Seth Stern is the chief of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF). Seth’s articles about press freedom have been published by outlets like The Guardian, The Intercept, Rolling Stone, and Columbia Journalism Review. Seth and FPF’s advocacy teamwork in collaboration with independent bloggers, incarcerated journalists, major national news outlets and civil liberties organizations to promote laws and policies that allow public-interest journalism to thrive. Before joining FPF, Seth practiced media and First Amendment law for 13 years. He has an article in The Intercept now entitled "30-Year Sentence for Transporting Zines Is a Five-Alarm Fire for Free Speech."
In the first half of the show, we discuss the incident that led to Daniel ‘Dez’ Sanchez’s 30-year prison sentence and the implications of this precedent.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
welcome you to another episode of civic Cyper, where our
mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding. Big shout
out to my co host q Ward. I'm your host,
Ramsa's Jah and today we are going to be having
a conversation with a very special guest who is directly
related to a story that we have been covering and
(00:20):
a story that, if you know, the show, has been
near and dear to my heart. Seth Stern is the
chief of Advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation. Seys
articles about press freedom have been published by outlets like
The Guardian, The Intercept, Rolling Stone, and Columbia Journalism Review.
Seth and fps's advocacy team work in collaboration with independent bloggers,
(00:42):
incarcerated journalists, major national news outlets, and civil liberties organizations
to promote laws and policies that allow public interest journalism
to thrive. Before joining FPF, Seth practiced media and First
Amendment law for thirteen years. He has an article in
The Intercept titled thirty year sentence for transporting zines is
(01:03):
a five alarm fire for free speech, and he is
our guest today. All right, Cesstern, welcome to the show man.
How you doing today?
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I'm doing all right.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Great to be here, oh man, fantastic to have you.
So this is a story that we've touched on, and
I'm really excited that we get to do a much
deeper dive here today. But you know, for the folks
that may have missed the episode where we talked about
these crazy sentences and whatnot, do us a favorite give
a little bit of background for folks just coming to
(01:34):
the conversation, or you know, a much deeper dive than
I might have been able to give for people that
don't know who Danielle Dez Sanchez Estrada's story. Let's paint
a little bit of a picture, some backstory, bring folks
to the conversation.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Sure so, about a year ago, last July fourth, there
was a protest outside of an ICED detention facility in
Alvarado exists. Daniel Sanchez Estrata's wife attended. Daniel Sanch's Astrata
did not. Several other people attended. It was a noise demonstration,
(02:11):
people at off fireworks. People generally made a ruckus to
call attention to what Ice was and is doing at
the time and the conditions that we've all read about
at those detention facilities. During that protest, there was an
exchange of gunfire after police responded, and an officer was
(02:34):
raised in the neck by a bullet. He was fine.
The injuries were fairly minor. But after that investigators began
attempting to piece together charges not only against the alleged shooter,
but against pretty much everyone who attended the protest. The
(02:54):
problem is that the shooting that occurred, by all accounts,
was not something that was planned. It was something that
happened that the vast majority of nobody attending the protest
expected to happen. People left their homes with food, baking,
with pets, and everyone was planning to come home after
(03:17):
this protest. Nobody was expecting anyone to be shot. Nonetheless,
authorities attempted to manufacture this conspiracy between everyone present, to
characterize them as members of an Antifa cell, and thereby
a tribute fault for the shooting not just to the
shooter but to everyone else who was there. The evidence
(03:38):
for any such conspiracy was essentially nonexistent. People talked about
going to the protest, sure, but they didn't talk about
committing any crimes there So, instead of finding actual evidence
of the conspiracy, prosecutors attempted to tie the protesters together
through ideology by showing that they were anarchists, that they
(03:59):
were leftists, that they were members of so called Antifa,
whatever that means. Sanchez Estrata. His case is particularly remarkable
because he wasn't even at the protest, as I mentioned,
his wife was. After the protest, he moved some zines
allegedly out of his apartment that he shared with his
(04:20):
wife to another home, and prosecutor's theory was that he
did so because he expected the zines would be evidence
against his wife, to prove her culpability in this non
existent conspiracy. The problem with that, of course, is evidence
(04:41):
of what. It is not criminal to possess zines. It
is not evidence of any conspiracy that you read the
same zines as you are co conspirators. We all read
the same books as a lot of people read. These
were not pamphlets that gave any sort of how to
instructions on how to shoot a police officer or commit
(05:04):
any particular crime. They made no mention of this protest
in July fourth, twenty twenty five. They're written years earlier.
They're political essays. They're fairly common zines in the that
that you can find at any leftist bookstore. So it's
unclear what exactly prosecutors believe Sanchez was concealing evidence. Of
(05:30):
the idea that he's concealing evidence and that that is
a crime is built upon the false premise that zines
themselves somehow evidence participation in a conspiracy. In any case,
Sanchez the Strata's lawyers made those arguments. The jury didn't agree,
(05:51):
convicted him. The judge sentenced him to thirty years. His
wife got seventy years, even though there's allegation that she
was the shooter or that she had any plans to
shoot anyone or had any foreknowledge that anyone was going
to get shot. The total sentences in the case succeed
four hundred years. So these are the other sentences that
(06:14):
are far in excess. One. People have drawn the comparison
to January sixth, far in excess of anything any sentences
handed out to January sixth. Defendants also an excess of
sentences given to murderers and rapists and real criminals, not
to mention why coyler criminals. Of course, these are really
(06:37):
alarming sentences for people whose alleged unlawful acts really boiled
down to reading literature the government didn't like and attending protests.
At most, some of these people might have been guilty
of trespassing, a misdemeanor that should have been handled with
a ticket. Sure.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Sure, Now I know that there's going to be, you know,
a group of people that will push back, because once
you introduce a gun and a shooting into the narrative,
then you know, this is I've been black a long time,
so I recognize that once that is introduced or injected
(07:21):
into the conversation, a public sentiment shifts a bit, especially
for people who aren't, you know, deeply knowledgeable about the
goings on behind the scenes. You know, it's kind of
the headline effect. So if you're able to you know,
and I've read about this, but I haven't yet shared
(07:41):
it with my listeners, if you're able to paint a
little bit more of that picture of the I believe
it was an exchange of gunfire. It wasn't just someone
trying to assassinate a police officer and missing and grazing
their neck. I think that leans a little bit more
in the way of development because, as you mentioned, these
people were on their way to demonstrate. It was a
(08:01):
noise demonstration, and one individual brought a weapon for safety
for those individuals not to commit an act of violence
against anyone based on his account of the incidents. So
if you could enlighten our listeners a little bit more
about that specific part of it, I think it would
help the rest of this become easier to follow, right.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Sure, Well, the first thing to note is, you know
this is Texas. People in Texas supposedly favor the Second Amendment. Sure,
these were legal firearms that people brought, as you said,
for safety. They've been watching what ICE has been doing
and are anticipating a potential need to protect themselves, not
coming with plans to actually use those firearms, but as
(08:47):
many people do carry firearms in just in case, essentially
and correct, this was an exchange of fire. I'm not
an expert the exact circumstances that forensics might have revealed
in terms of who shot first, and whether the shot
(09:08):
was aimed at an officer or ricochet or what. But
I think the core point is that this was an
unplanned incident, even by the shooter himself, let alone by
anyone else who was present. Several of the people convicted
weren't even there for the shooting. They went to the protest,
(09:29):
they left before the shooting occurred. So although I take
your point that people have sort of this visceral reaction
to while guns are involved, this isn't a normal protest.
Somebody got shot. Again, Sanchez Estrata wasn't even there. Yeah,
and several of his co defendants were gone before these
shots were fired. Those who were still there when the
(09:50):
shots were fired, had no involvement in the shooting, no
planning of the shooting. Again, lawful firearms. These are tactics
that have been employed by prosecutors for a long time
that I think are now being seen in higher profile,
more political contexts. The idea that because these protesters shared
(10:16):
what prosecutors would characterize as a violent ideology, I would
disagree with that characterization. You know, they're saying that these
these people believe in political violence. Well, you know, a
lot of people believe in some limited circumstances in political violence.
My grandparents were Holocaust survivors. I am sort of okay
with violence against Nazis. That doesn't mean that if somebody
(10:39):
else shoots a Nazi, I'm responsible for it. But you know,
these are similar to we've seen criminal trials where prosecutors
introduce rap lyrics and say, well, this proved, you know,
there's there's violence in the lyrics, even though the lyrics
have nothing to do with the particular crime being charged.
(11:00):
This proves that this defendant is a violent person, so
throw the book at him. Kind of a similar thing
we're seeing here. Well, these people are anarchists, they have
zines that you know, might occasionally endorse political violence. They're
violent people. They're written to the core through of the
(11:21):
book at them. So we're seeing, you know, tactics that
prosecutors have sort of gotten away with at the local
level in the criminal courts for a long time now
being brought to the forefront because instead of being used
against you know, poor people, mostly poor people of color,
(11:45):
they're being used against political targets of the current administration.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Seth Starn, it's here with us discussing the harsh sentence
for Daniel des Sanchez a Strata for transporting zines. So
one of the things that I think we should we
should circle back to is the sentencing itself. You know,
these like incredibly harsh senses for Sanchez Estrata, but also
(12:17):
for everyone else involved, because his was I think the
most alarming, because again, for someone that wasn't there, your
point is well made. But indeed, all of these sentences,
the worst thing that happened was someone got grazed in
the neck with a bullet, and I think that personal
sentenced to one hundred years if I'm not mistaken. But
(12:39):
this sort of reeks of well, let me not get
ahead of myself. One of the things that I realized recently,
recently enough, I should say, is, you know, the Supreme
Court came down with it with a decision that suggested
that trans women were no longer allowed to be or
(13:04):
they were upholding a band I believe it was that
trans women would no longer be allowed to play in
women's sports right, and the right had celebrated this as
like some great victory for Donald Trump. And the truth is,
those of us that understand how numbers work, in data works,
and the way population works, is that this is a
(13:26):
solution to a problem that really didn't exist. It's a
nothing burger. And you know, for the people that were
thirsty for that information, that had been primed to view
these folks as the enemy. It feels like a win
on that side. Similarly, when talking about Antifa, this looks
(13:48):
like a great victory for this administration that they've convicted
these Antifa the leader of an Antifa cell and all
this sort of stuff. And as you mentioned, you know,
and I'm a sort of person and that I actually
get out in protest. I know people who would consider
themselves anti fascist, and if they shortened its antifa, you know,
(14:10):
I certainly would consider myself anti fascist. You know, I
think a lot of people would if they understood what
they were saying. However, that name has been sort of
co opted and turned into the boogeyman. My point here
is that in my estimation, it's that label that allowed
(14:30):
this courtroom to get the conviction. And I think I
want to ask you, do you think that that's the
reason that they were able to secure such long sentences,
or these long sentences were handed down because of that association.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
I think that's right, And some of the attorneys involved
in the case have said that similar that that was
their impression as well. You're dealing with sort of a
small town Texas jury. The probably lives in a relatively
homogeneous environment, and the idea of anarchists, the idea of
(15:09):
anti government zines, of protesting against ice. All of it
was so foreign to them that it was easy to
portray these people as some sort of supervillain comic book character,
to other them, to dehumanize them to an extent that
(15:32):
a jury was primed to sentence them to decades and
decades in prison for what amounts at best to trespassing
or noise disturbances. The people who weren't even there at
the time of the shooting nonetheless got decades for some
conspiracy to set off explosives, the explosives being fireworks, So
(15:59):
you know, the yes, something was miscommunicated or misunderstood by
this jury deliberately. They were misled to believe that these
were some unusual terrorist actors who deserved this, and that
(16:22):
that's a theory that has probably more of a chance
of success in some areas of the country than in others.
I'm not saying that to demean rural people are called
them ignorant or anything. I'm just saying that elsewhere in
the country people have come across folks with different ideologies
(16:44):
before they might have people who are at sort of
political extremes in their own families. They live in cities
where protests occur all the time. It's a whole world
that is to some extent, you know, far into to
the people on the jury. And I should say that
the jury was selected in a somewhat suspect manner as well.
(17:09):
There was an initial jury selection that was in progress
and essentially avoided with a new jury selection being called
because the first Jeri's jury selection was right after Jesse
Jackson died. Allegedly, one of the lawyers for the defendants
was wearing some kind of shirt that paid tribute to
Jesse Jackson or his movement, and the judge claimed that
(17:33):
that shirt was somehow prejudicial and brought in a whole
new jury pool.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
So this was a.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Jury that was selected at a disadvantage to the defendants.
From the outset. There had also been lawyers who were
disqualified by this judge for reasons that didn't make a
whole lot of sense. So the game was very much rigged,
(18:06):
and that might explain the convictions. But the sentence, on
the other hand, is because is I think the prosecutor
at the sentence and hearing and the judge them himself
made pretty clear they viewed these people as having a
violent ideology and they wanted to send a message to
(18:27):
those out there with similar ideologies.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Wow, okay, that's a kangaroo court if I ever heard
of one. Now, is there? I don't imagine that there
would be. It sounds manufactured. But I have to ask you,
was there any basis for Was there any historical precedent
for this case that allowed them the veneer of the
(18:56):
optics of integrity, because you know, you and I are
looking at it and we can see right through it.
But there's got to be something that they based us
on or they just knew what they were doing with
their whole chest.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Historical precedents. You can look at McCarthyism, you can look
at the Haymarket cases. There certainly have been times in
the past where dissidents and particularly leftists were convicted of
conspiracy solely for sharing an ideology with alleged wrongful actors.
(19:32):
That's not new. More recently, you can look at the
Stop Coop City case in Atlanta, where very similar sixty
some odd people were indicted under a rico charge, a
conspiracy charge because one or two members of the Stop
(19:53):
Cup City movement had allegedly committed some crimes, had vandalized
police cars, had had set fire, very similar to this case.
The sixty some people who were indicted were not alleged
to have participated in any of those crimes, to have
planned any of those crimes. They were roped into the
(20:14):
case based on the notion that they shared an ideology
with those who committed the crimes, that they were again anarchists,
that they read the same zines, that they distributed the
same literature, that they were part of the same movement
to stop the construction of this cop city police training
facility in Atlanta. Now that case fell through and the
(20:40):
indictment was rightfully dismissed after costing a lot of people
lots of time, money, and stress, of course, but eventually
the indictment was dismissed. And it's one of those things
where you look at it at the time and say, Okay,
some local prosecutor did something crazy. That's say, one off
incident that you know isn't going to be the norm.
(21:03):
But then you see the federal government doing the doing
the same the same thing, and where where there are
there are a lot of those cases. We're seeing a
rise these days from the Trump administration where there are
past parallels, but they are by rogue prosecutors or rogue
police officers in some small towns somewhere, And when they happened,
(21:28):
everyone sort of rolled their eyes and said, well, that's
that's that's wild. That's like some Brino nine one one
Keystone Cops stuff. Kind of laughed at at it as
a as a one off thing by some bye bye
bye by some amateur law enforcement officials, and then a
couple of years later it's it's it's the official policy
(21:49):
of the United States government. Wow.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Well, uh, you work in this space, I think you
might have some insight. This seems like an attack on
the ideology. This is an attack on the ideology, not
on the individuals or their behavior, certainly lack thereof in
the case of Sanchez Estrata. Do you think this will
(22:18):
have an effect on journalists. I'm sure have an effect
on activists, but do you think that will have an
effect on journalism and how journalism how we view journalism
in the country.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Yeah. Well, these zines that Sanchez Estrata was alleged to
have concealed, and the zines that others who were there
were alleged to have distributed and printed are pretty close
in resemblance to the political pamphlets that the folks who
(22:53):
wrote the First Amendments press clause most likely had in
mind when they wrote that. You know, you've got to
remember where the constitutional times. We're not looking at an
era when the institutional press as we know it today existed.
We're not looking at an era where journalistic objectivity and
(23:15):
neutrality was a goal or of the press, or even
really a concept that was in existence. The newspapers at
the time were political, highly political, oftentimes pro revolution. So
(23:35):
when we say will journalism be affected, it kind of
already has been because these zines. If you were to
ask the folks who wrote the press clause, they would
say these are journalism. It's exactly the kind of journalism
that they were looking to protect. Now, when we talk
about will contemporary journalism be be effected, I think it
(24:01):
will be. We've got a president who declares the press
the enemy of the people, who is looking for any
legal hook he can find to criminalize journalism, to chill journalism,
to discourage reporters from reporting on his corruption, and this
(24:24):
is yet another component of that. Whether it means that
journalists will be prosecuted for possessing information or stories that
the government disfavors, or for transporting them. I don't know,
but journalists might be subpoena for their sources. We're seeing
(24:45):
that already. You know, journalists who cover national security, you
cover international affairs, have long had to worry about their
sources being subpoena as part of some national security or
quote unquote terrorism investigation. Off In times, these investigations that
are purported to justify subpoenaing reporters, the real reason behind
(25:08):
them is to proves to be to save the administration
from embarrassment, not to address any real national security or
terrorism issue. But that aside, that worry has for the
most part been isolated to those who report on international affairs,
those who report on terrorism as we have traditionally conceived
of terrorism. Now that domestic dissent is being characterized as terrorism,
(25:34):
as like you said, being anti fascist is being characterized
as terrorism, Being transgender is being characterized as terrorism. The
counter Terrorism Memo puts antifa right next to radical transgender ideology,
you know, whatever that means. So, at this point, given
that the definition of terrorism is so far expanded, the
(25:55):
law enforcement tools that have in the past been used
against journalists, terrorism could now be used against journalists covering
protest or covering sports, covering pretty much anything that offends
an administration that sees terror as synonymous with dissent. I
would just add that the notion of criminalizing possession of information,
(26:23):
which is essentially what happened to Dos Sanchez, that has
impacted the press before and on a bipartisan basis. The
Biden administration investigated Project Veritas, the right wing news outlet,
and I'm not here at all to shed any tears
for Project Veritas or defend their work in any way,
(26:45):
but they were investigated for their possession of Ashley Biden's
diary for transporting it against across state lines. They had
obtained Ashley Biden's diary from a source who may have
stolen it, but the precedent is clear. Journalists are entitled
to obtain information from sources who got it illegally as
(27:07):
long as the journalists themselves doesn't participate in the illegality.
So Project Veritaz obtaining that diary was constitutionally protected. Instead,
the Biden administration's workaround was to treat the diary as
stolen goods. And investigate them for transporting it across state lines.
In Los Angeles, a reporter Milo was investigated by the
(27:30):
LA Sheriff's Department for possession of a list of officers
who had been who had been disciplined or investigated. That
was eventually dropped after somebody presumably pointed out the constitutional
ramifications of investigating reporter for possession of information. But it
(27:51):
was an investigation. It did get off the ground if
you look at the Hannah Nathanson case right now, Hanna
Nateansen being the Washington Post reporter whose home was rated
over a source allegedly violating the Espionage Act by providing
her with information. Hannah Naatensen has tried to get the
(28:12):
information that was seized from her. She had several hard
drives worth of material, computers, even smart watches sees from
her home. She's attempted to get that back, and she's
been told by the government. The government's position is that
it is contraband, So again treating news tips from sources,
(28:32):
information found on a journalist's hard drive as contraband as
ill gotten gains like narcotic sees in a drug bust.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
This is.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
A line of cases in which Sanchez's is perhaps the
most egregious, but it's not the first.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Okay, okay, Cess tern is here with us discussing the harsh,
incredibly harsh, unfair sentence of Daniel des Sanchez Estrata. So
you co authored this piece with Jeremy Busby, who's a
writer an activist who's incarcerated in Texas too. So tell
(29:13):
us about the work that Jeremy does and kind of
bring him into the conversation.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
But if you can, sure, Yeah, Jeremy is a Freedom
of the Press Foundation contributor who we collaborate with quite often.
He's written for our site numerous times. He's written for
The Intercept in partnership with Freedom of the Press Foundation.
He also runs his own nonprofit organization to amplify the
(29:37):
voices of incarcerated journalists, called Join Jeremy. Full disclosure, I'm
on the board of Joined Jeremy. Jeremy has been incarcerated
in Texas for almost twenty eight years at this point,
might actually already be twenty eight years. He was convicted
of a murder that, from everything I've read and from
(29:59):
everything he's told me, appears to have been in self defense.
In any event, though I didn't know him twenty eight
years ago. He is not that person now. Jeremy is
entirely devoted to activism, to journalism, to exposing corruption within
(30:22):
the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and outside. And one
thing that Jeremy brings to our work at Freedom of
the Press Foundation is a perspective from someone who has
seen it all before. And prior to the article I
wrote with Jeremy for The Intercept, he had written another
article on his own talking about how criminalization of possession
(30:45):
of literature in prison is nothing new. People get thrown
in solitary, people get sentence enhancements, people get retaliated against
behind bars in any number of ways, merely for being
found with literature that prison officials don't approve of, that
in some instances is on a banned literature list, and
(31:08):
generally that this is books, magazines, whatever it may be,
that might lead them to question the conditions under which
they're being held, that might lead them to call for
better treatment, to call for sentencing reform, to become politically active,
(31:31):
whether within the prison.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Or without.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
So sometimes things we see on the outside that seem
shocking and new to us are not so new to
people in Jeremy's position, and it's great to have him
able to point that out and able to say there
is a whole world of people, two million incarcerated people
(31:57):
in the United States who have been dealing with the
issues for a long time. Now they have come to
impact the rest of you, and Jeremy is certainly joining
the rest of us, those on the outside, in our
fight against these conditions that are new to us. His
hope and my hope is that when hopefully we move
(32:21):
past this in the outside world, we don't forget that
people like him are still going through it. You know,
I was looking at something he wrote just today about surveillance,
about the debate over section seven oh two of FAISA,
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and again he makes the
point that, yes, it is awful that the federal government
(32:43):
is able to use this tool to surveil communications involving
American citizens and violation of the Fourth Amendment, But he's
living in a world where every single thing he does
and says has been surveiled for years, and not only him,
it also impacts those he communicates with on the outside.
(33:05):
Because the prison communications apps like securists are, include terms
and include access and to that people who use it
aren't aware of So again whatever similar to how there
might be permissible circumstances to surveil residents of other countries
(33:30):
who are suspected of ties to terrorism, but you can't
use that to surveil Americans who might communicate with people
in those countries. You might say that there are legal
authorities to surveil incarcerated people, whether you agree with that
or not, those legal authorities may exist, but they do
not allow surveillance of people on the outside who communicate
(33:50):
with incarcerated people. But unbeknownst to many who many who
are in that boat, they are surveiled. So Jeremy will
point things out like that that I think get lost
in the conversation when it has had without without incarcerating people.
You know, again two million, it would be like leaving
Chicago out of the national conversation where you know there
(34:13):
that that that that that, that's a lot of people
who deserve a seat at the table when we talk
about these issues.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Sure, stick around. We'll be back with more with Cstern
discussing journalism, activism, and freedom of the press. Right after
this
Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
welcome you to another episode of civic Cyper, where our
mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding. Big shout
out to my co host q Ward. I'm your host,
Ramsa's Jah and today we are going to be having
a conversation with a very special guest who is directly
related to a story that we have been covering and
(00:20):
a story that, if you know, the show, has been
near and dear to my heart. Seth Stern is the
chief of Advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation. Seys
articles about press freedom have been published by outlets like
The Guardian, The Intercept, Rolling Stone, and Columbia Journalism Review.
Seth and fps's advocacy team work in collaboration with independent bloggers,
(00:42):
incarcerated journalists, major national news outlets, and civil liberties organizations
to promote laws and policies that allow public interest journalism
to thrive. Before joining FPF, Seth practiced media and First
Amendment law for thirteen years. He has an article in
The Intercept titled thirty year sentence for transporting zines is
(01:03):
a five alarm fire for free speech, and he is
our guest today. All right, Cesstern, welcome to the show man.
How you doing today?
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I'm doing all right.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Great to be here, oh man, fantastic to have you.
So this is a story that we've touched on, and
I'm really excited that we get to do a much
deeper dive here today. But you know, for the folks
that may have missed the episode where we talked about
these crazy sentences and whatnot, do us a favorite give
a little bit of background for folks just coming to
(01:34):
the conversation, or you know, a much deeper dive than
I might have been able to give for people that
don't know who Danielle Dez Sanchez Estrada's story. Let's paint
a little bit of a picture, some backstory, bring folks
to the conversation.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Sure so, about a year ago, last July fourth, there
was a protest outside of an ICED detention facility in
Alvarado exists. Daniel Sanchez Estrata's wife attended. Daniel Sanch's Astrata
did not. Several other people attended. It was a noise demonstration,
(02:11):
people at off fireworks. People generally made a ruckus to
call attention to what Ice was and is doing at
the time and the conditions that we've all read about
at those detention facilities. During that protest, there was an
exchange of gunfire after police responded, and an officer was
(02:34):
raised in the neck by a bullet. He was fine.
The injuries were fairly minor. But after that investigators began
attempting to piece together charges not only against the alleged shooter,
but against pretty much everyone who attended the protest. The
(02:54):
problem is that the shooting that occurred, by all accounts,
was not something that was planned. It was something that
happened that the vast majority of nobody attending the protest
expected to happen. People left their homes with food, baking,
with pets, and everyone was planning to come home after
(03:17):
this protest. Nobody was expecting anyone to be shot. Nonetheless,
authorities attempted to manufacture this conspiracy between everyone present, to
characterize them as members of an Antifa cell, and thereby
a tribute fault for the shooting not just to the
shooter but to everyone else who was there. The evidence
(03:38):
for any such conspiracy was essentially nonexistent. People talked about
going to the protest, sure, but they didn't talk about
committing any crimes there So, instead of finding actual evidence
of the conspiracy, prosecutors attempted to tie the protesters together
through ideology by showing that they were anarchists, that they
(03:59):
were leftists, that they were members of so called Antifa,
whatever that means. Sanchez Estrata. His case is particularly remarkable
because he wasn't even at the protest, as I mentioned,
his wife was. After the protest, he moved some zines
allegedly out of his apartment that he shared with his
(04:20):
wife to another home, and prosecutor's theory was that he
did so because he expected the zines would be evidence
against his wife, to prove her culpability in this non
existent conspiracy. The problem with that, of course, is evidence
(04:41):
of what. It is not criminal to possess zines. It
is not evidence of any conspiracy that you read the
same zines as you are co conspirators. We all read
the same books as a lot of people read. These
were not pamphlets that gave any sort of how to
instructions on how to shoot a police officer or commit
(05:04):
any particular crime. They made no mention of this protest
in July fourth, twenty twenty five. They're written years earlier.
They're political essays. They're fairly common zines in the that
that you can find at any leftist bookstore. So it's
unclear what exactly prosecutors believe Sanchez was concealing evidence. Of
(05:30):
the idea that he's concealing evidence and that that is
a crime is built upon the false premise that zines
themselves somehow evidence participation in a conspiracy. In any case,
Sanchez the Strata's lawyers made those arguments. The jury didn't agree,
(05:51):
convicted him. The judge sentenced him to thirty years. His
wife got seventy years, even though there's allegation that she
was the shooter or that she had any plans to
shoot anyone or had any foreknowledge that anyone was going
to get shot. The total sentences in the case succeed
four hundred years. So these are the other sentences that
(06:14):
are far in excess. One. People have drawn the comparison
to January sixth, far in excess of anything any sentences
handed out to January sixth. Defendants also an excess of
sentences given to murderers and rapists and real criminals, not
to mention why coyler criminals. Of course, these are really
(06:37):
alarming sentences for people whose alleged unlawful acts really boiled
down to reading literature the government didn't like and attending protests.
At most, some of these people might have been guilty
of trespassing, a misdemeanor that should have been handled with
a ticket. Sure.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Sure, Now I know that there's going to be, you know,
a group of people that will push back, because once
you introduce a gun and a shooting into the narrative,
then you know, this is I've been black a long time,
so I recognize that once that is introduced or injected
(07:21):
into the conversation, a public sentiment shifts a bit, especially
for people who aren't, you know, deeply knowledgeable about the
goings on behind the scenes. You know, it's kind of
the headline effect. So if you're able to you know,
and I've read about this, but I haven't yet shared
(07:41):
it with my listeners, if you're able to paint a
little bit more of that picture of the I believe
it was an exchange of gunfire. It wasn't just someone
trying to assassinate a police officer and missing and grazing
their neck. I think that leans a little bit more
in the way of development because, as you mentioned, these
people were on their way to demonstrate. It was a
(08:01):
noise demonstration, and one individual brought a weapon for safety
for those individuals not to commit an act of violence
against anyone based on his account of the incidents. So
if you could enlighten our listeners a little bit more
about that specific part of it, I think it would
help the rest of this become easier to follow, right.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Sure, Well, the first thing to note is, you know
this is Texas. People in Texas supposedly favor the Second Amendment. Sure,
these were legal firearms that people brought, as you said,
for safety. They've been watching what ICE has been doing
and are anticipating a potential need to protect themselves, not
coming with plans to actually use those firearms, but as
(08:47):
many people do carry firearms in just in case, essentially
and correct, this was an exchange of fire. I'm not
an expert the exact circumstances that forensics might have revealed
in terms of who shot first, and whether the shot
(09:08):
was aimed at an officer or ricochet or what. But
I think the core point is that this was an
unplanned incident, even by the shooter himself, let alone by
anyone else who was present. Several of the people convicted
weren't even there for the shooting. They went to the protest,
(09:29):
they left before the shooting occurred. So although I take
your point that people have sort of this visceral reaction
to while guns are involved, this isn't a normal protest.
Somebody got shot. Again, Sanchez Estrata wasn't even there. Yeah,
and several of his co defendants were gone before these
shots were fired. Those who were still there when the
(09:50):
shots were fired, had no involvement in the shooting, no
planning of the shooting. Again, lawful firearms. These are tactics
that have been employed by prosecutors for a long time
that I think are now being seen in higher profile,
more political contexts. The idea that because these protesters shared
(10:16):
what prosecutors would characterize as a violent ideology, I would
disagree with that characterization. You know, they're saying that these
these people believe in political violence. Well, you know, a
lot of people believe in some limited circumstances in political violence.
My grandparents were Holocaust survivors. I am sort of okay
with violence against Nazis. That doesn't mean that if somebody
(10:39):
else shoots a Nazi, I'm responsible for it. But you know,
these are similar to we've seen criminal trials where prosecutors
introduce rap lyrics and say, well, this proved, you know,
there's there's violence in the lyrics, even though the lyrics
have nothing to do with the particular crime being charged.
(11:00):
This proves that this defendant is a violent person, so
throw the book at him. Kind of a similar thing
we're seeing here. Well, these people are anarchists, they have
zines that you know, might occasionally endorse political violence. They're
violent people. They're written to the core through of the
(11:21):
book at them. So we're seeing, you know, tactics that
prosecutors have sort of gotten away with at the local
level in the criminal courts for a long time now
being brought to the forefront because instead of being used
against you know, poor people, mostly poor people of color,
(11:45):
they're being used against political targets of the current administration.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Seth Starn, it's here with us discussing the harsh sentence
for Daniel des Sanchez a Strata for transporting zines. So
one of the things that I think we should we
should circle back to is the sentencing itself. You know,
these like incredibly harsh senses for Sanchez Estrata, but also
(12:17):
for everyone else involved, because his was I think the
most alarming, because again, for someone that wasn't there, your
point is well made. But indeed, all of these sentences,
the worst thing that happened was someone got grazed in
the neck with a bullet, and I think that personal
sentenced to one hundred years if I'm not mistaken. But
(12:39):
this sort of reeks of well, let me not get
ahead of myself. One of the things that I realized recently,
recently enough, I should say, is, you know, the Supreme
Court came down with it with a decision that suggested
that trans women were no longer allowed to be or
(13:04):
they were upholding a band I believe it was that
trans women would no longer be allowed to play in
women's sports right, and the right had celebrated this as
like some great victory for Donald Trump. And the truth is,
those of us that understand how numbers work, in data works,
and the way population works, is that this is a
(13:26):
solution to a problem that really didn't exist. It's a
nothing burger. And you know, for the people that were
thirsty for that information, that had been primed to view
these folks as the enemy. It feels like a win
on that side. Similarly, when talking about Antifa, this looks
(13:48):
like a great victory for this administration that they've convicted
these Antifa the leader of an Antifa cell and all
this sort of stuff. And as you mentioned, you know,
and I'm a sort of person and that I actually
get out in protest. I know people who would consider
themselves anti fascist, and if they shortened its antifa, you know,
(14:10):
I certainly would consider myself anti fascist. You know, I
think a lot of people would if they understood what
they were saying. However, that name has been sort of
co opted and turned into the boogeyman. My point here
is that in my estimation, it's that label that allowed
(14:30):
this courtroom to get the conviction. And I think I
want to ask you, do you think that that's the
reason that they were able to secure such long sentences,
or these long sentences were handed down because of that association.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
I think that's right, And some of the attorneys involved
in the case have said that similar that that was
their impression as well. You're dealing with sort of a
small town Texas jury. The probably lives in a relatively
homogeneous environment, and the idea of anarchists, the idea of
(15:09):
anti government zines, of protesting against ice. All of it
was so foreign to them that it was easy to
portray these people as some sort of supervillain comic book character,
to other them, to dehumanize them to an extent that
(15:32):
a jury was primed to sentence them to decades and
decades in prison for what amounts at best to trespassing
or noise disturbances. The people who weren't even there at
the time of the shooting nonetheless got decades for some
conspiracy to set off explosives, the explosives being fireworks, So
(15:59):
you know, the yes, something was miscommunicated or misunderstood by
this jury deliberately. They were misled to believe that these
were some unusual terrorist actors who deserved this, and that
(16:22):
that's a theory that has probably more of a chance
of success in some areas of the country than in others.
I'm not saying that to demean rural people are called
them ignorant or anything. I'm just saying that elsewhere in
the country people have come across folks with different ideologies
(16:44):
before they might have people who are at sort of
political extremes in their own families. They live in cities
where protests occur all the time. It's a whole world
that is to some extent, you know, far into to
the people on the jury. And I should say that
the jury was selected in a somewhat suspect manner as well.
(17:09):
There was an initial jury selection that was in progress
and essentially avoided with a new jury selection being called
because the first Jeri's jury selection was right after Jesse
Jackson died. Allegedly, one of the lawyers for the defendants
was wearing some kind of shirt that paid tribute to
Jesse Jackson or his movement, and the judge claimed that
(17:33):
that shirt was somehow prejudicial and brought in a whole
new jury pool.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
So this was a.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Jury that was selected at a disadvantage to the defendants.
From the outset. There had also been lawyers who were
disqualified by this judge for reasons that didn't make a
whole lot of sense. So the game was very much rigged,
(18:06):
and that might explain the convictions. But the sentence, on
the other hand, is because is I think the prosecutor
at the sentence and hearing and the judge them himself
made pretty clear they viewed these people as having a
violent ideology and they wanted to send a message to
(18:27):
those out there with similar ideologies.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Wow, okay, that's a kangaroo court if I ever heard
of one. Now, is there? I don't imagine that there
would be. It sounds manufactured. But I have to ask you,
was there any basis for Was there any historical precedent
for this case that allowed them the veneer of the
(18:56):
optics of integrity, because you know, you and I are
looking at it and we can see right through it.
But there's got to be something that they based us
on or they just knew what they were doing with
their whole chest.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Historical precedents. You can look at McCarthyism, you can look
at the Haymarket cases. There certainly have been times in
the past where dissidents and particularly leftists were convicted of
conspiracy solely for sharing an ideology with alleged wrongful actors.
(19:32):
That's not new. More recently, you can look at the
Stop Coop City case in Atlanta, where very similar sixty
some odd people were indicted under a rico charge, a
conspiracy charge because one or two members of the Stop
(19:53):
Cup City movement had allegedly committed some crimes, had vandalized
police cars, had had set fire, very similar to this case.
The sixty some people who were indicted were not alleged
to have participated in any of those crimes, to have
planned any of those crimes. They were roped into the
(20:14):
case based on the notion that they shared an ideology
with those who committed the crimes, that they were again anarchists,
that they read the same zines, that they distributed the
same literature, that they were part of the same movement
to stop the construction of this cop city police training
facility in Atlanta. Now that case fell through and the
(20:40):
indictment was rightfully dismissed after costing a lot of people
lots of time, money, and stress, of course, but eventually
the indictment was dismissed. And it's one of those things
where you look at it at the time and say, Okay,
some local prosecutor did something crazy. That's say, one off
incident that you know isn't going to be the norm.
(21:03):
But then you see the federal government doing the doing
the same the same thing, and where where there are
there are a lot of those cases. We're seeing a
rise these days from the Trump administration where there are
past parallels, but they are by rogue prosecutors or rogue
police officers in some small towns somewhere, And when they happened,
(21:28):
everyone sort of rolled their eyes and said, well, that's
that's that's wild. That's like some Brino nine one one
Keystone Cops stuff. Kind of laughed at at it as
a as a one off thing by some bye bye
bye by some amateur law enforcement officials, and then a
couple of years later it's it's it's the official policy
(21:49):
of the United States government. Wow.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Well, uh, you work in this space, I think you
might have some insight. This seems like an attack on
the ideology. This is an attack on the ideology, not
on the individuals or their behavior, certainly lack thereof in
the case of Sanchez Estrata. Do you think this will
(22:18):
have an effect on journalists. I'm sure have an effect
on activists, but do you think that will have an
effect on journalism and how journalism how we view journalism
in the country.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Yeah. Well, these zines that Sanchez Estrata was alleged to
have concealed, and the zines that others who were there
were alleged to have distributed and printed are pretty close
in resemblance to the political pamphlets that the folks who
(22:53):
wrote the First Amendments press clause most likely had in
mind when they wrote that. You know, you've got to
remember where the constitutional times. We're not looking at an
era when the institutional press as we know it today existed.
We're not looking at an era where journalistic objectivity and
(23:15):
neutrality was a goal or of the press, or even
really a concept that was in existence. The newspapers at
the time were political, highly political, oftentimes pro revolution. So
(23:35):
when we say will journalism be affected, it kind of
already has been because these zines. If you were to
ask the folks who wrote the press clause, they would
say these are journalism. It's exactly the kind of journalism
that they were looking to protect. Now, when we talk
about will contemporary journalism be be effected, I think it
(24:01):
will be. We've got a president who declares the press
the enemy of the people, who is looking for any
legal hook he can find to criminalize journalism, to chill journalism,
to discourage reporters from reporting on his corruption, and this
(24:24):
is yet another component of that. Whether it means that
journalists will be prosecuted for possessing information or stories that
the government disfavors, or for transporting them. I don't know,
but journalists might be subpoena for their sources. We're seeing
(24:45):
that already. You know, journalists who cover national security, you
cover international affairs, have long had to worry about their
sources being subpoena as part of some national security or
quote unquote terrorism investigation. Off In times, these investigations that
are purported to justify subpoenaing reporters, the real reason behind
(25:08):
them is to proves to be to save the administration
from embarrassment, not to address any real national security or
terrorism issue. But that aside, that worry has for the
most part been isolated to those who report on international affairs,
those who report on terrorism as we have traditionally conceived
of terrorism. Now that domestic dissent is being characterized as terrorism,
(25:34):
as like you said, being anti fascist is being characterized
as terrorism, Being transgender is being characterized as terrorism. The
counter Terrorism Memo puts antifa right next to radical transgender ideology,
you know, whatever that means. So, at this point, given
that the definition of terrorism is so far expanded, the
(25:55):
law enforcement tools that have in the past been used
against journalists, terrorism could now be used against journalists covering
protest or covering sports, covering pretty much anything that offends
an administration that sees terror as synonymous with dissent. I
would just add that the notion of criminalizing possession of information,
(26:23):
which is essentially what happened to Dos Sanchez, that has
impacted the press before and on a bipartisan basis. The
Biden administration investigated Project Veritas, the right wing news outlet,
and I'm not here at all to shed any tears
for Project Veritas or defend their work in any way,
(26:45):
but they were investigated for their possession of Ashley Biden's
diary for transporting it against across state lines. They had
obtained Ashley Biden's diary from a source who may have
stolen it, but the precedent is clear. Journalists are entitled
to obtain information from sources who got it illegally as
(27:07):
long as the journalists themselves doesn't participate in the illegality.
So Project Veritaz obtaining that diary was constitutionally protected. Instead,
the Biden administration's workaround was to treat the diary as
stolen goods. And investigate them for transporting it across state lines.
In Los Angeles, a reporter Milo was investigated by the
(27:30):
LA Sheriff's Department for possession of a list of officers
who had been who had been disciplined or investigated. That
was eventually dropped after somebody presumably pointed out the constitutional
ramifications of investigating reporter for possession of information. But it
(27:51):
was an investigation. It did get off the ground if
you look at the Hannah Nathanson case right now, Hanna
Nateansen being the Washington Post reporter whose home was rated
over a source allegedly violating the Espionage Act by providing
her with information. Hannah Naatensen has tried to get the
(28:12):
information that was seized from her. She had several hard
drives worth of material, computers, even smart watches sees from
her home. She's attempted to get that back, and she's
been told by the government. The government's position is that
it is contraband, So again treating news tips from sources,
(28:32):
information found on a journalist's hard drive as contraband as
ill gotten gains like narcotic sees in a drug bust.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
This is.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
A line of cases in which Sanchez's is perhaps the
most egregious, but it's not the first.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Okay, okay, Cess tern is here with us discussing the harsh,
incredibly harsh, unfair sentence of Daniel des Sanchez Estrata. So
you co authored this piece with Jeremy Busby, who's a
writer an activist who's incarcerated in Texas too. So tell
(29:13):
us about the work that Jeremy does and kind of
bring him into the conversation.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
But if you can, sure, Yeah, Jeremy is a Freedom
of the Press Foundation contributor who we collaborate with quite often.
He's written for our site numerous times. He's written for
The Intercept in partnership with Freedom of the Press Foundation.
He also runs his own nonprofit organization to amplify the
(29:37):
voices of incarcerated journalists, called Join Jeremy. Full disclosure, I'm
on the board of Joined Jeremy. Jeremy has been incarcerated
in Texas for almost twenty eight years at this point,
might actually already be twenty eight years. He was convicted
of a murder that, from everything I've read and from
(29:59):
everything he's told me, appears to have been in self defense.
In any event, though I didn't know him twenty eight
years ago. He is not that person now. Jeremy is
entirely devoted to activism, to journalism, to exposing corruption within
(30:22):
the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and outside. And one
thing that Jeremy brings to our work at Freedom of
the Press Foundation is a perspective from someone who has
seen it all before. And prior to the article I
wrote with Jeremy for The Intercept, he had written another
article on his own talking about how criminalization of possession
(30:45):
of literature in prison is nothing new. People get thrown
in solitary, people get sentence enhancements, people get retaliated against
behind bars in any number of ways, merely for being
found with literature that prison officials don't approve of, that
in some instances is on a banned literature list, and
(31:08):
generally that this is books, magazines, whatever it may be,
that might lead them to question the conditions under which
they're being held, that might lead them to call for
better treatment, to call for sentencing reform, to become politically active,
(31:31):
whether within the prison.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Or without.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
So sometimes things we see on the outside that seem
shocking and new to us are not so new to
people in Jeremy's position, and it's great to have him
able to point that out and able to say there
is a whole world of people, two million incarcerated people
(31:57):
in the United States who have been dealing with the
issues for a long time. Now they have come to
impact the rest of you, and Jeremy is certainly joining
the rest of us, those on the outside, in our
fight against these conditions that are new to us. His
hope and my hope is that when hopefully we move
(32:21):
past this in the outside world, we don't forget that
people like him are still going through it. You know,
I was looking at something he wrote just today about surveillance,
about the debate over section seven oh two of FAISA,
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and again he makes the
point that, yes, it is awful that the federal government
(32:43):
is able to use this tool to surveil communications involving
American citizens and violation of the Fourth Amendment, But he's
living in a world where every single thing he does
and says has been surveiled for years, and not only him,
it also impacts those he communicates with on the outside.
(33:05):
Because the prison communications apps like securists are, include terms
and include access and to that people who use it
aren't aware of So again whatever similar to how there
might be permissible circumstances to surveil residents of other countries
(33:30):
who are suspected of ties to terrorism, but you can't
use that to surveil Americans who might communicate with people
in those countries. You might say that there are legal
authorities to surveil incarcerated people, whether you agree with that
or not, those legal authorities may exist, but they do
not allow surveillance of people on the outside who communicate
(33:50):
with incarcerated people. But unbeknownst to many who many who
are in that boat, they are surveiled. So Jeremy will
point things out like that that I think get lost
in the conversation when it has had without without incarcerating people.
You know, again two million, it would be like leaving
Chicago out of the national conversation where you know there
(34:13):
that that that that that, that's a lot of people
who deserve a seat at the table when we talk
about these issues.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Sure, stick around. We'll be back with more with Cstern
discussing journalism, activism, and freedom of the press. Right after
this
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