Law & Crime: Federal Judge Won’t Let Prosecutors Use Digital Cameras Seized from Accused U.S. Capitol Rioter Seen Boasting About ‘Fighting Cops’

Law & Crime: Federal Judge Won’t Let Prosecutors Use Digital Cameras Seized from Accused U.S. Capitol Rioter Seen Boasting About ‘Fighting Cops’ by Adam Klasfeld:

Prosecutors cannot use digital cameras seized from an accused U.S. Capitol rioter seen boasting on YouTube about “fighting cops and shit,” a federal judge ruled on Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb, a Joe Biden appointee, was among the slate of judicial nominees with a legal background as public defender, as part of the 46th president’s effort to promote diversity on the federal bench.

Now that sensitivity to the due process rights of the accused has redounded to the benefit of Paul Russell Johnson, a Virginia man whom the government identifies as having had a key role in the failed effort to block the certification of Biden’s victory.

“The defendant opened the floodgates to the January 6 riot,” the Justice Department wrote in a 31-page brief that opposed Johnson’s motion to suppress that evidence. “What followed were hours of terror, violence, and destruction as thousands of rioters made their way onto the Capitol grounds and inside the U.S. Capitol Building.”