The man who attacked the husband of former US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.
David DePape was convicted of assault and attempted kidnapping of a federal official in November after a week-long trial in San Francisco.
The attack left Paul Pelosi, now 84, in hospital for six days with a fractured skull and other injuries.
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Prosecutors, however, argued that DePape had a “plan of violence”, noting that he told investigators he had a “target list” and plan to break Mrs Pelosi’s kneecaps if she did not reveal “the truth”. At the time of his arrest, DePape had zip ties and duct tape.
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In addition to the federal charges, DePape is facing separate state charges stemming from the attack. They include burglary, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, and attempted murder.
He faces life imprisonment if convicted of those charges. He has pleaded not guilty.
I mean, she’s a public defender. He’s lucky she’s making any arguments at all. Most public defenders are so busy that they only have time to do the bare minimum “make sure all the paperwork is properly filed” effort. They don’t really have time to make long drawn out legal battles in court, because they have nine other cases to argue later that day. They also can’t lie in court because that’s an ethics violation. So she can’t just use the Shaggy “it wasn’t me” defense to try and convince a jury he didn’t do it.
If I had to take a guess, this argument is actually coming from him, and she’s basically making the argument to the best of her ability. I doubt a plea deal was offered, because they caught him red handed and it’s an extremely high profile case; The prosecutor is likely going to try and make an example out of him. So she likely didn’t have the opportunity to push him to take a plea deal. And she can’t mount a major legal battle. So this is her “fuck it, I guess we’ll ensure his legal rights are upheld” effort.
I mean she’s right too, the pipeline pushes the unstable to act violently against specific targets. There should be culpability for the propaganda factories that put this idea into this man’s head.
Also Public Defenders are woefully underfunded, and prosecutors are over funded and in bed with the Police.
I just want to remind everyone that public defenders are lawyers and that their skill levels and level of staffing-to-caseload will also vary. They tend to be labeled as pseudo-lawyers and shit like that, so I wished to stick my nose in with a now you know.