Another federal employee, Special Judge Marianne Battani, has brought her amazing powers of mind-reading to bear upon her ruling in an important federal case.  Judge Battani recently sentenced Dr. Rene Boucher to a mere 30 days for the federal crime of committing a serious, injurious assault upon a sitting U.S. senator.  The judge's wrist-slapping is in defiance of 18 U.S. Code 351, which provides for imprisonment of up to ten years for an assault upon a congressman that results in personal injury.  Barring the defense of psychotic mental illness, which was never raised in this case, the offender's attitudes are completely irrelevant in the application of this law.  The special protections are granted to the highest levels of the executive branch and to congressmen wholly and solely due to the fact of their high office.  The special seriousness of the offense arises from the status of the victim, regardless of the attitudes of the perpetrator.

The federal prosecutors and the injured senator both requested a sentence of 21 months in recognition of the harm to the nation at large when high elected officials are attacked.  Judge Battani justified her trivializing sentencing by saying she saw no evidence that the attack was political in nature.  Addressing the perpetrator, she said, "This court does not believe you did this because of Senator Paul's political positions or political work."

Dr. Boucher was not ordered to undergo an intensive psychiatric evaluation as would have been indicated for the Judge to base her ruling on the assailant's state of mind at the time of committing the crime.  In fact, the main evidence Battani had that the crime had no political coloration is that the defendant's attorney said so.  Judge Battani's duty was to be guided by the intent of the law, not the intent of the offender.  Nevertheless, after sentencing, Judge Battani was solicitous of the assailant's feelings and didn't want him to be overly troubled by the crime he committed.  Again addressing Boucher, she said, "I know it's a heavy burden to be a convicted felon, but I hope you can forgive yourself and go on with your life."

Judge Battani is just the latest adjudicator rendering incompetent forensic psychology in a case with national significance.  These mentalisms from the bench always seem to work to the detriment and even endangerment of Republicans.  U.S. district judge Richard Berman tried to soften his highly unusual, arguably cruel punishment of Republican author and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza by wrapping the harsh sentencing in concerned psychobabble.  D'Souza was convicted of an infraction involving a relatively low-budget unlawful campaign contribution.  (D'Souza's sentence for the wayward contribution was many times more punitive than Boucher's for breaking six ribs and puncturing the lungs of a Republican senator.)  In questioning D'Souza's mental health, Judge Berman reassured his clientele that he was a psychology major in college.  The judge rejected the opinion of a court-approved psychiatrist that gave D'Souza a clean bill of mental health and ordered the prominent conservative to several months of psychotherapy, as well as partial incarceration and other punishments.  Judge Berman said, "A requirement for psychological counseling often comes up in cases where I find it hard to understand why someone did what they [sic] did."  If he can't understand trying to help a friend, then Berman has the mental problem.  Again, it's a dangerous development among left-wingers to put psychological notions above equal protection of law.

 FBI director James Comey became America's great and all-powerful forensic psychiatrist when he exonerated candidate Clinton in the email scandal, based on his personal findings of the innocence of her intentions.  Comey concluded: "[W]e did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information."  What would constitute clear evidence of intentional activity, given the vast array of sophisticated actions that Hillary Clinton authorized in order to remove top-secret information from under the umbrella of rigorous security?  Would she have had to label her computers I violated law governing classified information.  So sue me?

But it was the duplicitous mind-reading throughout the case of the DOJ vs. the constitutional presidency that changed the course of American history and created a dreadful precedent of exoneration of historic crimes by absurd psychoanalysis of intentions.  I.G. Michael Horowitz's psychological summation discounting political bias or animus against President Trump in the DOJ or FBI is quickly becoming the modern legal equivalent of the three-fifths compromise in its indefensible irrationality and falseness.

Image: Denisse Arcon via Flickr.