Watch Video of Fleming Island Man Busting Through Door on Jan. 6.
Watch Video of Fleming Island Man Busting Through Door on Jan. 6.
Plus, Prosecutor's Response to Change-of-Venue Plea
“I guess the door was broken…lol.”
The feds have a video of Marcus Smith helping to bust through a House door during the January 6 riot. And they have a response to Smith’s request to have his trial moved to Jacksonville in part because travel to Washington would be a financial burden.
Prosecutors replied, “Despite the apparent financial hardship of traveling to D.C., Mr. Smith nonetheless previously traveled here to participate in the events in question.” In other words, you had the money to attend the riot, you can afford come back for the trial.
More on the change-of-venue question after the video below, which was recently entered into evidence in the federal case against the Fleming Island man. The video was first aired on Twitter by the Sedition Hunters group.
Sedition Hunters describes itself as a “global community of open-source intelligence investigators working together to assist the U.S. FBI and Washington D.C. Capitol Police in finding people who allegedly committed crimes in the January 6 Capitol riots.”
10 Seconds of Footage
According to prosecutors, Smith used “lol” on Facebook referring to the incident:
A few hours after leaving the Capitol, the defendant sent the video he captured inside the building to an acquaintance through Facebook. The defendant then sent a message to the same person in reference to the door that he helped break down, stating, “There were 1k’s of us inside the capital and didn’t break anything. Just walked around. I guess the door was broken…lol.”
Prosecutors said that no judge has yet granted a change of venue to a Jan. 6 defendant because of the Constitutional principle that defendants ought to be tried in the state where the crime happened. They argued that the jury screening process was sufficient to detect juror bias, despite intense media coverage of the January 6 aftermath.
Trump Trial a Factor
Arguing for a change of venue, Smith’s lawyers said one of the other door smashers has already been convicted by a D.C. jury on similar charges. Also, the fact that dozens of rioters have been convicted in D.C. courts thus far was itself a factor in biasing the Washington jury pool.
Representing Smith, Attorney Benjamin Nemec also wrote that the voir-dire juror screening process had been distorted by the fact that former President Trump was also facing charges in the district:
First, the number of jury trials would indicate many residents in the jury pool have served or know someone who has served in a January 6 jury. The residents know about the process. That means if someone wants to get on a jury to enact political vengeance, they know everything they need to say to escape voir dire—rendering voir dire ineffective.
Second, as explained above, the January 6 coverage will be at its zenith when Mr. Smith’s trial goes forward. Those trials did not have to contend with President Trump being declared immune or a high-profile January 6 case proceeding if President Trump is not found immune. That puts Mr. Smith in a different, and more prejudicial, position than those who came before.
Smith lawyers have also asked the judge to drop six of the seven charges against him. He was charged with 1. Destruction of government property, 2. Entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, 3. Disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, 4. Engaging in physical violence in restricted building or grounds, 5. Disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, 6. Act of physical violence in a Capitol building and 7. Parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building.
If the judge were to grant the motion, Smith would only face trial on a charge of committing an act of physical violence in a Capitol building.
Nemec said some of the indictments fail to state how Smith commited the alleged crimes. In some, he said, the “underlying statutes are void-for-vagueness.”
Nemec also argued the “restricted building and grounds” charges are bogus because they were based on the presence of Vice-President Mike Pence at the time of the riot. “Counts two, three and four fail to allege anyone protected by the secret service was temporarily visiting the Capitol because the Vice President can’t temporarily visit the Capitol. He worked there,” he wrote.
He made the choice to participate in a riot at the Capitol rather than walk away. If he did the crime, he should do the time. NO ONE is above the law.