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Misprision Can Get You into Prison

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(L) William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, written in 1769. (R) Rodney Stich

by Mary W Maxwell, LLB

I often write about the crime known as misprision. Rodney Stich, a pilot who did a lot of whistle blowing in the FAA, told me about it. It’s a federal law in the US that makes it a felony to conceal your knowledge of a crime. There are many such “crimes against justice”  in common law, nicely catalogued by Sir William Blackstone in 1769. Even a juror who gives a verdict in bad faith would qualify as criminal for so doing.

Today, Gumshoe writer Phil Hingston – who follows the Pizzagate’s ins and outs – sent me an article that I will now outline. It was written by Frank Parlato to whom I give full credit; I am merely introducing his work regarding misprision. He runs the Frank Report.

Since I do not know the case of child trafficking that is involved I will not report the original case. It seems to involve a man named Keith Raniere who has been accused of trafficking and is now in federal custody. Also a cult is involved, allegedly.

Parlato wishes to tell us that a woman who he thinks is involved, “Clare,” has put herself at risk of being arrested for misprision. I assume Frank Parlato is dreaming as the Blackstonian approach never comes into the United States attorney’s daily life as far as I am aware. Still it’s good to dream.

I now quote Parlato’s article, dated April 25, 2018, entitled “Accessory after the Fact.” Yes, he includes possible charges against Clare for being an accessory as well as a concealer of felony. I think he also accuses her of much more but I am not interested. In fact I’ll avoid using the woman’s last name; my desire is to show off the law.

Here it is verbatim from FrankReport.com, abridged:

With Raniere behind bars, longtime financier of Raniere and the slavecult, Clare, is believed to be managing the slaves and directing cult operations.

Federal authorities allege that she spent millions on Raniere, and is his chief financial backer, enabling him to commit crimes for decades and to avoid detection, cloaked under [her famous family’s] umbrella of influence and protection.

They allege also that she has paid lawyers to bring lawsuits against critics and filed criminal complaints against at least one ex-slave. [That’s another Blackstone naughty: either “common barretry” — bringing false law suits — or “the compounding of informations – filing nuisance-type police complaints.” Penalty: to stand two hours in the pillory and be forever disabled to sue. Gosh.]

Based on these allegations and more, there is a strong likelihood Clare has committed the federal crime of misprision of felony, under 18 USC 4.

The criminal statute provides that “whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals” that felony can be imprisoned up to three years.

To nab Clare, the government must prove four elements:

(1) Raniere actually committed a felony

(2) Clare knew that the felony was committed;

(3) Clare did not notify any law enforcement or judicial officer;

(4) Clare took affirmative steps to conceal the felony.

Tracking the elements of the crime of misprision of felony, [Parlato sees]:

(1) Raniere actually committed multiple felonies.

(2) The fact that Clare knew of this crime is supported by her flight to Mexico with Raniere shortly after the New York Times story broke and continued to finance him while on the lam.

(3) Clare did not notify law enforcement of the atrocious [slave-related] activity.

(4) Clare  brought a criminal complaint against [an ex-slave] as part of her and Raniere’s modus operandi of silencing victims, keeping the cult secrets, and letting that be a lesson to any other disgruntled slaves that wished to do the same.

Parlato goes on to report that Clare may also deserve to be caught by the authorities as an accessory after the fact.  The elements for that crime (under 18 USC 3) are that A assists B:

(1) who has committed a felony,

(2) after B has committed the felony,

(3) with knowledge that B committed the felony,

(4) with the intent to help B avoid arrest or punishment.

(Recall Jahar Tsarnaev’s buddies being picked up for similar crimes, but not this one, as Element #4 could not be met. Jahar was not yet convicted of any felony as of 2013 when the boys were arrested, or 2014 when they were tried!)

Accessories Go to Prison, Too

An accessory after the fact may be held liable for, inter alia, obstruction of justice. Of course when you mention Obstruction of Justice in Blackstonian territory, you are really opening the floodgates.

All right, I am using a sarcastic tone, yet this sort of thing is exactly what we need to do, Keep harping on any crime, big or small, that a person can be clearly seen to have committed and go to town on it. Frank Parlato is licking his chops over it.

It really is sensible to use this approach, and also to go low in the food chain, as Wayne Madsen like to say. It’s much easier that starting with a governor, a judge, or a pope.

The law, the law, ya gotta wield it!

— Mary W Maxwell hopes she lives to see someone other than a Jahar buddy get convicted of a “crime against justice.”

 

 

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12 COMMENTS

  1. El typo: that penultimate sentence should read:

    “It’s much easier THAN starting with a governor, a judge, or a pope.”

    I’ll grant you Rev Kevin Annett started with royalty and a pope and he hasn’t done too badly, but most of us don’t have the resources to do a private prosecution of a Big Guy. We could probably do one of a Little Guy. By the way, private prosecution are, I believe, available in every state of Australia.

    I once went to an Adelaide lawyer to talk about doing a private prosecution re chemtrails and was shown to the door. That’s always a good sign. (If it were technically impossible he would have just told me it was impossible, right?)

    • Important to remember that you’re dealing with a “governance” that hasn’t been authorised by the Crown, hence trading names such as “City of Stirling”, “Baycorp Pty Ltd” , “Borderforce”, “Centrelink”, etc, etc, etc

  2. Berry, when I attended the Amirah Droudis trial in Darlinghurst Courthouse, Sydney I was so startled to see a big sculpture over the judge’s head — a 3D coat of arms and I am not referring to the one with the kangaroo and emu.

    It has the jaw-dropping words “Honi soit qui mal y pense” on its scroll. Ah, I just googled for that before I mess up the spelling again, and saw that Uni of Sydney has Honi Soit as the name of its student weekly newspaper. I quote wiki:

    “For a time editors of the paper were given a yearly scholarship of £100 (roughly equivalent to $2,700 in 2014) by media baron Rupert Murdoch, though this was discontinued by 1966, and the SRC began to pay editors a small allowance instead from this point on.”

    Hmmmmm.

  3. I think that the Motto “Honi soit qui mal y pense” can be accurately rendered, in today’s reality, as:

    “If you call attention to our evil practices, Bub, you will be in hot water before you know what has happened to you.”

  4. At the top of each Gumshoe post is an algorithmically determined item (an old post) that is “Trending Now.” So i see that her Bossness turned out a terrific article on the Bataclan massacre in Paris, of November 2015. In it she quoted Bernie Suarez. He and I must have ESP to each other:

    Suarez offers this:

    “Everyone sooner or later will have to face the reality of staged state terrorism and that is:

    We live in a world of endless terror.
    The endless terrorism will only end when we stop the new world order.
    We will only stop the new world order when we hold our politicians criminally responsible, shut down and expose all CIA operations, criminalize all corruption at FBI, DHS and all levels of government, permanently defund the U.S. military and the Pentagon, arm all Americans and restore a constitutional militia to balance the power of the sword. These are just a few things that I believe will help push the balance of power back toward the people.”

    Berry can relate to that. (Oh, possibly the “algorithm” is in response to her remarks earlier today.)

  5. If we could make misprison work the gaols would be stuffed with lawyers.

    Anyhow, there is no justice in Constitutional law while the secretocracy keeps the law hidden in their pocket and disguised with spurious “technicalities”.

    I know of at least one instance where a high ranking polly has been formally accused of treason to the High Court of Victoria according to the Constitution of the Commonwealth that has not been abrogated. Unsurprisingly, the charge seems to have vanished without any action at all.

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