Court Rules US Govt Cannot Seize Mongol MC Patch

[Rev.Cambeul]

If you know your CREATOR HISTORY, you know that we've had our own issues with Registered Trademarks, book banning and burning and more .... So this article is of concern to all CREATORS.


The feds spent a decade trying to seize the Mongol club's notorious patch. A judge ruled they can't have it.

Fred Barbash and Meagan Flynn

Washington Post | 1 March 2019

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/03/01/feds-spent-decade-trying-seize-mongol-nations-notorious-patch-judge-ruled-they-cant-have-it

Excerpt: There it is in the Patent and Trademark Office's registry: an image of a muscly Genghis Khan-type character cruising along on a motorcycle, shirtless beneath a black vest, wearing black shades and a pony tail and clutching a sword.

US Trademark Search: https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/search/search-information

... if you ask federal prosecutors, the saber-wielding man on the backs of the Mongols' leather jackets is not so innocent.

In fact, the patch is so dangerous, federal prosecutors have argued, that the public should not even be exposed to it whatsoever — and it should literally be stripped from the backs of the Mongols club members.

That's the argument the government made as part of its decade-long campaign to dismantle the Mongols Motorcycle Club by taking away its prized motorcycle-jacket patches — in other words, their identity. In December, a jury convicted the club of numerous racketeering offenses, including murder and slinging narcotics. And the jury signed off on the feds' seizure of the trademark to the club's infamous symbol, which prosecutors argued would quell their incentive to commit crimes.

But on Thursday, to prosecutors' dismay, a federal judge ruled the government couldn't have its coveted patches.

Rather than helping to stop crime, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter ruled that the government's quest to confiscate the patches from club members amounted to a poorly devised, illegal case of government overreach. Citing the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of association and the Eighth Amendment's bar on excessive punishment, Carter declared the club's symbol sacrosanct. https://games-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/documents/5e051a50-fbdc-4dc7-9866-8ed179bdc047/note/910081c6-abf4-415e-99a7-3592f23f71ec.pdf

"Regardless of how 'potent' a symbol may be, or how much 'fear' a symbol generates, the Government cannot justify the restriction of this speech, especially given the symbols' purely associative purpose," wrote Carter, a judge in the Central District of California. "Though the symbol may at times function as a mouthpiece for unlawful or violent behavior, this is not sufficient to strip speech of its First Amendment protection."

Joseph Yanny, a Los Angeles attorney who argued the case in court, called the decision "a victory for all motorcycle clubs and any collective organization. Hopefully this puts an end to the abuse by the federal government of ordinary citizens," he said. "Over the 15-plus years that this thing has gone on, they have wasted tens of millions of dollars picking on folks trying to prove a novel theory," he told The Washington Post.

In December, a jury in California found the Mongol Nation, now one of the world's largest motorcycle clubs, was a racketeering enterprise, guilty of a range of crimes ... Among the loot claimed by the government were weapons, armored vests and, of course, motorcycles. All that was fine. But the Justice Department had vowed to go further and strip the club of its "unity symbol" — in fact, to take it "literally" right off the backs of the Mongols' riders, as the U.S. attorney in the Central District of California once threatened.

The image of that man with the shades and the mustache was emblazoned on T-shirts, on patches, on bikes, on leather jackets and tattoos. It may have been a mark of unity to Mongol members and former members, like a wedding ring binding them together — the "Holy Grail" of their relationship, as another Mongol lawyer, Stephen Stubbs, told The Washington Post.

To prosecutors, however, the patch "empowered" them, as a symbol "they wear like armor." They emphasized the image had been prominently displayed in the commission of crimes and that members could be "rewarded" with patches based on the crime they committed. In January, a jury agreed and allowed the government to claim the trademark.

But Carter disagreed. He acknowledged that the government had a "legitimate interest in attacking the economic roots of a criminal organization."

"But what does the United States accomplish by seizing control of the intellectual property rights associated with a motorcycle club's associative symbols?" Carter questioned.

Not very much, he argued. Instead, he said, in this case, the government's demand was a "grossly disproportionate" punishment for the crimes set out in the RICO conspiracy case. Carter cited a recent Supreme Court opinion applying the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of excessive fines.

"In this case, the RICO conspiracy is a serious offense," he wrote. "Nonetheless, the collective membership marks were acquired in 1969 upon first use and have been maintained through continuous use for decades. The symbols have immense intangible, subjective value to the Mongol Nation and its members." Moreover, "the collective membership marks are not the fruits of any illegal activity."

Judge Carter agreed with the Mongols' legal argument.

Allowing the government to "bootstrap a conviction of the motorcycle club into censorship" of all the club's law-abiding members and supporters, Carter wrote, would "set a dangerous precedent." What groups could the federal government target with this power next? Carter questioned.

The government's purpose in seeking the patches, he ruled, is "not enough to remedy the chilling effect the forced transfer of a symbol to the United States government has on the Mongol Nation, its members, and society at large."

[Br.FrankSmith]

Right on - defeat our grunted freedom of speech from our enemies the jews.