the best of a week trying to interact with buffalo, he deserves whatever his ...

trial decides is appropriate. He's being held because he will not post bond, and because this went through federal cops/rangers, a federal prosecutor and an arraigning federal judge I feel that their decision is good as gold,

Two things. You accused me of trivializing a dead child by suggesting a fair trial was what was needed for the New Mexico accused. I think you go a lot further in trivializing that death by comparing that dead child to a buffalo.

The second: I have experience with facing off a buffalo. If I had been gored to death which they do often enough and thoroughly, it would have been very hard to argue it was his fault and not mine. . I was on the other side of a picnic table in a Yellowstone camp ground. I was less than 5 feet from him with a hip to foot cast and a cane. My strategy was to dive under the table if he came at me. S-T-U-P-I-D.

The rangers pulled up about 20 yards away in a cloud of dust jumped out of the truck and ran around to get it between them and the buff to "observe". They observe because it is very hard and dangerous to herd buffalo, particularly in an occupied campground.

That was what me understand how stupid I was. I backed very slowly up and into the motor home.

About a day, maybe two later a French tourist was taking a picture of his friend in front of a buff. When the camera went click the buff turned his head and hooked the friend in the gut and threw him into the air and about 15 ft. One month later that guy died. That was August '83.

So my personal feeling is he's actually in protective custody because he'd been warned four or five times inside a week to leave Yellowstone big game alone and he was too stupid to do that. He went through the process and it left him in jail because he won't post bond and his trial's PDQ. I want him to get due process just like I want those arrested in New Mexico to get due process. If they get charged with murder and they get sentenced for it, I have no problem. But before you find them guilty of child murder shouldn't they be charged first and then tried and only after that, punished?

https://people.com/celebrity/yellowstone-hot-springs-death-underscores-dangers-at-park/


A Brief Roundup of the Dangers of Yellowstone National Park

But Yellowstone isn’t Disney. And while occasionally animals can be the ones that suffer because of people’s actions – as in the case of a newborn baby bison that was euthanized earlier this month after two tourists placed it in the back of their SUV to “keep it warm” – it’s usually people who are learning hard, and occasionally fatal, lessons.

More frequent are incidents involving animals: In 2010 and 2011, there were four grizzly bear fatalities in Yellowstone after 25 years without a bear-related death. One possible reason for that is the rise of camera phones: Tourists seeking the perfect Yellowstone selfie often get too close to the park’s animals, which are, after all, wild. However, one of the worst bison-related incidents was the 1983 goring of a French tourist who was posing six feet from an animal when it attacked him. He wound up with a torn colon, punctured stomach, four broken ribs and injuries to his spleen.

Last year was a banner year for bison-selfie-related incidents. In just July, there had already been five cases of tourists being thrown around by the animals; all the individuals were attempting to photograph or take selfies with the animals.

I know that Frenchman died because returning back through Yellowstone a month later I read about him dying in the Yellowstone newspaper.




What does this have to do with whatever happened in New Mexico? New Mexican officials haven't released all the facts or even finished their investigation. When they do talk to me about that. Right now you are jumping the gun and the facts are not all in.

[marble falls]

55. Sorry Geezer I mistook you for B2G. Just remove the comments directed to B2G and ...

forgive me for not knowing who I was talking to!

[B2G]

57. You used a lot of words

Replying to me about a post about buffalo that never made. Lol.

[marble falls]

58. Just think: if you'd only looked at the post above yours, you'd know I knew that already ...

wouldn't you?

All those words work just fine. Geezer and I get along and I did answer his question, didn't I? Now sit down, I have some bad news for you: they got to exactly the two people I wrote them for, one unintentionally.

Maybe you'd like to tune this sentence up to make sense?

"Replying to me about a post about buffalo that never made." Lol!!

[ck4829]

22. Weird how they're threatening the judge and not the prosecutor who clearly dropped the ball here

[LisaL]

23. What is it do you think prosecutor didn't do that he should have done?

[nycbos]

26. While death threats are never acceptable people like this should not get bail.

[C_U_L8R]

27. That should be an easy call to trace

These reichwingnuts are a few noodles short of a spaetzle.
It's not like there are payphones on every corner anymore.

[RhodeIslandOne]

28. This judge made an awful call.

Again, weed dealers are sitting in jail while folks like this will run.

[marble falls]

31. Cut the weed dealers loose, too, dude/dudess!

[RhodeIslandOne]

32. Hey, I'm not that blaise about a dead child

With you, shit happens hey?

[marble falls]

33. Oh no its not. I'm willing to allow the law to work its course, we don't want to be recruiting a ...

lynch mob, do we?

How about we pay attention to the news but leave justice to the correct jurisdiction, that town just south of Nofuckingwhere, Texas. And keep it nice and legal.

No ones getting away with murder here in Texas. We execute more people than any country except the US and China. If it were obviously murder, they'd have been charged. This is Texas, rural Texas - if it were slam dunk, well the arrested ARE PoC AND Muslim for Pete's sake. If it were obvious they'd be behind bars.

How about we find out what the authorities know before we lock people up?

[Judi Lynn]

35. Your spirit and character are exceptional. So glad you took the time.

There were kicks taken at you, but for no good reason, and you answered intelligently, as if you had actually thought about the information.

Wish others had a way to get a grasp, and do some thinking, themselves. It would be transformative.

Thank you.

[marble falls]

40. As I've gotten older I find knee jerk reactions are more jerk and less knee ...

As I've gotten older nuance becomes more important. I'm seeing the other side easier than ever.

Thanks.

[RhodeIslandOne]

39. I thought this was New Mexico? n/m

[marble falls]

41. Doh! Eastbumblefuck, New Mexico, south of Eastbumblefuck, New Mexico - a state with ...

2% black population according to https://suburbanstats.org/population/how-many-people-live-in-new-mexico

Same as Texas regarding Black population rurally.

[secondwind]

42. Being very honest here. I would not have granted bail.

[AncientGeezer]

52. Dumb decision...to grant a signature bond. There is a dead kid involved AT least.

The dumb ass that taunted a Bison in Or is being held w/out bail until his next appearance 23Aug. And that freak didn't have a bunch of malnourished kids..let alone a dead 1 on the property

[marble falls]

56. They were charged with child abuse. Not Murder or anything else. They qualified for bond.

[AncientGeezer]

59. They should get bail and a guy that teased a buffalo should't

[marble falls]

60. Yes. For reasons I already enumerated above ...

Buffalo boy had been warned four or five times over a week to leave big game alone. Buffalo boy refused to pay bond. Buffalo boy gets to sit in jail. This went through the hands of buffalo boy, federal cops/rangers, a federal prosecutor and a federal arraigning judge.

The New Mexico defendants were arrested by cops for suspicion and charged by cops and local prosecutors for child abuse and arraigned by a judge. And bonded out.

If you are held for "investigation" without being arraigned in several days, your lawyer will spring you on "habeas corpus". There were other agencies that were involved with this decision, too, that determined whether these men would run or potentially create further crime or not. Every party said to bond these guys out and because they had no other arrests or interaction with law enforcement, unlike Buffalo boy, they got a signature bond. We do have a presumption of innocence here, particularly for crimes we haven't been charged with, like murder.

I do not get whats so hard to understand about this. Take all emotions out of this and let's wait for all the facts and charges to made before we hang anybody - Buffalo boy or the New Mexico defendants.