Prosecutors to Defendant: Take Down Your Website and Move Out of Town
May 25, 2006
I get at least a couple of really kooky e-mails a week. Each time, it's some person writing to tell me that his case is the next Constitutional Right Case of the Twentieth Century. It never is.
In any event, today I receieved what I thought would be yet another kooky e-mail, with the sender writing: "Please get involved, the time is right and there needs to be someone brave enough to join me. Rosa Parks was a lightning rod, I feel the same way." Self-comparisons to civil rights heroes is almost dispositive evidence that the sender is a kook. But this time I'm not so sure...
The sender of the most-recent e-mail attached a proposed plea agreement that was purpodedly drafted by Hawaii prosecutor Marc E. Guyot. I took a look. The attached document was, as they say, very, very interesting.
In the plea agreement, the prosecutor agrees to dismiss all charges against the defendant if the defendant will, among other things, take down his website (which is critical of local police) and move out of town. No community service, no probation. Shut up and move out of town and prosecutors will kick the case.
Has anyone heard of such a proposed deal? It seems pretty bizarre to me, and does have the smell of some home cooking. Thoughts?
(The proposed plea agreement is here; the defendant's website is here.)
UPDATE: I'm slammed with work right now, but I do intend to blog more about the case. The defendant seems to be getting a raw deal. My tentative conclusion is that the police and prosecutors, tired of his being a gadfly, have charged him under very questionable circumstances. His site is well worth checking out.