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Man accused of stabbing ‘pro-Trump’ friend found not guilty

homesafetytechpros — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 00:46:21 +0000

Background: News footage from the scene of William Steven Knight’s stabbing death in January 2020 (WKMG). Inset (left): Mason Toney (Orange County Sheriff’s Office). Inset (right): William Steven Knight (provided by family).

A Florida man who was charged with the murder of his childhood friend and boss, allegedly after a fight about politics, was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Court records obtained by local CBS affiliate WKMG stated that Mason Trever Toney, 34, was found not guilty by reason of insanity on Feb. 7, five years after he was accused of stabbing William Steven Knight, 28, with a trowel off the Florida Turnpike. Knight died of his injuries at the scene on Jan. 20, 2020, and Toney was arrested the same day. Knight was not only Toney’s boss, but the two men had also been friends for decades.

According to court documents, witnesses stated at the time that the two men had reportedly argued about politics, including Knight’s support for President Donald Trump.

WESH, a local NBC affiliate, reported on the arrest affidavit at the time. When officers arrived at the scene, they found Knight’s body next to an excavator, an American flag thrown nearby. Witnesses told investigators that Knight, a “proud and outspoken American” who was “pro-Donald Trump,” picked up Toney to go to another site when an argument about politics erupted. Toney was described by the witnesses as anti-government, and reportedly believed “the government is bad and out to get him.”

The witnesses said they heard Knight yelling for help and then ran to aid him. The witnesses went on to say they had tried to stop Toney, but he was wielding what they believed was a knife. It was later clarified the defendant had allegedly used a trowel — a construction tool used to smooth concrete — in the slaying. The witnesses told investigators that Toney allegedly had a backpack with him, which was unusual.

According to the affidavit, Toney reportedly called the witnesses “terrorists” then jumped into a truck after allegedly attacking Knight, who died from his injuries at the scene. The Orange County Sheriff’s Office reported that Toney was found in Brevard County later the same day in the same truck.

Knight’s mother told WKMG after her son’s death, “This wasn’t about politics. There was something wrong with Mason.” The outlet reported that she had warned her son not to hire Toney because of his erratic behavior.

Toney was found not guilty by reason of insanity following a non-jury trial. A review hearing was scheduled for Aug. 11.

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Pro-Trump groups join fight against Jack Smith appointment

homesafetytechpros — Sat, 02 Nov 2024 13:08:03 +0000

Left: Jack Smith speaks about an indictment of former President Donald Trump, Aug. 1, 2023, at a Department of Justice office in Washington (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File). Right: Donald Trump speaks to members of the media before departing Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 6, 2024, in New York (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson, Pool).

The battle over the dismissal of the indictment in the Mar-a-Lago documents case is heating up in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, as a group of conservative amici curiae, or friends of the court, on Friday argued to maintain the pro-Donald Trump status quo.

In their 35-page brief in support of the defendants, several right-wing nonprofit groups — led by 501(c)(3) America’s Future — argue that special counsel Jack Smith was unconstitutionally appointed to his position in violation of the appointments and appropriations clauses.

“Because there was no legislation specifically creating an office of Special Counsel when the Attorney General appointed Mr. Smith on November 18, 2022, the challenged appointment must be invalidated because Congress had not established the office of Special Counsel as the Appointments Clause requires,” the filing reads.

As is often the case in the several-months-long litigation over the constitutional vitality of Smith’s appointment, the appropriations clause argument is a knock-on, or derivative, claim. To hear opponents of the special counsel’s office tell it, any spending that occurred after the unlawful appointment is, perforce, also unlawful.

Notably, the appointments and appropriations clauses-related dispute playing out before the court of appeals is almost an exact replica of a prior fight between dueling amici groups when the Mar-a-Lago case was being overseen by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon.

That fight began with Trump’s own defense citing the clauses in a February motion to dismiss. Then, right-of-center groups, law professors, and legal scholars argued against Smith’s appointment in a deluge of motions practice allowed by the district court. Oppositely, left-of-center law professors, historians, and legal scholars argued Smith was validly — and non-controversially — exercising his authority.

The lower court, of course, famously ordered a kibosh on proceedings based on that novel understanding of the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution advanced by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

The analysis offered by Thomas came in the landmark ruling where Chief Justice John Roberts issued a broad grant of presidential immunity to Trump.

Thomas was the only justice to cite the long-simmering Appointments Clause issue in an unfavorable light for the government in any of the opinions attached to Trump v. United States. The majority opinion actually lists several ways in which the appointments power inures to the executive’s benefit. Thomas was also the only justice to mention the phrase “Appointments Clause” directly.

In August, Smith filed his opening salvo in a bid to resuscitate the long-beleaguered case. Since then, the 45th president has raised the clauses in an effort to affirm the lower court’s dismissal of the case.

Now, several of the same amici are back to restate their case before the three-judge panel that will take the first of perhaps several looks at how Cannon squelched the government’s case over the summer.

More Law&Crime coverage: ‘Correctly dismissed the indictment’: Lawyers, professors, and former prosecutor go to bat for Trump in 11th Circuit filing saying Mar-a-Lago judge did nothing wrong

The crux of the amici’s argument is that Smith is “acting as a principal officer” due to the lack of supervision inherent in his job and because his authority is significant enough “to bind the United States as he executes his responsibilities in the two matters that he has been assigned.”

This wide berth, the motion argues, takes the prosecutor well beyond either mere employee or inferior officer status.

The amici’s constitutional argument here goes on, at length:

The delegation of authority claimed by the Special Counsel presupposes a grant of legislative power to the Attorney General to establish an office of the United States in violation of the Framers’ check on the power of the Executive Branch to create offices by requiring they “be established by Law.” The claimed statutory authority of the Attorney General to create an office that exercises “the full power and independent authority” of a United States Attorney with no effective supervision of or control over the Special Counsel violates the non-delegation doctrine.

In other words, and in substantially similar arguments oft-advanced in the case so far, the litigants contend Smith’s office is so powerful and imbued with such longevity he should have been appointed under the “Advice and Consent of the Senate” rules — akin to a cabinet position, administrative agency head, or life-appointed federal judge.

And, they argue, there’s really nothing like Smith’s role in U.S. history that actually supports the continued firmness of his position. This argument is a direct rejoined to the government’s claims that the special prosecutor in the Richard Nixon/Watergate scandal — and the concomitant court rulings vindicating that prosecutor — inure to Smith’s benefit.

“This nation’s checkered history of appointing Special Prosecutors, Independent Counsel, and Special Counsel provides no consistent or relevant factual pattern that can overcome the constitutional bar to appointing the Special Counsel to an office which has not been ‘established by Law,”” the motion argues. “The examples on which Special Counsel Smith relies are inapposite and cannot overcome the express requirement of the Appointments Clause.”

More Law&Crime coverage: Court to consider former Clinton investigator turned Trump impeachment lawyer’s argument that Judge Cannon ‘correctly dismissed’ Jack Smith’s Mar-a-Lago case

But, as was the case before the district court, soon other amici will join the appellate fight — for and against the indictment’s dismissal.

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Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC reportedly warned by the feds

homesafetytechpros — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 06:59:21 +0000

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, left, and Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump attend a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show, Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024, in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).

The U.S. Department of Justice has reportedly issued a warning to a pro-Donald Trump political action committee run by Elon Musk over the group’s daily $1 million lottery for registered voters in swing states.

A letter from the DOJ’s public integrity section was recently sent to Musk’s America PAC about the lottery, CNN reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed “people briefed on the matter.”

The anonymous sources cited by the cable news network say the letter warns that the lottery potentially violates federal law.

Musk announced the lottery at a Trump campaign event in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. Since then, at least two winners have been announced — each of whom had already voted by mail as Republicans in the Keystone State before they entered the sweepstakes.

Under the contest rules, a registered voter must sign a petition expressing support for the First and Second Amendments. Only then are they entered the lottery for the daily $1 million prize.

“We want to try to get over a million, maybe 2 million voters in the battleground states to sign the petition in support of the First and Second Amendment,” Musk said last weekend. “We are going to be awarding $1 million randomly to people who have signed the petition, every day, from now until the election.”

Under U.S. law, it is plainly illegal to pay people to vote. Musk’s contest is several steps removed from that clear prohibition.

Some election law experts, however, say that paying people to register to vote is also illegal under federal law.

On his Election Law Blog, UCLA Law Professor Rick Hasen wrote that paying people to register to vote is “clearly illegal” under 52 U.S.C. 10307(c), which criminalizes “false information in registering or voting” and punishes the offense by up to five years in prison.

That law reads, in relevant part:

Whoever knowingly or willfully […] pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both …

Critics say the status condition of the lottery — that it is only open to registered voters — is merely a way to encourage voter registration and, therefore, a stealth way of paying people to register to vote.

In response to one high-profile complaint posted on Musk-owned X (formerly Twitter) that the outspoken tech billionaire was “paying to register Republicans,” Musk said: “You can be from any or no political party and you don’t even have to vote.”

Musk’s America PAC also offers a lesser financial incentive for every person who refers registered voters to sign the operative petition.

“Receive $47 for each registered voter you refer that signs a petition pledging support for the First and Second Amendments,” the website reads.

Concerns have only continued to swirl as the election nears.

Earlier this week, a group of former federal prosecutors and onetime Republican-appointed government officials sent a letter to the DOJ voicing concerns about the financial incentive. On Tuesday, the agency confirmed they were aware of the letter and had received it — but declined to say anything substantive about it.

Now, if CNN’s report is any indication, the DOJ’s own stance on the matter is less than concrete — but leans toward an interpretation of federal law wherein a contest premised on voter registration is a way of paying people to register.

Of note is the ambit of the DOJ division that reportedly sent the letter. The public integrity is a self-proclaimed arbiter of “election crimes.”

It is unclear if the reported warning also contained any kind of potential threat or warning of an enforcement action or whether the warning was more academic in nature. The DOJ has declined to comment on the matter.

Law&Crime reached out to America PAC officials in each of the seven swing states where the $1 million daily lottery is available — Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada, and Arizona — for comment on this story, but no response was immediately forthcoming at time of publication.

Matt Naham contributed to this report.

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Georgia judge shuts down pro-Trump election official lawsuit

homesafetytechpros — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 02:48:11 +0000

Inset: Ian McKellen as Gandalf the Grey in Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (YouTube/TheLotrTV/New Line Cinema). Background: Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney speaks at the Fulton County courthouse, Tuesday, July 11, 2023, in Atlanta (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson).

A Georgia judge on Monday put to rest long-simmering concerns that powerful allies of Donald Trump might wreak havoc on the 2024 presidential contest by refusing to certify official election results.

And he seems to have used a well-known fantasy character to do it.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled that county election officials exercise a “mandatory” role when it comes to vote certifications and that “no election superintendent (or member of a board of elections and registration) may refuse to certify or abstain from certifying election results under any circumstance.”

In the order clarifying the rules Peach State election board officials must follow, the judge appears to have used a reference to the fantasy novel series “The Lord of the Rings” by author J.R.R. Tolkien.

The underlying lawsuit was filed by Julie Adams, a Republican who joined the Fulton County Board of Registrations and Elections member in February. She sought various forms of relief from the court — chiefly that her certification duties were “discretionary, not ministerial in nature.” Secondarily, she also sought “full access” to certain “Election Materials” controlled by the director of the board.

In reverse order, the request for access was granted, while the request for declaratory relief was denied.

“Much of what [elections officials] do is left to their broad, reasoned discretion,” the judge mused. “But not everything — some things an election superintendent must do, either in a certain way or by a certain time, with no discretion to do otherwise. Certification is one of those things.”

Under the relevant section of Georgia law, election officials are instructed that they “shall” certify election results “not later than 5:00 P.M. on the Monday following the date on which such election was held.”

McBurney reinforces the point repeatedly by pointing out that “nothing in” Georgia law, anywhere in the statute, “nor in any case from any appellate court of this State that suggests, hints, indicates, or directs that the plain statutory language” in the relevant subsection “means anything other than precisely what it says: the superintendent must certify and must do so by a time certain.”

The judge goes on at length [emphasis in original]:

After the close of the polls on the day of an election, the superintendent “shall … publicly commence the computation and canvassing of the returns.” The superintendent has the discretion to do this canvassing where she wishes and largely how she wishes (with staff, divided by precinct, etc.) but do it she must — and when she is done she “shall tabulate the figures for the entire county or municipality and sign, announce, and attest the same.”

An even longer discussion about the meaning of the word “shall” in legal discourse is contained in a lengthy footnote.

That’s where the reference to the fantasy series comes in.

In that footnote, McBurney aims to make a distinction between the common, or non-legal, definition of “shall” and the often-different meaning of “shall” where legal definitions are concerned.

The judge says that in the common parlance, the word “connotes instruction or command” as in: “You shall not pass.”

In our contemporary cultural vocabulary, this appears to be a reference to lines uttered by the character Gandalf the Grey.

The full line uttered is:

You cannot pass! I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn! Go back to the Shadow. You shall not pass!

The phrase is well-known to those who have seen Peter Jackson’s 2001 film, “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.” In the film, the wizard character says the operative phrase to taunt a monster named Balrog in the Mines of Moria — which ultimately allows his comrades to escape and continue their hero’s journey.

The source material, however, the book of the same name, only contains the phrase: “You cannot pass.”

Notably, the phrase is also well-known to readers of history.

During World War I, the French armed forces used an iteration of the phrase to denote a determination not to allow an enemy to advance. The phrase was later used in propaganda posters. Decades later, another iteration was used by Spanish Republican and communist forces as an anti-fascist rallying cry during the Spanish Civil War.

In the Georgia election case, the judge appears to be relying on Gandalf’s version — in order to make the point that the common meaning of the word “shall” is more limited than the sometimes capacious meaning of the word when used by lawyers and judges.

But in this case, the judge says, “shall” is in line with common use.

While ruling against Adams’ foremost request, the judge’s order offers some understanding of her position — even hailing the lawsuit as important for other, similarly-situated officials going forward.

“Plaintiff’s demand for a declaration must be met so that she, her colleagues on the FCBRE, and other superintendents around the State understand the scope of their authority when called upon to certify election results,” McBurney observes.

Still, the judge says, the basic presumption behind the lawsuit — that an election official can refuse to certify voting results they find to be incorrect or suspect — is entirely off-base.

“[I]f election superintendents were, as Plaintiff urges, free to play investigator, prosecutor, jury, and judge and so — because of a unilateral determination of error or fraud — refuse to certify election results, Georgia voters would be silenced,” the order concludes. “Our Constitution and our Election Code do not allow for that to happen.”

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Supreme Court denies case of pro-Trump ‘Kraken’ lawyers

homesafetytechpros — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 18:40:15 +0000

FILE – Sidney Powell, an attorney for former President Donald Trump, leaves the federal court in Washington, June 24, 2021. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear an appeal filed by a group of attorneys who were sanctioned for their work to keep Donald Trump in the White House after he lost the 2020 election.

In an order list, the nation’s high court denied certiorari to Sidney Powell, as well as fellow lawyers Brandon Johnson, Howard Kleinhendler, Julia Haller, Gregory Rohl, and Scott Hagerstrom.

Each of the so-called “Kraken” attorneys — an umbrella term used by Powell herself which references a phrase from the 1981 Desmond Davis-Ray Harryhausen film “Clash of the Titans” — were sanctioned after filing a lawsuit on behalf of three Republican Party county chairs and three would-be false electors in Michigan.

The lawsuit filed by the pro-Trump attorneys contained unproven claims of election fraud and sought to decertify the results in the Wolverine State — weeks after voting occurred. Ultimately, U.S. District Judge Linda Parker found those claims meritless and unlikely to succeed in any court — describing the allegations as lacking legally-acceptable evidence. The judge characterized the legal arguments as “an amalgamation of theories, conjecture, and speculation.”

The court also determined the lawsuit was filed much too late anyway.

The City of Detroit joined in the litigation as a permissive intervenor and moved for sanctions, including bar referral, against the attorneys for filing the lawsuits. Michigan, in turn, requested sanctions as well.

After the sanctions motions hearing, the district court ordered the “Kraken” group to pay $21,964.75 to Michigan and $153,285.62 to Detroit — and referred each of the attorneys for professional misconduct investigations to their respective legal licensing boards — in order to deter future such lawsuits “designed primarily to spread the narrative that our election processes are rigged.”

As officers of the court, lawyers are, to a certain degree, responsible for their clients and owe duties to the judiciary, the public, and the legal profession. And, by filing the lawsuit over false fraud allegations, the “Kraken” lawyers did not meet those expectations, Parker ruled.

“The sanctity of both the courtroom and the litigation process are preserved only when attorneys adhere to this oath and follow the rules, and only when courts impose sanctions when attorneys do not,” the judge wrote in her 110-page opinion and order. “And despite the haze of confusion, commotion, and chaos counsel intentionally attempted to create by filing this lawsuit, one thing is perfectly clear: Plaintiffs’ attorneys have scorned their oath, flouted the rules, and attempted to undermine the integrity of the judiciary along the way.”

In September 2022, the “Kraken” attorneys appealed their sanctions before the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

On appeal, the Sixth Circuit panel found “the district court awarded fees for a number of tasks that bore little connection to sanctionable conduct” and reduced the sanctions awards for Michigan and Detroit to $19,639.75 and $132,810.62, respectively.

The full circuit declined to rehear en banc and the mandate was stayed pending whether the nine justices would consider the case.

They did not. This, Powell said, was a disappointment — likening the failed Michigan sanctions-avoiding efforts to more successful efforts in Wisconsin. On Tuesday, the nation’s high court rejected an appeal of a sanctions denial order issued by the 7th Circuit.

“We appreciate the Court’s rejection of Governor Evers continued efforts to sanction us in Wisconsin, but we are very disappointed the Supreme Court is not taking the King case to resolve multiple circuit splits in the application of Rule 11 which affects every lawyer in the country,” Powell told Law&Crime in an email.

“The Court is allowing a dangerous precedent to stand that puts at risk every lawyer who represents an unpopular cause or client,” her statement went on. “It will make it more difficult for individuals to obtain representation, and it is causing a pervasive ‘chilling’ effect on our First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances. At bottom, it will make it far more difficult primarily for conservatives to find legal counsel for any fight — but especially an election challenge. And sadly, that is exactly what the Left wants. They don’t want lawyers to be able to fight for you — if you disagree with them. It is a sad day for what remains of the Rule of Law.”

Representatives from Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s office and the city of Detroit did not immediately respond to Law&Crime’s request for comment.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday also declined to hear an appeal by lawyer L. Lin Wood — who is no longer a practicing attorney — in a separate but related case over the same underlying issue over the Detroit sanctions. Wood gave up his law license in the summer of 2023 in exchange for the Georgia State Bar dropping disciplinary charges against him. The two cases over the Michigan sanctions would have likely been consolidated and were grouped together by a series of open parenthetical marks by the Supreme Court.

A snippet of an orders list from the U.S. Supreme Court in which two cases might have been consolidated had the petitions not been denied.

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