Last week, George Donnelly was arrested and imprisoned for “assaulting” a U.S. Marshal. Donnelly and some other activists were outside the courthouse in Allentown, PA, handing out pamphlets and discussing the concept of jury nullification. In short, they were exercising their constitutionally protected first amendment rights.

He was singled out and accosted by federal officers for filming the protest. I suspect that he was filming officers who were engaged in prohibited acts, i.e., trying to bully the assembly to disperse, telling them they could not be there, misrepresenting the law, etc. He probably refused to surrender his camera (he had no legal obligation to do so) and this was considered “resisting”, but it is more accurately described as “contempt of cop”.

Donnelly is essentially under a gag order and is not allowed to talk about the case, but according to public records made available at Libertapedia:

[Donnelly] is accused of resisting Deputy U.S. Marshal Enrique Trevino and Court Security Officer Claire Burns and striking the latter. The allegation of physical contact ups the statutory maximum to 8 years, and ups the offense level from 10 to 13 under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, for a guideline range of 12-18 months, assuming no prior criminal history.

Anyone who has ever interacted with George knows beyond any doubt that he did not “assault” anyone. Now, this is not the first time Donnelly has been involved in such an altercation, and fortunately he has some video evidence from past encounters (see here, and here) which are illustrative of the type of behavior that the “officers of the law” exhibit; note the manner in which he responds to these drones.

I hope when the evidence sees the light of day, that George will be released without incident. Unfortunately, the State seems interested in making his life absolute hell until that time, and he will most likely need to retain legal counsel.

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