I am a theoretical physicist and retired Director of UCITE (University Center for Innovation in Teaching and Education) at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. My latest book THE GREAT PARADOX OF SCIENCE: Why its conclusions can be relied upon even though they cannot be proven was published by Oxford University Press in December 2019. I am the author of three other books: God vs. Darwin: The War Between Evolution and Creationism in the Classroom (2009), The Achievement Gap in US Education: Canaries in the Mine (2005), and Quest for Truth: Scientific Progress and Religious Beliefs (2000).

You can email me at mano'"dot'"singham"'at"'case'"dot'"edu.

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Recall the case of the man who was prosecuted by the federal government for throwing a sandwich at a CBP agent. Yesterday, he was acquitted by a jury.

There was no doubt as to the facts of the case. Sean Charles Dunn flatly said, “I did it. I threw the sandwich.” It was clear that the government tried to make the case into a warning to anyone to not show disrespect to any of its ICE or CBP thugs, after a viral video of the incident made them a laughing stock.

A grand jury in DC declined to indict Dunn in August on a felony assault charge, but he was eventually charged with a misdemeanor. The case moved ahead in federal court, with US district judge Carl Nichols acknowledging the strange case and saying the trial would be short “because it’s the simplest case in the world”.

Here is an early report on the event, including video of the sandwich throw.

Molly Roberts provides a highly amusing account of the case and the trial, filled with sandwich metaphors. She points out that the case was clearly due to the federal prosecutor for the DC district, the former Fox News hack Jeannine Pirro, seeking revenge for making the CBP look ridiculous. Her vendetta included a highly unnecessary and staged assault on Dunn’s home that was filmed by them.

Arguably it shouldn’t be a case at all, at least not in federal court. Initially, local authorities arrested Sandwich Guy for assault and disorderly conduct; they released him without charging him, and that seemed to be the end of the matter. Until he went viral—at which point the administration suddenly decided to pursue the felony indictment it ultimately failed to secure, sending a SWAT team to his studio apartment even though he had volunteered to surrender and producing a video of the arrest filmed from multiple angles and soundtracked by heavy metal music.
…

This animus is all over the internet: U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeannine Pirro said in a video posted to social media, “Assault a law enforcement officer, and you’ll be prosecuted. This guy thought it was funny—well, he doesn’t think it’s funny today, because we charged him with a felony. So there. Stick your Subway sandwich somewhere else!” Attorney General Pam Bondi, upon announcing Sandwich Guy had also been fired from his job at the Department of Justice, explicitly held him up as an “example of the Deep State we have been up against.”