A Judge has issued the first outright acquittal of a defendant charged in the Capitol siege.
By JOSH GERSTEIN and KYLE CHENEY, Politico, April 5, 2022
Following a two-day bench trial in U.S. District Court in Washington, New Mexico engineer Matthew Martin was acquitted Wednesday on four misdemeanor charges by Judge Trevor McFadden. Martin claimed that he thought the police had allowed him into an entrance near the Capitol Rotunda on Jan. 6.
McFadden said that, based on video of the scene, that assertion was at least “plausible” and that prosecutors failed to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. “People were streaming by and the officers made no attempt to stop the people,” said the judge, an appointee of President Donald Trump.
Prosecutors argued that broken windows and blaring alarms should have alerted Martin that he did not have permission to enter, but McFadden said the sheer size of the crowd coupled with the conduct of the police undermined that evidence.
The ruling is a blow to the Justice Department and seems likely to elevate similar defenses from hundreds of other members of the mob who have claimed that they didn’t know they weren’t permitted inside the Capitol and believed that police officers had approved their presence.
Martin, who became the first Jan. 6 defendant to testify in his own defense, said he believed that an officer waved him into the Rotunda lobby at about 3 p.m. that day. McFadden said that he did not believe that, but that the way the officer briefly interrupted the flow of people and then stepped back to allow it to resume could have given Martin that impression.
(Editors Note: The vast majority of Jan 6th Political Prisoners are being illegally held without bail or the right to a speedy trial - for OVER A YEAR - in order to force them to accept a "plea deal", even when they are not guilty, just to get out of prison. Mr. Martin is one of only perhaps 3 prisoners out of hundreds to get a trial and the first to testify in his own defence. These prisoners are also illegally being denied the right to have a trial moved to a new venue outside of Washington, DC because they can't get a fair jury trial in a city of government employees who voted 96% for Biden. )
“I do think the defendant reasonably believed the officers allowed him into the Capitol,” the judge said.
McFadden stressed that he wasn’t criticizing the officers, who he said “were grossly outnumbered at that point. I think they acted responsibly and reasonably throughout,” the judge said.
However, the verdict could be viewed as a message to prosecutors that pursuing criminal charges against nearly every demonstrator who entered the Capitol on Jan. 6 was unwise and that resources should have been trained more intensely on those accused of violence or of conspiring to block the electoral vote count.
McFadden called Martin’s conduct on Jan. 6 “about as minimal … as I can imagine.”
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Martin faced charges of entering a restricted area set up for a Secret Service protectee, disorderly conduct in such an area, disorderly conduct on the Capitol grounds and parading or demonstrating in the Capitol.
The judge said that after Martin went inside, he generally milled around and stayed away from areas in the Rotunda where some demonstrators were taunting and skirmishing with police.
“He did not shout. He did not raise his flag,” McFadden said.
McFadden also said that while Martin was in the Capitol, he spent much of the time making videos with his phone, which the judge said wasn’t much different than what members of the press were doing.
McFadden’s ruling is the latest in a series from the Trump-appointed judge that have disappointed prosecutors and broken sharply from colleagues on the U.S. District Court in Washington.
McFadden has repeatedly given short probation sentences to Jan. 6 defendants who the Justice Department has said deserved jail time. And he has questioned the merit of some of the misdemeanor cases that the department has brought against some of the nonviolent defendants in the Jan. 6 mob.
The ruling also highlights claims by dozens of Jan. 6 rioters that they believed they had permission to enter the Capitol because of the actions of the U.S. Capitol Police. Leaders there said the police department made decisions early in the day to focus on protecting lawmakers and securing the complex rather than arresting rioters, a decision that has resulted in the nationwide manhunt for hundreds of defendants that continues to this day.
A Capitol Police spokesperson declined to comment on McFadden’s decision.
