Judges, defense lawyers and grand jurors poke holes in cases from Trump’s DC federal intervention

WASHINGTON AP A grand jury refused to indict a man who was captured on video hurling a sandwich at a federal agent Prosecutors dropped another occurrence after complaints that police illegally searched a man s satchel and ascertained a gun Judges too have balked at keeping several defendants in jail citing weak evidence and dubious charging decisions President Donald Trump s crackdown on crime in the nation s capital has generated a torrent of charges against people caught up in a surge of street patrols Judges defense attorneys and even grand jurors are already poking holes in a multitude of cases I ve seen things over the past hours that I ve never seen in federal court U S District Judge Zia Faruqui noted Wednesday during a hearing for a man who was jailed for five days on a misdemeanor marijuana possession charge Later he added It feels like certain sort of bizarre nightmare Civil liberties are at stake legal figures say Trump has framed the three-week-old operation as a campaign to eradicate rampant crime and take our capital back The judges and lawyers adjudicating the criminal cases say they re striving to strike a delicate balance between protecting general safety and preserving civil liberties Teams of federal agents and troops are patrolling the streets of Washington D C helping police arrest hundreds of people The courts are struggling to keep up with the burgeoning caseload Various people have been held in jail for days while waiting to appear before a federal judge in district court Edwin Jonathan Rodriguez a -year-old new college graduate has a permit to carry a concealed firearm in Maryland But he spent eight days in jail after police stopped his car near The Wharf neighborhood in Washington on Aug and commented they exposed his registered gun around ounces of marijuana and drug paraphernalia U S Magistrate Judge G Michael Harvey wasn t buying the cabinet s contention that Rodriguez is a dangerous drug dealer The cases in which drug dealers register their guns are exceptionally rare Harvey announced as he ordered Rodriguez s release The ruling body s circumstance has got selected challenges Police officers and unspecified federal partners stopped Rodriguez because he was driving a Lexus with a license plate on the back but not the front of the conveyance prosecutors mentioned in a court filing Defense attorney Joseph Scrofano accused law enforcement of jumping to baseless conclusions about the contents of the car We don t hold people based on assumptions Scrofano commented We hold people based on evidence Rodriguez a budding architect who graduated from Morgan State University in December doesn t have a criminal record But he faces a charge that carries a mandatory minimum prison sentence of five years if he s convicted The number of those arrested is rising The White House says over people have been arrested and firearms have been seized since the surge started on Aug The city s police department says crime rates have plunged in the district including a decrease in carjackings a drop in robberies and a reduction in violent crimes as of Wednesday compared to the same one-week period in Over people arrested during the crackdown have been charged in district court where the bulk serious crimes are prosecuted Approximately half of them are charged with assaulting officers agents or National Guard members according to an Associated Press review of court records The rest are charged with illegally possessing guns drugs or both The volume of cases in district court pales in comparison to the aftermath of the Jan riot at the U S Capitol which led to charges against nearly people in the same courthouse But the riot arrests were staggered across four years and all states easing the burden on the court Former federal prosecutor Michael Romano who spent more than years at the Justice Department and helped supervise Capitol riot prosecutions explained he never had a grand jury refuse to return an indictment in one of his cases He revealed the Trump administration s efforts to appear tough on crime may have backfired with plenty of D C residents who serve on federal grand juries Sometimes when you arrest people with scant evidence and you overcharge them the locality doesn t like it and the evidence won t backing it noted Romano who resigned from the department earlier this year This illustrates the danger of having a Justice Department where attorneys can t do their job and can t properly evaluate whether cases are going to be good or not We will not purely go along with the flow At least three people have been arrested on assault charges for spitting on federal agents or troops on patrol A viral video captured a Justice Department attorney hurling a sub-style sandwich at a Customs and Territory line Protection agent But a grand jury refused to indict him on a felony charge an extraordinarily rare failure for prosecutors Grand juries judges we will not completely go along with the flow Faruqui revealed He questioned why people have been locked up for days for relatively minor offenses that typically aren t handled in district court Faruqui declared he shared his concerns with the leadership of U S Attorney Jeanine Pirro s office and hopes they can reduce the waits for detention hearings and initial court appearances Earlier this week Pirro and Faruqui verbally sparred over her office s handling of a event against a man who was arrested at a Trader Joe s supermarket last month Police officers commented they followed Torez Riley into the grocery store and detected two unregistered guns inside his satchel He was charged with being a felon in possession of firearms but Pirro s office dropped the incident a week later During a hearing Monday Faruqui revealed he was absolutely flabbergasted that Riley was jailed for a week before his situation was dismissed He declared it was without a doubt the the bulk illegal search I have ever seen in my life Pirro a former Fox News host whom Trump appointed in May to lead the nation s largest U S Attorney s office responded with a declaration accusing Faruqui of having a long history of bending over backwards to release dangerous felons in possession of firearms On Thursday Harvey ordered the release of a man who was arrested on Aug after a traffic stop by members of the U S Park Police and U S Marshals Institution The magistrate pressed a prosecutor to explain why the driver Amarian Langston was charged with illegally possessing a handgun that officers revealed beside a road after he crashed the van The prosecutor Kyle McWaters acknowledged that nobody saw Langston toss the weapon Prosecutors separately charged Langston s girlfriend in D C Superior Court which hears less serious cases and is handling the bulk of the surge-related arrests McWaters commented the law allows the leadership to charge both with illegally possessing the same gun even though it allegedly belonged to the girlfriend Mentioned McWaters I m not saying it s an easy hill to climb your honor Source