Convicted domestic terrorist Schaeffer Cox is getting a new sentence hearing.

Courtesy of the Newsminer: 

A panel of 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges has reversed one of Fairbanks militia leader Francis Schaeffer Cox's convictions but affirmed others. 

A six-page unpublished memorandum filed on Tuesday states Cox will get a new sentencing hearing. It's not yet clear whether the decision will affect his total prison sentence of 26 years. 

Cox, 34, was a one-time Alaska Legislature candidate and leader of a Fairbanks gun rights organization until his arrest in 2011. He has advocated the "sovereign citizen" ideology that disavows the legitimacy of the U.S. government, although he has rejected the label as a pejorative term in writings from prison. 

This week's appeals court ruling came less than two weeks after three appeals court judges heard oral arguments in Cox's case in an Anchorage courtroom. 

Cox is serving his sentence at a federal prison in Illinois after an Anchorage jury convicted him in 2012 on charges including conspiracy to murder federal officials, solicitation to murder federal officials and charges of owning illegal weapons.

It is very unlikely that this new sentence will have any significant impact on Schaeffer's prison time.

If you want to learn more about this you can actually read a great new book about the case called "The Blood of Patriots," written by Bill "Dropzone" Fulton and fellow Alaska blogger Jeanne Devon.

I received an early copy and read it a few months back.

It is a gripping tale, full of heretofore unknown details, and after reading it you will want Schaeffer Cox to stay in jail for as long as possible.

(You can order your copy here.)

"You've killed two of your children. ... Not God. Not your church. Not religious devotion. You." Said by judge during sentencing of couple whose second child died due to belief in faith healing over medical treatment.

Courtesy of The Press News:  

Herbert and Catherine Schaible defied a court order to get medical care for their children after their 2-year-old son, Kent, died in 2009. Instead, they tried to comfort and pray over 8-month-old Brandon last year as he, too, died of treatable pneumonia. 

"My religious beliefs are that you should pray, and not have to use medicine. But because it is against the law, then whatever sentence you give me, I will accept," Catherine Schaible, 44, told the judge. She added that her beliefs have since changed. 

The Schaibles are third-generation members of an insular Pentecostal community, the First Century Gospel Church in northeast Philadelphia, where they also taught at the church school. They have seven surviving children. 
Judge Benjamin Lerner rejected defense claims that their religious beliefs "clashed" with the 2011 court order to get annual checkups and call a doctor if a child became ill. The order came after a jury convicted them of involuntary manslaughter in Kent's death, and they were sentenced to 10 years of probation. 

"April of 2013 wasn't Brandon's time to die," Lerner said, noting the violence committed throughout human history in the name of religion. "You've killed two of your children. ... Not God. Not your church. Not religious devotion. You." 

Experts say about a dozen U.S. children die in faith-healing cases each year. 

The Schaibles are the rare couple to lose a second child that way. Their pastor, Nelson Clark, blamed Kent's death on a "spiritual lack" in the parents' lives, and insisted they would never seek medical care, even if another child was dying. 

"It was so foreseeable to me that this was going to happen," said Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore, who prosecuted both cases. "Everybody in the system failed these children." 

After the first death, she and public defender Mythri Jayaraman agreed that the couple's beliefs were so ingrained that their children remained at risk. They asked the earlier judge to have the family supervised by a Department of Human Services caseworker. Instead, the judge assigned them to probation officers, who are not trained to monitor children's welfare. 

Pescatore has called Brandon's symptoms "eerily similar" to Kent's. They included labored breathing and a refusal to eat. 

In his police statement last year, Herbert Schaible, 45, said, "We believe in divine healing, that Jesus shed blood for our healing and that he died on the cross to break the devil's power."

When people ask me what harm can faith do, this is the kind of thing that I think should be brought up time and time again. The idea that illness is the result of demonic power, and that the only way to cure it is through faith, is an archaic superstition which should not have purchase in this modern age.

And yet here it is.

However what is almost as big of a travesty is that the judge only gave this couple a sentence of three and a half to seven years, even though the third degree murder charge they were convicted on could have resulted in 40 years behind bars.

Now they will simply be out someday to usher in the death of a third child, whose only sin will to have been born to a pair of simple minded parents, whose superstitious beliefs are so fundamental to their personalities that they will blame his death on an imaginary devil rather than accept any responsibility.

Alaskan terrorist, Lonnie Vernon gets 26 year prison term. Next up, Schaeffer Cox.

Courtesy of ADN:  

An Alaska militia member convicted of conspiring to kill public officials and of amassing weapons was sentenced Monday to nearly 26 years in prison, when proceedings were disrupted by his frequent and profanity-laden outbursts questioning the authority of the court. 

Judge Robert Bryan sentenced Lonnie Vernon, 57, during a nearly hour-long hearing at U.S. District Court in Anchorage on charges of conspiracy to murder federal officials and stockpiling weapons such as silencers and grenades for use in attacks.

In a far less dramatic hearing later Monday, his wife, Karen Vernon, 67, was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Before she was sentenced, 

Karen Vernon apologized and said her "words and actions were not intended to harm anyone." 

She also apologized "to family and friends for the shame and embarrassment this has all caused, and I mean that. I truly do." 

You know I almost feel sorry for Mrs. Vernon. She is undoubtedly one of these women who adopts her husbands politics and belief systems and probably trusted that he knew what he was doing, and that they really were above the law.

Speaking of above the law, check out some of Vernon's lunatic ravings during the sentencing.

Throughout his hearing, Lonnie Vernon was vocal, demanding several times that prosecutors and the judge prove their jurisdiction over him. 

"I want to find out who the hell you people really are," Vernon said. "Nobody has proved jurisdiction." 

"I reside in the state of Alaska, not in your government realm. I am sovereign," Vernon said. 

The militiaman steadfastly maintained his sovereign rights, and asked marshals to arrest prosecutors. "I want you to arrest these people until they prove who they are." 

Bryan told him, "This court has jurisdiction over you. If you don't agree with it, you can take it to a higher court." 

Vernon responded, "Better yet, let's take it to a lower court. The common law court." 

Whoa Nelly! This guy is some piece of work!

"Dammit Why CAN'T I threaten a judge and local law enforcement officials, then claim immunity from your laws, and get off scott free"

I wonder if he will use the same tactic in prison? "You can't do that to me, I am a sovereign citizen of Alaska. Stop touching me there!" Somehow I don't think that will protect him from those enforcing jailhouse jurisdiction.

Tomorrow it's Schaeffer Cox's turn to be sentenced. If Lonnie Vernon received 26 years I think we can expect Schaeffer to get about ten years more than that. All things considered.

I certainly hope those militia assholes down in the lower forty-right are paying close attention.  If that "sovereign citizen" shit won't fly in Alaska there is NO WAY it is going to work any better in Mississippi or Alabama.

Oh an by the way, Barack Obama is STILL the President. God I love saying that!

Prosecutor recommends a 35 year sentence for domestic Alaskan terrorist Schaeffer Cox.

Courtesy of ADN:

Federal prosecutors are asking a judge to put Fairbanks militia leader Schaeffer Cox behind bars until he's in his mid-60s, and to sentence two militia members, Lonnie and Karen Vernon, to what is effectively life imprisonment. 

In June, an Anchorage jury convicted Cox, the 28-year-old founder of the Alaska Peacemaker Militia, and 57-year-old militia soldier Lonnie Vernon of plotting to kill law enforcement officials and conspiring to obtain gun silencers and grenades with which to carry out attacks. In a separate case, Lonnie and his 66-year-old wife, Karen, pleaded guilty in August, admitting they had planned to kill a federal judge and an Internal Revenue Service Officer while the couple was embroiled in a legal dispute over property taxes. 

Prosecutors are recommending sentences of 26 1/2 years for Lonnie Vernon for both convictions and 15 1/2 years for Karen Vernon. Lonnie Vernon is asking for a sentence of 21 years, 10 months. Karen Vernon is asking for five years. The couple's sentencing hearing is set for Monday. 

According to a sentencing memorandum filed in court this week, prosecutors recommend that Cox spend 35 years in prison. A judge is scheduled to sentence Cox at a hearing Tuesday. Cox's Seattle-based attorney, Peter Camiel, says he will ask the judge for a sentence of 10 years. 

Camiel and Cox's attorney at trial, Nelson Traverso, have said the militia members merely made plans to react with violence in the event of a collapse of the federal government and that no attacks were imminent. Prosecutors say the militia, at Cox's direction, took clear steps toward committing murder, including compiling a "hit list," conducting surveillance on possible targets and amassing a huge cache of weapons, some of them illegal to own. 

Well it should come as no surprise to anybody that I think they should throw the book at Cox.  As well as the Vernons.

In doing so I think it would send a clear message to all of those camouflage wearing, automatic weapon hoarding, militia assholes, that if THEY decide to start threatening Federal officials, or amassing a huge arsenal with the mindset that it will someday be used against our military, that they TOO may soon find themselves spending decades behind bars living in abject fear of accidentally dropping a bar of soap in the shower.

Oh and by the way, to any militia douchebags who might be reading this, Barack Obama is STILL our President.