by Travis Mateer
The guilty verdict in Trump’s hush money trial has given those suffering from TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) a reason to celebrate, but celebrating the impression that the verdict is a victory just shows how the anti-Trump faction in this country has learned NOTHING about Trump supporters over the years.
Trump supporters are galvanized by this court decision because the criminal justice system has become a joke of judicial activism and selective punishment based NOT on standards of lawful conduct, but on extraneous factors, like victim status. When you take a look at what is happening and NOT happening in Missoula’s Municipal Court, you’ll see what I’m talking about. Let’s begin with this Missoulian headline:
From the link:
Kenneth Grable walked into Yoke’s Fresh Market in June 2023. In the deli area, he stuffed a sandwich down his pants. It wasn’t his first time stealing from Yoke’s. He stole from there a month prior, when he was formally banned from the store, according to court documents.
Grable, a homeless man, accrued 29 misdemeanor citations in municipal court from 2022 to 2023, mostly dealing with theft and prior notices that he was barred from Yoke’s property, court documents show. Employees witnessed the sandwich theft in June 2023 and called police. By the time officers arrived, Grable had eaten the sandwich.
Officers then charged Grable with burglary, a felony in Montana. Because Grable was previously told to stay off Yoke’s property, the burglary charge was applicable under state law.
Why is our criminal justice system “grappling” with felony burglary cases? Well, when you’re homeless, you are obviously a victim, and victims need excuses made for them about why they are engaging in criminal behavior, like stealing from a store over and over again, then mocking the employees after they call 911, which is what our community development director, Eran Pehan, suggests doing. Hilarious!
The “problem” of charging repeat offenders with more serious crimes is being framed as a problem by the Public Defender’s Office, but that’s NOT how the County Attorney’s Office sees it. What I think they see is three Municipal Court judges who were ALL formerly public defenders deploying a level of judicial activism from the bench that District Court is having to clean up by imposing more severe consequences.
Here’s more from the article (emphasis mine):
For the last several months, criminal justice advocates, including staff at the Missoula Public Defender’s Office, have raised concerns over a rising trend of suspects getting felony burglary charges for stealing cheap products like beer or food from retailers.
How people accused of low-level theft crimes in Missoula — almost all of whom are homeless — are handled in the criminal justice system has also shown a divide between the city’s three municipal court judges and the Missoula County attorney.
Missoula’s municipal court and the county attorney’s office operate independently from one another in Missoula’s criminal justice system. But decisions made by either department can have reverberating effects for people accused of high- and low-level crimes.
Missoula’s interim County Attorney Matt Jennings says there is a small group of repeat offenders instilling a sense of “lawlessness” who need to be held accountable. Missoula’s city judges caution that handing out jail time and steep fines for petty theft drives more people into an overburdened criminal justice system.
Isn’t this amazing? We have judges decrying the consequences of imposing ANY jail time or “steep” fines for these poor homeless victims who just can’t help themselves from committing rampant theft, and we have their former comrades in the Public Defender’s Office raising the alarm that the meanies at the County Attorney’s Office are now charging these poor victims with felonies.
It’s ironic that a lack of substantive consequences seems to be the trend coming from Municipal Court, considering how these three former Public Defenders claimed to have NOT shared resources during their political campaign, despite having the same campaign signs, something I wrote about here.
If you click that link you will see how the political consulting firm, Westridge Creative, connects to Pete Talbot, the son of CIA man John Talbot, and the former blogger who recently called me a sociopath on Facebook. But don’t fret, our political Municipal Court judges say there’s NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT HERE!
The accusation that repeat offenders are going unchecked in city court is inaccurate, Streano and fellow municipal judges Eli Parker and Jacob Coolidge contended. The three won seats in Missoula Municipal Court in 2021 on a campaign of judicial reform.
What does “judicial reform” mean to these judges? Does it mean playing victim cards for anyone without a conventional form of housing? Apparently, yes, because homeless people are just trying to survive, unlike housed citizens. At least that’s what some defense attorneys are trying to claim after Grable’s plea deal is described in detail in the article.
Defense attorneys Lang and Forcella said the plea deals seem enticing because of the lack of jail time, and many times they are the best option for defendants. But getting a permanent felony charge on your record leaves people with major barriers to securing housing or a job.
It’s easier to go through the probationary sentence when a person already has housing, a job and a support network, they said. People without that are focused on surviving, making it more likely for them to commit another crime.
To bolster this victim-status argument, a victimhood professional from Montana Women Votes is quoted saying this (emphasis mine):
Nicole Gomez works as the justice initiative director at Montana Women Vote, a nonprofit that tracks social issues across the state. Gomez said they’re aware of at least six unhoused people with recent felony burglary cases in Missoula. Gomez said many of them are also Indigenous.
“Our concern is that there seems to be a discriminatory pattern at play in which these felony burglary charges are being applied to unhoused individuals for low-level, nonviolent crimes, and we’re not seeing the same application to other members of the Missoula community,” she said in an email. “Therefore, while the charges might be legally sufficient, there does seem to be evidence of bias or targeting in the application of those charges.”
Municipal court doesn’t play a role in these cases, Lang and Forcella said.
“These are prosecutor decisions,” they wrote. “There has been talk that the municipal court is not ‘punishing’ misdemeanor thefts enough and that has forced the county to file these felony charges.”
Our criminal justice system has become so confounding that nothing makes much sense when you actually examine what’s happening, like I’ve been doing since Sean Stevenson and Ben Mousso were murdered in 2020 without their killers ever being formally charged by COUNTY attorneys for their deaths. Remember that when someone like County Attorney, Matt Jennings, whines about the lawlessness of Municipal Court.
If you appreciate my coverage of our local decent into anarchy, please consider donating to Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF). Any little bit helps.
Thanks for reading!
