Augustin Bahati doesn’t appear to be a Muslim; this does not seem to be a Sharia wife-beating case. Its significance for the global jihad, however, is immense: the domestic violence charges against Bahati were dropped because he “lacked the cultural competency to participate in the American justice system.”
This is a massive opening of the door to Sharia. Sharia wife-beaters, doctors who practice female genital mutilation, and Islamic supremacists of all kinds who break various American laws may begin to be found to be “culturally incompetent” to stand trial: what they did was acceptable in their culture, and so cannot be prosecuted in ours.
This ruling must be overturned, and swiftly, or it could result in nothing less than the breakdown of the American principle of equal justice for all, as immigrants can claim “cultural incompetence” to justify their flouting of American law in innumerable contexts.
“Manchester domestic violence case dropped for ‘cultural incompetence,'” by Mark Hayward, New Hampshire Union Leader, July 8, 2017 (thanks to Keith):
MANCHESTER – A Congolese immigrant escaped prosecution on six domestic-violence crimes when his lawyer convinced a city prosecutor that he lacked the cultural competency to participate in the American justice system, according to court and public records reviewed by the New Hampshire Union Leader.
The decision is one of several questionable actions highlighted late last month by Attorney General Gordon MacDonald in a widespread critique of domestic-violence prosecutions in Manchester. MacDonald’s critique led to the abrupt retirement of veteran City Solicitor Tom Clark and has put Clark’s office under heightened scrutiny.
One questionable decision dealt with the case of Augustin Bahati, 33, who was arrested last August. According to court paperwork, he was accused of striking, pushing, grabbing, kicking and pulling out the hair of a woman who was 27 weeks pregnant at the time.
His case ended when Manchester prosecutor Andrea Muller – the domestic-violence prosecutor singled out by MacDonald – dropped six misdemeanor charges against Bahati in early March.
How Bahati avoided prosecution was spelled out in handwritten notes of District Court Judge William Lyons.
“The parties agree that the expert reports and analysis indicates that the defendant:
. Not competent
. Not restorable
. Not dangerous
Consequently, the court must dismiss the charges,” Lyons wrote on March 2.
New Hampshire law allows for charges to be dismissed when an expert determines that a mental illness or mental disability has rendered a defendant incompetent to understand the charges against him and assist in his defense.
But an associate attorney general wrote on June 12 that the law contains no provisions for findings of “cultural incompetence.”
“This finding simply does not comport with the legal requirements for a finding of incompetency to stand trial and should have been aggressively litigated,” wrote Associate Attorney General Jane Young.
In an interview, Young said her office is not aware of any widespread use of cultural incompetency defenses….