Sudden rationality
Federal district judges are occasionally capable of rational actions, unlike the appellate "judges".

The judge who handled the absurd case of a Spokane cop beating a crazy dude has suddenly acted in a surprisingly rational way, contrary to his original irrational verdict.

In the original case a cop was convicted of "civil rights" violations for subduing a crazy dude who went berserk. The conviction was precisely wrong, because the cop treated the crazy dude exactly the same way he would have treated a non-crazy dude who went berserk in the same circumstances.

If "civil rights" has any meaning at all, it should mean that cops have to treat everyone equally, judging them only by their immediate behavior without regard to assumed intentions or Party Privilege Status. And that's what the cop did.

So he was actually convicted of something like lèse-majesté. He treated a Party-Defined Aristocrat like any other commoner or redneck. Treated a Protected Class like a Christian.

Now here's the switch:

The upcoming sentencing hearing for former Spokane police Officer Karl F. Thompson Jr. was postponed Thursday to give defense attorneys more time to investigate recent developments that might bolster their argument for a new trial.

U.S. District Judge Fred Van Sickle vacated the Jan. 27 hearing after a video analyst hired by the U.S. Justice Department advised the court that federal prosecutors may have withheld potentially beneficial information to the defense in the excessive force case. ... Van Sickle ordered that the sentencing hearing be postponed indefinitely ... for Thompson’s lawyers to submit arguments for why their client should get a new trial. The extension is intended to give defense attorney Carl Oreskovich enough time to determine whether allegations made last month by forensic video analyst Grant Fredericks should be included in their request.

Hmm. Where have we heard this before? Prosecutors and media using a doctored tape to convict cops? Hmm. Can't think of an example. I don't think it's ever happened before.

= = = = =

An annoying sidebar to this case: The involvement of the federal Department Of Jesse Jackson (DOJ) and the involvement of the communist media are predictable. No point getting angry at them for destroying civilization; might as well get pissed at an alligator when it eats a dog. Reflexive innate behavior.

But in a case like this you'd normally expect the Repooflican media to reflexively defend the cop. Didn't happen here, for an atrociously venal reason. The local Repooflican radio yappers saw this case as a way to generate talking points against the [mostly competent] Democrat Mayor Verner, who could not logically be blamed since the actual incident happened a year before she was elected. Nevertheless, the name-association worked, and helped to defeat Verner this year. The cop was left twisting slowly slowly in the wind, with no public support.
  ¶ 7:40 AM