The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned the conviction of Douglass Mackey, a conservative activist who was prosecuted by the Biden administration over a satirical meme posted during the 2016 election cycle.
The appellate court ruled that prosecutors failed to provide sufficient evidence to support the conviction in a case that has drawn national attention to questions about free speech and government overreach.
Mackey announced the decision on X, stating in all caps, “Breaking: The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has thrown out my conviction for lack of evidence.”
“The case has ben remanded to the district court with orders to immediately dismiss.”
“Praise God,” Mackey added, referring to his previous sentence of seven months in federal prison following his March 2023 conviction.
The appellate court had previously sided with Mackey in December 2023, suspending his prison sentence until the appeal process was completed.
This initial decision signaled that the higher court viewed the case as having substantial legal issues that warranted further review.
Mackey faced prosecution after sharing a meme during the 2016 election season that satirically suggested Hillary Clinton supporters could submit their votes via text message.
The meme was presented as a joke, but the Biden administration’s Department of Justice under Attorney General Merrick Garland pursued charges of election interference against him several years after the original posts were made.
The Post Millennial (TPM) highlighted that despite the prosecution’s claims, the Department of Justice could not provide evidence that any individuals were deceived by the meme into believing they could vote by text message.
The absence of such evidence did not deter the DOJ from pursuing the case, which critics argued represented a concerning expansion of federal prosecution powers into the realm of political satire and online discourse.
The Department of Justice also suggested that Mackey was motivated by racial bias in creating the meme.
These memes formed the foundation of the jury verdict in the Eastern District of New York that convicted him of “conspiring to injure citizens in the exercise of their right to vote.”
The Second Circuit Court wrote that “the mere fact that Mackey posted the memes, even assuming that he did so with the intent to injure other citizens in the exercise of their right to vote, is not enough, standing alone, to prove a violation of Section 241.”
“The government was obligated to show that Mackey knowingly entered into an agreement with other people to pursue that objective.”
The court determined that “this the government failed to do. Its primary evidence of agreement, apart from the memes themselves, consisted of exchanges among the participants in several private Twitter message groups—exchanges the government argued showed the intent of the participants to interfere with others’ exercise of their right to vote.”
The ruling continued, stating that “the government failed to offer sufficient evidence that Mackey even viewed—let alone participated in—any of these exchanges.”
“And in the absence of such evidence, the government’s remaining circumstantial evidence cannot alone establish Mackey’s knowing agreement. Accordingly, the jury’s verdict and the resulting judgement conviction must be set aside.”
The appellate court’s decision explicitly stated that “Mackey was convicted of conspiring to injure citizens in the exercise of their right to vote in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 241 based on three memes he posted or reposted on Twitter shortly before the 2016 presidential election.”
“These memes falsely suggested that supporters of then-candidate Hillary Clinton could vote by text message. On appeal, Mackey argues, inter alia, that the evidence was insufficient to prove that he knowingly agreed to join the charged conspiracy. We agree.”
The court documented that “at various times throughout 2016, Mackey was a member of several direct message groups, three of which are particularly relevant here: the ‘War Room,’ ‘Micro Chat,’ and ‘Madman #2.’ In these groups, members shared pro-Trump and anti-Clinton messages and memes and discussed strategies to make their posts trend and go viral on Twitter.”
The ruling noted that “like most of Mackey’s tweets, the exchanges in these groups generally fellwithin the scope of lawful—albeit sometimes ‘outrageous’ or ‘silly’—political speech.”
TPM further noted that following the appellate court’s 2023 ruling that suspended his prison sentence pending appeal, Mackey had stated, “The Second Circuit Court of Appeals just overruled the District Court in granting our motion for bond pending appeal.”
“This ruling is huge because it means that the appeals court decided that my appeal presents ‘substantial’ and ‘debatable’ issues of law that, if resolved in my favor, will result in my conviction being vacated. The prosecution, on the other hand, argued that my appeal was frivolous and that this was a typical election crime case like any other in U.S. history.”
“This is a very encouraging step towards vindication,” he continued.
The appellate court has now completely overturned the conviction. Mackey described the ruling as a “unanimous decision by both Republican and Democrat judges.”
“I would like to thank God, thank my family, thank my beautiful wife, attorney Andrew Frisch, the incredible attorneys at Jones Day, and YOU—the friends who prayed and donated and spread the word since day one,” he wrote following the decision.
Mackey also noted, “I can finally get my guns back.”
The post Federal Court Overturns Conviction of Conservative Activist Douglass Mackey Sentenced to Prison Over 2016 Election Meme: ‘I Can Finally Get My Guns Back’ appeared first on Resist the Mainstream.
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Author: Jordyn M.
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