Judge threatens to send Walt Staton to prison because he gave drinking water to undocumented aliens!

[Better Believe It]

As I See It: Make us all citizens of the world
By Paul deLespinasse
January 6, 2010

The pursuit of "illegal aliens" has become a high government priority. Congress has made it illegal to hire an "undocumented" alien who has managed to get into the U.S. Although discrimination in other contexts is illegal, for the undocumented it is mandatory.

In June, a federal jury convicted Walt Staton of littering. His "littering" consisted of leaving jugs of fresh drinkable water in an area near the Mexican border for entering aliens who might otherwise have died from dehydration (as a great many indeed have).

The 27-year-old graduate student was sentenced to 300 hours of community service, a year's probation, and banned from the National Wildlife Refuge in which he had done his evil deeds. Now he has refused to do the community service and the judge is threatening to send him to prison.

The logic behind making it a criminal act to give someone a drink of water is also impeccable. If more "illegals" die from thirst, this will make crossing into the U.S. less attractive and reduce the burden of policing the border.

It is clear what the next step needs to be: we must make it a criminal act to give or sell food to anybody who cannot document that they are a citizen or here with official government approval.

Christians, for example, including fundamentalists (perhaps especially fundamentalists!), need to think about the implications of their faith here:

"For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me ...." (Matthew 25:35)

Does anybody really want to live in a world where it is illegal to give a fellow human being a drink of water?

Read the full article at:

http://gazettetimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/article_aae1c066-faee-11de-9969-001cc4c002e0.html

[malaise]

1. Any bets that scumbag judge

goes to church and claims to be a Christian.

When did this nasty mean spirited behavior take over.

[Bobbieo]

17. I'll be this happened on Tohono O'Odham reservation land.

[HopeHoops]

2. Christian hate at least SHOULD be an oxymoron.

Unfortunately, it is not.

[Lance_Boyle]

3. Refuse the community service you agreed to for your CRIME? Go to jail.

He should have been jailed for aiding criminals in the first place, not given community service for littering.

[Better Believe It]

5. You're joking .... right? Sarcasm .... right?

[superduperfarleft]

7. Wow, you're a nasty one.

How did I not notice you before?

[Cirque du So-What]

12. Do a search on the username

I looked at just the past month. It takes years for some people to amass such a quantity of vitriol.

[blondeatlast]

14. I'd like to (username) that (username) but it isn't up to me.

I've read his hatred all too often.

[Tailormyst]

10. You want to jail a man for trying to save human lives?

What sort of monster are you?

[denbot]

11. He was sentenced to community service.

He was aiding human beings, providing water. Did you make a wrong turn on your way to stormfront?

[Lance_Boyle]

15. He's now refusing to do the community service he accepted

AS AN ALTERNATIVE SENTENCE TO JAIL TIME. Damn right lock him up. You don't get to pick and choose which laws you'll obey, unless you're willing to suffer the consequences for breaking the ones you break. By refusing to serve his community service this jackass is making a mockery of civil disobedience. He has no morals. Like that time when Muhammed Ali ran away to Fiji instead of accepting jailtime for his act of civil disobedience. Oh wait - Ali had morals. This guy's just a jackass.

[blondeatlast]

18. "He has no morals?" Did you REALLY just write that? Water to a desperate human is no morals?

God save me from the likes of you.

Vile.

[fizzgig]

19. this guy was trying to save lives and you say he has no morals?

[Lance_Boyle]

20. He accepted community service as punishment, and now refuses to do it.

I'd say that ranks pretty low on the morality scale. Do the people who would have been helped by his community service obligations not count as much as the illegal aliens he illegally tried to help remain in the country illegally?

[immoderate]

23. Morality is a funny word. It often means what we want it to.

Justice can be like that too. The system is rotten but you want to take it out on this guy. Won't catch me playing on your lawn.

--imm

[fishwax]

33. where are you getting that he accepted community service as an alternative to jail time

It doesn't say that in the article. And there isn't anything about a plea bargain or anything--it says that he was convicted and sentenced.

[Lance_Boyle]

35. Jail time and fines were sentencing options - he got community service instead.

Whether that was his choice or the judge's, it was an alternative to jail time.

The fact remains, though, that he can't simply opt out of the community service he was sentenced to perform.

[fishwax]

37. he can if he chooses to risk jail instead

which is what is happening here. :shrug:

[Better Believe It]

21. Did civil rights activists who violated segregationists "Jim Crow" laws also deserve to be jailed?

Those laws that are repressive, undemocratic and in violation of basic human rights and must be defied. And those who jail such activists under such repressive laws must be opposed and those jailed under them must be freed.

This is basic human solidarity.

[Lance_Boyle]

22. Laws against littering are repressive?

To answer your question on jailed Civil Rights leaders, they accepted the punishment for breaking the law - that's what separates civil disobedience from crime. It got them the attention necessary to get the laws changed. If this guy had done the community service he agreed to do, he could be considered to have committed civil disobedience and not a crime. As it stands he's just a criminal.

[denbot]

26. The civil rights activists were forced in to jail. It was coercion not acceptance.

You were calling him a criminal for giving "criminals" water. Now you are pretending that your beef is that he did not do his community service. This stupid reasoning works with your teabag compatriots, but this is a liberal website. What the fuck are you doing here?

[Lance_Boyle]

30. those laws were broken with the expectation that sanctions would be imposed

without any doubt. This is how civil disobedience works, and it is one reason why Civil Rights leaders are heroes - they were brave enough to commit civil disobedience EXPECTING to be punished for it.

edited to add - "Liberal" does not mean "blindly accepting of illegal immigration," no matter how much you and other one-world amnesty proponents would like it to.

[denbot]

32. Those laws were broken out of moral conviction

Has for your one-world amnesty comment, you don't know shit, especially about me or my opinions on the subject.

[Better Believe It]

42. So do you really think the judge was merely concerned about enforcing anti- littering laws?

Come now. You don't really expect us to believe that nonsense now, do you?

And the ever alert cops who arrested the man are hardcore environmentalists taking a bite out of pollution!

Jailed civil rights leaders were charged with breaking laws and were cast as dangerous criminals by the racist segregationists by those who wrote and enforced Jim Crow.

So stop trying to justify and defend a racist judge who obviously is only concerned about keeping out those "wetbacks" just as southern judges wanted to keep those "n---ers" in their place.

Give it a break. People just won't buy your snake oil.

[EmeraldCityGrl]

27. I have a hard time keeping track of who's who

around here but Lance_Boyle will be a name I remember.
I play this little memory game...Lance is the boil on the ass of humanity.
Done. Ill remember now.

[blondeatlast]

29. I want to be around when this boil pops. That's why I don't maintain an ignore list.

I want to smell the pizza when it comes.

[fishwax]

34. He didn't accept the community service as an alternative sentence to jail time

At least, not that I can tell. Where are you getting that information from?

[tsuki]

39. He's making it up as he goes along. Gandhi was often sentenced to fines.

He refused to pay and sometimes went to jail and sometimes did not.

Community service sentence on this "crime" is BS.

[blondeatlast]

13. WATER? You're a deeply disturbed "human" being, IMHO. nt

[Blue Owl]

4. Thank god for peasant justice

Meanwhile all the white-collar Bu$hCo illegal-war-and-torture criminals who are REALLY wreaking havoc our nation run free.

Sounds fair to me.


:mad:

[nykym]

6. Welcome to the USA

Your papers please!

[Cleita]

8. No one would fault you for giving water to a thirsty dog, but

forget about it if you give it to a human being deemed to be illegal by laws made by bigots fifty years ago. I really fear for the morality of this country, not only killing children in their home countries, but torturing captives of our illegitimate wars to justify them and now this and all of it done "legally".

[immoderate]

25. Dogs have to be liscensed. Just got an idea for a new law...

:think:

--imm

[TicketyBoo]

38. Depends

on the city. No dog licensing here.

[Cleita]

41. So you are saying you wouldn't give water to a thirsty unlicensed dog?

I feel bad for your karma if you aren't kidding.

[immoderate]

43. It might not be pedigreed.

:scared:

--imm

[Tailormyst]

9. This is insane.

[blondeatlast]

16. God bless Walt Staton.

I've been at the Nogales border and watched men squeeze through the barred turnstiles. It was horrifying.

It's quite simple. Nothing will stop them--and they contribute in uncalculated ways to Arizona's economy--they generate millions in tax revenue, contrary to what ma=ny believe.

God bless Walt Staston.

[kenny blankenship]

24. If you're going to commit civil disobedience you must also be willing to accept your penalty

I admire Walt Staton's compassion for the plight of people attempting to cross into the US illegally. However, ignoring a community service + probation sentence does not give a judge much if any choice about whether to regard Mr. Staton as a unconscientious lawbreaker - even if he or she privately believes Staton to be a very conscientious person. Judges do not have a lot of discretion, thanks to mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines, and they have none at all when someone brazenly defies an order/sentence after having been found guilty. Sorry, but we are all forced to sacrifice our consciences at times (every day maybe, for some) in order to show that we acknowledge the basic duties that life in society imposes on us.

[AlecBGreen]

28. If you're going to commit civil disobedience you must also be willing to accept your penalty

I agree with that, but disagree with the orignial ruling. A judge should take motive into account.

If you shoot someone in anger, you are a murderer. If you shoot someone in self-defense, you go free.

If someone litters out of laziness, fine the crap out of them. If someone "litters" jugs of water to save a human life, give them a pat on the back. Where has all the common sense gone?

[paulsby]

31. some cases cry out for jury nullification nt

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

36. He's obviously a danger to society and we must be protected from people like him.

What an awful man. I wouldn't want anyone like him giving me water if I was dying of thirst.

[fishwax]

40. Here's a letter Staton sent to the judge to explain his position

http://www.nomoredeaths.org/index.php/Download-document/87-Letter-to-Judge-Guerin-requesting-resentencing.html (Note: it opens as a PDF)