Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

How stupid are these people?

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Criminal Justice / (No) Horrorshow Open Thread: An Unlamented ‘Victim’ of the Pandemic

(No) Horrorshow Open Thread: An Unlamented ‘Victim’ of the Pandemic

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There’s just no media headspace for an aspiring young terrorist seeking political martyrdom. Per the Washington Post, “Suspect in New Zealand mosque shootings unexpectedly pleads guilty to 51 murder charges”:

Surprise, relief and a “mix of emotions” greeted the news Thursday that Brenton Tarrant, the man who had carried out New Zealand’s worst peacetime atrocity, had reversed his not-guilty plea and was convicted on all charges.

Tarrant killed 51 worshipers and injured dozens at two mosques in Christchurch on March 15 last year. The first of the attacks was live-streamed on the Internet.

The Australian national was charged with the highest number of murder counts brought against an individual in New Zealand’s history, to which a terrorism offense and 40 counts of attempted murder were added.

The reasons behind Tarrant’s surprise move to switch his plea to guilty remain unclear; he had previously denied culpability, and a trial had been scheduled for June. The news broke as New Zealand began a nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Appearing in Christchurch High Court on Thursday by video link from an Auckland prison, a gaunt Tarrant, 29, listened to the court registrar read out the charges and the names of the dead. Two senior members of Christchurch’s Muslim community were present, although victims’ families and other survivors did not attend.

Tarrant, who could face life in prison, was remanded into custody by Justice Cameron Mander, the presiding judge, until May 1, by which time a date for the sentencing would be set. Attorneys for Tarrant, New Zealand’s first convicted terrorist, did not respond to a request for comment…

Graeme Edgeler, a Wellington-based lawyer and legal commentator, noted that a guilty plea, however belated, might open the possibility of a sentence with parole.

“In New Zealand, a person pleading guilty is usually entitled to a reduction in their sentence for the guilty plea, so there may be a hope that a guilty plea will mean there will only be a life sentence with a very long nonparole period, instead of a sentence of life without parole,” he said.

The offense is so serious, however, “that even with a guilty plea, a life-without-parole sentence must still be likely,” Edgeler added…

Anjum Rahman, a spokeswoman for New Zealand’s Islamic Women’s Council, said that while the guilty plea did not deliver closure, “the main thing is that we do not have to sit through a whole court case and hear a defense of atrocious acts.”

New Zealand has been conducting an official inquiry into the massacre, with agencies such as the intelligence services questioned about the circumstances leading to the atrocity. But much evidence had been subject to suppression orders to avoid jeopardizing Tarrant’s right to a fair trial.

With Tarrant’s guilty plea, Rahman called Thursday for the inquiry evidence to be made public…

I suspect this sad little manling dreamed of the ‘celebrity’ he’d achieve when a sensation-hungry press picked through every detail of his miserable life and semi-literate manifesto, but COVID-19 is a mass murderer no mere incel racist can hope to compete against.

He’s ready to (unfortunately, some might say) get on with the rest of his life, under state supervision, rather than face the tedium of listening to a bunch of lawyers drone to an empty courtroom as if he were some mere shoplifter.

Reader Interactions

24Comments

  1. 1.

    NotMax

    Did news of Bill Cosby seeking release because of fear of contracting Covid-19 in prison reach New Zealand?

  3. 3.

    phdesmond

    [reposted from the end of your last thread]

     

    Anne, thank you for leaving that link to the Bobi Wine song the other day, https://twitter.com/i/status/1242850597067542531

    i included it in a newsletter i regularly send to 200 clients and friends.  one of my clients conducts research in Africa, and was just finishing up a 12-page report to his 80 researchers there, on what they can do to inform people about covid-19  and also stay safe.  he included the very link you posted, as part of his report.

    so, if i may say so, it’s sort of like from your fingertips to Africans’ ears!  all within a few days, when time is the scarcest commodity.

    (of course lots of people there already know the song.  but still … )

  4. 4.

    Amir Khalid

    It was nice of Tarrant to plead guilty and spare his victims’ families the pain of the trial. The verdict would never have been in doubt anyway.

  5. 5.

    Amir Khalid

    @NotMax:

    If Bill Cosby is afraid of catching the coronavirus, wouldn’t he be safer if he remained properly isolated in a prison cell?

  6. 6.

    HumboldtBlue

    An excellent read on the state of the news and where it goes from here.

    The shift to paywalls has been a boon for quality journalism. Instead of chasing trends on search engines and social media, subscription-based publications can focus on producing journalism worth paying for, which has meant investments in original reporting of all kinds. A small club of élite publications has now found a sustainable way to support its journalism, through readers instead of advertisers. The Times and the Post, in particular, have thrived in the Trump era.

    So have subscription-driven startups, such as The Information, which covers the tech industry and charges three hundred and ninety-nine dollars a year. Meanwhile, many of the free-to-read outlets still dependent on ad revenue—including former darlings of the digital-media revolution, such as BuzzFeed, Vice, HuffPost, Mic, Mashable, and the titles under Vox Media—have labored to find viable business models.

  7. 7.

    Starfish

    There is a branch of white supremacy called accelerationism, and we learned about it the other day when some dude wanted to blow up a hospital treating COVID-19 patients.

  8. 8.

    RobertDSC-Mac Mini

    An aunt and uncle in Fresno tested positive for C-19, spent time in the hospital, and were released after both showed lung volume improvement. Today, they went back to the hospital with breathing complications from C-19. They both have risk factors, so it’s touch and go for now.

  11. 11.

    mrmoshpotato

    MORE! OTTERS!

    Starting the weekend right with sea otter playtime! ? From faux “kelp” to hard hats and ice baths, some enrichment items that otters like Ellie play with may be surprising! Enrichment like this helps keep their days varied and allows them to express natural foraging behaviors. pic.twitter.com/DrY6MawCzO— Shedd Aquarium (@shedd_aquarium) March 28, 2020

  12. 12.

    mrmoshpotato

    Biff wants to politely ask you a bazillion questions to the point you get pissed off.

    Happy birthday, Biff! ? Last week, we threw a little birthday bash, complete with a fish and ice cake. Biff is a rescued sea lion, so we don’t know his exact age. But we estimate he is in his early to mid 20s. ?? pic.twitter.com/6hfYbwibgB— Shedd Aquarium (@shedd_aquarium) March 27, 2020

  13. 13.

    Emma

    @Amir Khalid: since you’re here (sorry to go off-topic, AL), what’s the situation with Malaysian politics right now? My mom and her friends were speculating shamelessly over Mahathir’s and Anwar’s future when Muhyiddin took over, but of course now everything’s changed with the quarantining

    Also, I’m giving myself the happy-sads watching Elizabeth Warren tear into HSBC on Netflix’s Dirty Money. Glad she’s not leaving the Senate any time soon.

  17. 17.

    Amir Khalid

    @Emma:

    Muhyiddin is an old Umno apparatchik who joined Dr Mahathir’s new party, The Home for Old Umno Apparatchiki PPBM. The original deal between Dr M and Anwar ahead of the 2016 election was that Dr M would step aside after a while and let Anwar become PM. But Dr M basically repudiated that deal. Other party leaders in Pakatan Harapan (Coalition of Hope, ha!) which won the 2016 general election then began jockeying for position to be the next PM, and Pakatan fell apart. When Dr M resigned as PM Muhyiddin, who was Dr M’s no. 2 in PPBM, got the nod from the king.

    Basically, for the second time in his political career, Anwar — who wants more than anything to be PM, has been outmanœuvred by Dr M. You know the saying: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. I used to think that despite the intellectual pretensions and the stink of naked ambition about him, Anwar had the political smarts to make a good PM. Now, I think maybe not.

  19. 19.

    Emma

    @Amir Khalid: yes, I knew about the basics (I thought too that Anwar had political smarts, but I guess it’s actually his wife who’s got the brains…), but wasn’t sure if Malaysians think Muhyiddin is here to stay. I don’t know much (or anything) about the Agong and sultans, but I’m assuming they’re the ones who are propping him up while everything’s in flux. Or is it more like that Muhyiddin is actually amazing at politics this whole time?

  21. 21.

    Amir Khalid

    @Emma:

    My own impression of Muhyiddin is that his strength is seniority rather than smarts. It’s really anybody’s guess how long he’ll last.

  24. 24.

    Another Scott

    @Amir Khalid: Thread via Popehat.  tl;dr – no, prisons are horrible places for infection control.

    A common suggestion is that having defendants in jail during a pandemic may actually be safer: isolated & can be quarantine. I want to share some thoughts regarding the challenge: (1)-it’s impossible to practice social distancing and heightened hygiene when 8,000 people are

    — Ed Gonzalez (@SheriffEd_HCSO) March 29, 2020

    HTH.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

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