DC woman accused of impeding officers transferring someone into ICE custody
Woman faces rare misdemeanor charge in immigration case
A D.C. woman is on trial, accused of impeding law enforcement officers transferring someone from the D.C. jail into ICE custody. Prosecutors tried and failed three times to indict her on a felony. Now, she faces a rare misdemeanor charge.
WASHINGTON - A D.C. woman is on trial, accused of impeding law enforcement officers transferring someone from the D.C. jail into ICE custody.
Prosecutors tried and failed three times to indict her on a felony. Now, she faces a rare misdemeanor charge.
The case at hand:
Do you have strong feelings about ice? And if so, can you still be fair and objective and a criminal trial? That was asked of D.C. residents this morning and the potential jury pool in the case of Sydney Reid.
Reid is a 44-year-old woman accused of impeding law enforcement as they were transferring to accused gang members from the D.C. jail to ICE custody in July.
She’s charged with a single misdemeanor because when the prosecutor tried to indict her on a felony charge related to the incident, they failed three separate times.
During selection, it took an extraordinarily long time this morning for a misdemeanor case with a single charge. That’s in part because of the nature of the case — a US citizen filming and then engaging with federal agents in the nation's capital.
The backstory:
The incident happened in July before the so-called D.C. takeover when President Donald Trump sent in National Guard troops.
The answer to the question of whether you have strong feelings about ice may have evolved since then. At least one legal expert says that question to potential jurors violates the 6th amendment, which guarantees a criminal defendant right to an impartial jury.
"As the jury selection just occurred, one of the things that the government wanted to do was ensure that any DC resident who was skeptical of the tactics that the Trump administration was using, the aggressive enforcement tactics in D.C., was not able to serve on a jury. In doing so, I think they violate the Sixth Amendment. The Sixth Amendment has a right to an impartial jury. That right resides with the accused. It does not reside with the government," said Mike FOX, a legal fellow in the Cato Institute's Project on Criminal Justice.
What's next:
The trial is ongoing.
It does appear the government shutdown is affecting the courts because the judge mentioned that jurors will receive their daily stipend, but that may stop until sometime later.