Politics - News Analysis

Proud Boy Wants Early Release From Jail Because of ‘Poor Living Conditions’ — Judge Says NOPE

How very MAGA:

“Judge, this jail is awful. It is dirty, the medical care is bad, people are really mean to me. Please put me in home confinement, where I promise to suffer near equal punishment.”

Signed, Entitled Proud Boy MAGA Man Henry “Enrique” Tarrio

The above is basically the argument that Tarrio’s attorney made to the court. To be sure, some jail conditions in this country are likely unconstitutional, indeed more than a few. Jail is meant to punish someone by taking away their freedom, not making their lives extra terrible with a lack of sanitation, abuse from others, or lack of medical care.

But the remedy for those situations is to ask the judge to order the sheriff to make improvements to the jail, or then start releasing people, one or the other. Sheriffs are elected. If the option is fix the jail or people get released, the jail will get fixed.

According to The Guardian:

In a ruling released on Friday, superior court judge Jonathan H Pittman said poor living conditions were not sufficient reason for Henry “Enrique” Tarrio to be transferred to house arrest or to have his sentence reduced.

Tarrio claimed to have been harassed by correctional officers and said his cell regularly floods with water from a toilet in a neighboring cell.

Both of which should be stopped immediately. Again, prison is about punishment by confining people away from society, not abusing them further, or allowing abuse from other inmates.

(He is in jail for burning a BLM flag at a historic black church, and he’s the leader of a major white supremacist group. He cannot expect to be popular.)

“I’ve been to jail before and what I’ve seen here, I’ve never seen anywhere else,” Tarrio said in a video testimony.

Tarrio also described abusive guards, smoke-filled hallways and medical neglect, saying he witnessed a prisoner have a seizure and wait for half an hour before help arrived.

These are legitimate concerns and he should file a motion against the county sheriff (Sheriffs run jails, states run prisons) to clean up the conditions. Framed in that light, the judge may want to hear more and then sympathize with Enrique.

But he’s not going home.

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[email protected] and on Substack: Much Ado About Everything

meet the author

Jason Miciak is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is originally from Canada but grew up in the Pacific Northwest. He now enjoys life as a single dad raising a ridiculously-loved young girl on the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He is very much the dreamy mystic, a day without learning is a day not lived. He is passionate about his flower pots and studies philosophical science, religion, and non-mathematical principles of theoretical physics. Dogs, pizza, and love are proof that God exists. "Above all else, love one another."

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