Trump DOJ’s big ‘antifa’ ICE case runs into trouble over shootout evidence
Defendants on trial in Texas in the Trump administration’s first “antifa” prosecution are claiming self-defense, in answer to attempted murder and terrorism charges stemming from a chaotic confrontation outside an ICE detention facility that culminated with the shooting of a local police officer.
After defense lawyers cross-examined Alvarado police Lt. Thomas Gross, who suffered minor injuries after allegedly being shot by one of the nine defendants, the government last Friday filed a motion in court in Fort Worth, seeking to bar defendants from making a self-defense claim.
The government argues that because any claim of self-defense or defense of others was “legally unsupportable,” introducing evidence or arguments that raise that defense would amount to “a thinly veiled attempt to encourage the jury to nullify any verdict in this case.”...