Another Ryan Frederick Update
Radley Balko has much more information from Ryan Frederick's preliminary hearing, which I mentioned yesterday.
Of particular interest is the fact that special prosecutor Paul Ebert has threatened to file felony drug charges against Frederick, despite the fact that only a tiny amount of marijuana was recovered in the raid. The suspected marijuana grow that prompted the raid simply didn’t exist, so any new drug charges at this point are almost certainly a trumped-up character assassination designed to smear Frederick in front of the jury.
It's a critical move for Ebert, who clearly realizes that it will be hard to explain why Frederick would have shot a cop over a few flakes of pot. Unless Frederick can be painted as a hardened criminal, his persistent claim that he thought the police were burglars would likely prevail.
It is just amazing the amount of effort being put into prosecuting an innocent man for a murder that wasn't his fault, all so that the real killer (the drug war) can remain on the loose.
Of particular interest is the fact that special prosecutor Paul Ebert has threatened to file felony drug charges against Frederick, despite the fact that only a tiny amount of marijuana was recovered in the raid. The suspected marijuana grow that prompted the raid simply didn’t exist, so any new drug charges at this point are almost certainly a trumped-up character assassination designed to smear Frederick in front of the jury.
It's a critical move for Ebert, who clearly realizes that it will be hard to explain why Frederick would have shot a cop over a few flakes of pot. Unless Frederick can be painted as a hardened criminal, his persistent claim that he thought the police were burglars would likely prevail.
It is just amazing the amount of effort being put into prosecuting an innocent man for a murder that wasn't his fault, all so that the real killer (the drug war) can remain on the loose.
Permission to Reprint: This content is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license. Content of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.
Add new comment