An attempted armored car heist leads to the prosecution of a suburban right-wing militia group that claims to be at war with the U.S. government.An attempted armored car heist leads to the prosecution of a suburban right-wing militia group that claims to be at war with the U.S. government.An attempted armored car heist leads to the prosecution of a suburban right-wing militia group that claims to be at war with the U.S. government.
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- Matthew Brant Jr.
- (as Jesse Tendler)
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Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe acronym SDS stood for Students for a Democratic Society, a student activist movement in the United States during the 1960's. SDS was considered the origin for the "New Left Wing" movement. It also heavily influenced "hippie" culture as well. It's members were outspoken opponents of many of the government's policies at the time: they were vehemently against the Cold War and the nuclear arms race as well as the Vietnam War. They also criticized racial discrimination, economic inequality, big businesses, trade unions, and political parties. The SDS has also been a large influence on past and current nonviolent civil disobedience movements.
- GoofsWhile looking at the disassembled handgun, the firearm technician and Detective Curtis state that the weapon's slide has been "filed down", making the gun fully automatic. While a semi-automatic firearm can be converted to fully automatic with some difficulty by modifying a number of internal parts, filing down the slide isn't one of them. While modifying the sear or other internal parts may be required to go full auto, modification of the slide is not.
- Quotes
Jack McCoy: This country began as an experiment in freedom. The foundation of that freedom is equality before the law. Everyone, whoever they are, whatever they may believe, must be equally accountable. Mr. Christie hopes you will ignore the evidence and nullify. A power, he says, derives from a higher law. I agree that such a higher law exists. And each of you, as members of the jury, bound yourselves to it when you swore, on your conscience, before God and as a citizen, that you would decide this case on the facts. You are asked to judge one thing, were the defendants, whatever their reasons, whatever their beliefs, part of a criminal conspiracy to commit armed robbery and murder? These guys did a great job of memorization; too bad they didn't lean from it. We all remember that phrase from the Declaration of Independence about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the unalienable rights of everyone. Notice that "life" comes first. You can forget everything else about this case, if you remember one thing: these defendants, these conspirators, targeted an ordinary citizen, someone just like yourselves, a guy with a job and in the private sector, with bills to pay and a family to take care of, and they took his life. They *took his life*! If it's okay for them to shoot him, it's okay for them to shoot anyone, including any one of you. Without the law, there can be no freedom, and without justice, there can be no law.
Here's the shock, these guys were solid suburban citizens from the Hudson Valley, the dead guy a teacher, the wounded one a cop from the Hastings- on-Hudson police force. And they've all got tattoos. How incredibly stupid for these mutts. Turns out they all went to the same tattoo parlor for these eagle tattoos with a Latin motto.
A little search by computer conscious Benjamin Bratt finds a web site for a militia group. Naturally these guys ain't talking, especially the wounded cop who they certainly have dead bang cold, so Sam Waterston charges the whole lot of them. If it wasn't for the tattoos probably the rest would never have been charged.
Denis O'Hare is the brother-in-law of the deceased and he's going to represent all of them pro bono. He gets a grand chance to spout his right wing conspiratorial theories. O'Hare is one scary dude and Steven Hill is quite right when he observes how this guy has really gotten under Waterston's skin.
The saddest case in this story is the deceased's son Jesse Tendler who is part of the militia having bought into all the conspiratorial garbage. One hopes he eventually sees the error of his ways.
It all rests with O'Hare trying for jury nullification or at best a hung jury. Just how determined is Waterston to get him and what will he do?
- bkoganbing
- Feb 14, 2015