The Vermont State Police announced the arrest of Bennington resident Max B. Misch, 36, in a brief news release. He was scheduled for arraignment Thursday in state court in Bennington.
Morris, the only black woman in the Vermont legislature before she resigned last fall, cited Misch’s torrent of hateful online messages as one reason she stepped down. She previously obtained a yearlong protective order against him. Misch is an avowed white nationalist.
On January 14, Misch crashed a Bennington press conference during which Attorney General T.J. Donovan announced he would not bring criminal charges against anyone accused of harassing Morris. Misch strode into the event, held at the Congregation Beth El synagogue, bearing the image of alt-right meme Pepe the Frog on his shirt.
Just 11 days later, the Vermont State Police began investigating an allegation that Misch had purchased high-capacity magazines, according to the news release. Last year, Vermont banned the purchase or possession of magazines that contain more than 10 rounds for a long gun or 15 rounds for a handgun, though people can legally possess magazines they owned before the law went into effect.
Police executed a search warrant at Misch’s residence on Wednesday, the release states. Misch faces up to a year in jail and a $500 fine.
Donovan’s office will prosecute the case, according to the release.
The state police, Bennington police and the Attorney General’s Office did not return calls for comment Wednesday evening.
Clarification, March 5, 2019: This story has been updated to clarify Vermont’s law regarding the possession of high-capacity magazines.
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> Last year, Vermont banned the purchase or possession of magazines that contain more than 10 rounds for a long gun or 15 rounds for a handgun.
Only the purchase; possession of normal-capacity magazines already owned is grandfathered in.
What’s the limit on belt-fed AR’s?
Joshua Sled, you’re right about the grandfather clause. We’ve clarified that and linked in the story to a Vermont Department of Public Safety page that clarifies some points about the gun laws passed last year. Thanks!
The statutory ban on magazines is unconstitutional, null & void on it’s face. No act of the legislature can be construed to take away the unalienable rights of the people. Anyone involved in trying to prosecute this man under these color of law documents is acting in contempt of their oath of office, loses immunity from prosecution and is subject to numerous felony charges.
My guess is that this is more of a self inflicted gunshot wound than anything else. If he didn’t decide to troll the attorney general and Morris so publicly, there probably wouldn’t have been the same sort of scrutiny into his life. This racist troll loves the spotlight, though, and now he’s paying the price. Idiot.
Max is a piece of shit human being but this sure looks like politically motivated retaliation using law enforcement.
He HAS to know he will be scrutinized and thank goodness!
Remember that part in the constitution where it talks about our right to ammo magazines? Yeah, I don’t either.
The use of the word “trolled” in the headline truly seems to understate what was done to Representative Morris and her family.
“Trolling” is usually understood to be posting in on-line discussion boards and social media deliberately provocative or offensive statements designed to disrupt the conversation or produce a reaction.
That doesn’t begin to convey the degree of racist harassment and intimidation, the sustained campaign of hate against Kiah, the efforts to drive her and her family from public service and from the community.
Let’s not whitewash the severity of what happened with a wishy-washy reference to it as “trolling”. It was so much more than that.
@The Oracle “Remember that part in the constitution where it talks about our right to ammo magazines? Yeah, I don’t either.”
If anyone were to be so childishly naive as to take such as flaccid argument seriously, then I guess they’d have to include internet news and comments sections in the same as being outside of your rights. Or do you believe those words are included in the constitution?
The constitution is not now, nor has it ever been, a list of restrictions on the daily private lives of the people who wrote it. It is and always was, a restriction by which the federal government is allowed, by the consent of the people, to exist at all. A set of bounds outside of which it will not tread. The Bill of Rights being add some time later to clarify the fact that the people have, always and forever more, rights that are untouchable and unalienable. The government being a creation of man, man at all times stands above the government he created, unless you prefer living as a slave to other men.
Politically motivated uses of police forces are just fine and dandy when they’re good for our side….am i right??
Turns out his ex called the Bennington PD on October 16 to say he had bought several 30-round clips in New Hampshire between October 1 and 16.
@freedomtothink I am very curious as to why you’d need these types of guns and this kind of ammo? What is this level of defense used for? Should we move towards no government if we can’t trust the people we’ve placed in power? Would you say now that we are living in a time, with a governing body that works in our best interests or not? When was the last time you would say this statement was actual true: “The government being a creation of man, man at all times stands above the government he created, unless you prefer living as a slave to other men.” Lots of weak insults and vague statements taken from other sites but no substance to your comments.
I get you want the guns, but why? For what?
@Cyndy Andrews Phillips
Tell me Cyndy, what kind of narcissistic megalomania goes on in your mind that makes you believe I have to justify any thing I do to you? Have you anointed yourself my & every one else’s keeper?
If I felt you were in anyway sincere & not just being snide & judgmental, I could present numerous reasons I keep what I do. One of them, is because this world seams to have more and more neurotic people who feel they have the right to demand someone they dont even know, justify why they have this or why they need that. People like that freak me out. You see them on TV, hear them on the radio, usually behaving in a totally vile manner with some sense that they must be answered to. You never know when someone like that might crack, or worse, run for public office.
You call my statements weak insults essentially framed as a veiled insult, of someone you know nothing about. Thats your opinion & given the light in which you present yourself, completely unimportant to me.
If you read the affidavit it states that the magazines were actually paid for and transported into Vermont by his ex-wife. That is for both the first two purchased legally in September, and the subsequent two purchased in NH and transported into Vermont after December 1, so it is going to be an issue charging him with “buying” 30 round magazines. Additionally it looks like it might be an issue to get him for “possession” of “illegal” magazines as magazines are not generally serialized. Even if there were two magazines in the house, how do you go about proving they were the “illegal” ones as opposed to the “legal” ones?
On the plus side, it looks like there is a very solid case against his ex-wife for buying 30 round magazines in NH and transporting them into Vermont after 1 December.
Pass stupid laws, get stuck in stupid situations.
“Additionally it looks like it might be an issue to get him for “possession” of “illegal” magazines as magazines are not generally serialized. Even if there were two magazines in the house, how do you go about proving they were the “illegal” ones as opposed to the “legal” ones?”
Why would anyone have to?
If the prosecutor can prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that 2 of the magazines are illegal, he doesn’t need to prove WHICH ones any more than a DA would need to prove which bills were stolen from a bank or which bottles of booze were stolen from a liquor store. Just as possession of legal currency or booze would not be an adequate defense in the face of clear evidence that the perpetrator is in possession of illegally obtained currency or booze, so too this guy’s possession of legal firearms is no defense either.
John,
Because the legality of the items doesn’t depend upon how they were transferred between owners as with the stolen items in your example. The items were legally purchased in places and times where it was legal to purchase them. The discriminating factor among otherwise identical items that would make them “illegal” is when they were brought into Vermont. Bought it on 30 September? Legal to buy possess in Vermont in perpetuity. Brought it into Vermont on 30 September? Perfectly legal to possess in Vermont forever. Brought it into Vermont on 2 October? Illegal to possess. As they are not individually distinguishable in any way and there is certainly no registry of how many magazines everyone owned before 1 Oct or after, a simple “oh, I’ve had that forever” is kind of an unbeatable defense.
I know it ends with the Jury and conceivably if the prosecutor says “racist” or “white supremacist” enough maybe he could get the jury to go with emotion vice application of the reasonable doubt standard required in all criminal cases: ” “[W]e explicitly hold that the Due Process Clause protects the accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged.” But should our state be advocating subversion of due process as a tactic?
All to get, best case possible, a misdemeanor conviction.
Misch is an ass, yes. But twisting and exploiting the mechanism of our government to blatantly punish legal but distasteful behavior is an astonishing crime. Those supporting this act need to slow down and consider exactly which of their rights they are eager to do away with to punish one person they don’t like, and consider that someday after they give up those rights they may be that person.
Patrick Cashman
I don’t disagree with your viewpoint, but it is actually a lot simpler than that. All the defendant needs to do is challenge the jurisdiction of the court to try this matter against him and produce a verified complaint from the third party claiming they were damaged by his actions, resulting in an actual crime instead of possession of a thing somebody else doesn’t like. Without a verified complaint sworn & signed under oath by a third party, not the state, not the prosecutor, not the cops, the court has no lawful jurisdiction to proceed against him.
What he is being charged with is legal, not lawful, legal violation of a state statute, not a crime. Statutes are regulatory in nature, applying only to persons, not people, persons engaged in a regulable activity, such as a corporation engaged in firearms manufacture doing business under a license which constitutes a contract with the state or federal gov. Unless the court can prove the man was engaged in an activity they have a contractual jurisdiction over, which there is no way they could, the court can never prove jurisdiction over this man & his private possessions.
The court did contrive an unlawful jurisdiction by giving him a public defender, who is a fellow Bar Association member & officer of the court, with an obligation to the court that is over his obligation to his client. That P.D. dutifully advised his client to answer “yes” when asked if he understood (stands under) the charges against him and further entered a plea, unknowingly agreeing to hand the court jurisdiction it didn’t otherwise have & allowing them to misapply a statutory regulation to a man rather than the legal fiction/corporation it was written for.
Freedomtothink,
No offense, but you and I must have different definitions of “simpler”. I didn’t fully follow, but it reads similar to “Sovereign Citizen” type arguments. I don’t believe there has been a successful sovereign citizen defense ever before, or am I mistaken?
Patrick,
First, you explain what I already understood, then you evade my point entirely.
Let me restate the salient facts. There are 4 magazines: two were purchased legally, 2 illegally. All that can be shown by specific evidence, which in the news articles at least, appears convincing: receipts and surveillance camera footage of the purchase on the illegal dates, etc. (See https://vtdigger.org/2019/02/07/guns-seize…)
Originally, you asked how prosecutors (or a jury) could tell WHICH magazine was which, to which I replied: they dont need to. It doesnt matter. Two of the four were purchased illegally. That can be proved WITHOUT reference to the magazines themselves.
Try it this way. All of the facts remain the same, EXCEPT that Misch managed to dispose of or hide the magazines. Assuming he cant or doesnt attack the evidence to which Ive already referred, prosecutors now have NO magazines, therefore NO need to distinguish one from another. And yet, the evidence is still sufficient to prove that the crime was committed.
Or to repeat one of my analogies, I rob a bank and then spend all the money. Does that mean that there is no way for prosecutors to prove that I robbed the bank? Of course not.
Obviously, in every case, the strength of the OTHER evidence needs to be sufficient to prove the crime, but thats another matter entirely.
None of this requires anyone to draw ANY conclusions about Mr. Mischs politics (which I gather we agree are pretty awful). Indeed, they neednt be mentioned at all.
John,
I wish the preface were not necessary but just in case: yes, Mr. Misch’s views as described by reports and by his tweets are infantile and ignorant. But, he has every right to hold, express and promote them. The Nazis had every right to march in Skokie, and Mr. Misch has the right to be a racist.
Your description of one of the purchases as “illegal” is incorrect. Both purchases were perfectly legal. The alleged crime occurs when the magazines legally purchased in NH are transported into Vermont after the cutoff date. And right now the evidence that is described in the State Police affidavit consists of video of a perfectly legal act (Ms. Shapiro purchasing two magazines in NH) and the admission by Ms. Shapiro that she transported those magazines into VT after the cutoff date, and her claim that Mr. Misch took them with him when he left the car. Then police found two magazines in Mr. Misch’s home. There is no way to prove beyond a reasonable doubt those two magazines are the two purchased by Ms. Shapiro in NH as opposed to the two purchased prior to the cutoff date and perfectly legal to possess, or bought at some unremembered point in the past. It isn’t the accused obligation to prove he didn’t commit a crime, it’s the state’s obligation to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he did.
Again, pass stupid laws, get stuck in stupid situations..
This seems a bit similar to the oj simpson case .
or convicting al capone on tax evasion.
Our lawmakers could make better use of their time developing laws and punishments for the
hate crimes this man actually committed.
If what Patrick says comes to fruition .This case
will only serve to strenghen racist groups feeling
of acceptance and vindication for what they do.
When it should drive them back under the rock from which they spawned.
Patrick,
Your second paragraph makes the case that the defense will have to present.
While you are technically correct that the purchase in NH is legal if the magazines are not transported to Vermont, I would assume that the prosecution will also introduce testimony from Lisa Shapiro (and/or others) stating that Ms. Shapiro purchased the magazines for the defendant and that either he or she (or conceivably someone else) DID transport the magazines to Vermont and that they DID end up in the house, where 4 magazines were, in fact, found. Since the prosecution can also provide a plausible chain of evidence for the other 2, I continue to believe it will NOT need to distinguish which ones are which.
Apparently unlike you, given the evidence that already exists, I think the prosecution has a pretty persuasive case. The standard is reasonable doubt rather than any doubt precisely to eliminate the possibility of failing to convict in cases where the evidence overwhelmingly suggests guilt, which is the way I read this evidence so far
I am not a lawyer (and as far as I know, you arent either), and neither of us knows every scrap of evidence probative or exculpatory that will be introduced assuming the case goes to trial. But assuming that nothing persuasive has been left out of press accounts, this is where I believe we are now.
Mr. Misch had better hope that the armchair lawyers in these comments columns are correct, and that the law itself can be found unconstitutional. I suspect THAT is the case hell end up making.
Im so willing to wait for the courts to decide that issue that Ill spare them (and you) my inexpert guidance on the matter.
Patrick Cashman says…
“No offense, but you and I must have different definitions of “simpler”. I didn’t fully follow, but it reads similar to “Sovereign Citizen” type arguments. I don’t believe there has been a successful sovereign citizen defense ever before, or am I mistaken?”
Well Patrick, being a fan of extensive vocabulary, I’d have to ask you to explain what a “Sovereign Citizen” is? The way I read it, it’s a complete contradiction in terms. Kinda like telling someone to go standing in that really wet, dry spot.
Jurisdiction is a pretty simple concept. You don’t want the government or some smug prosecutor dragging you in to court whenever they feel like it, for no justifiable reason do you? Most people would call that Tyranny, Something the founders found pretty offensive & a good enough reason to start a war, so they put provisions in the constitution that the government can only take action against one of the people when they have proper jurisdiction to do so. Any other time being entirely unlawful & a punishable offense, mostly referred to as denial of due process of law.
Part II
The defendant further wants to know what that jurisdiction is so he/she understands what the rules of the game are and how to properly defend themselves. Operating under an undisclosed & unproven jurisdiction is how courts strip people of their unalienable rights all the time. Like showing up to a baseball game carrying a football and wearing a football uniform, you are just not going to do well, no matter how good you are at football.
The State, the courts, the magistrates and especially the prosecutors, all violate due process requirements constantly. The Bar Association attorney, belongs to the same private club and somehow never brings up this subject in your defense.
I’ve used this defense several times and walked out of the court after telling off the judge for wasting my time in bringing me there in the first place.
And just FYI, Sovereignty of the people over the government and government agencies is specifically written into several state constitutions. They don’t own you, they work for you. That’s why they love pulling you into a jurisdiction where the constitution doesn’t apply and not disclosing that part of the “rules of the game”.
Should have been between parts I & II below.
A court may be operating under one of several jurisdictions, some of them where the constitution has no bearing, and all courts are required by law to prove it has jurisdiction, not just by a belligerent statement from the judge/magistrate, but by evidence entered into the record or there is no case, period. You have the right to query the court as to why the hell you’ve been arrested and what is the nature & cause of the action against you. Once you challenge the jurisdiction of the court to bring an action against you in the first place, nothing can proceed until that is proven. If the court proceeds anyway, it’s a guaranteed win in appeals court & a financial windfall for you if you press charges against the corrupt government agents.
@freedomtothink LOL! No wonder I never came back to check. Literally nothing in my syntax or grammar would imply I was being snide. And I see a HUGE marked difference in how you respond to men and women. “what kind of narcissistic megalomania goes on in your mind that makes you believe I have to justify any thing I do to you? Have you anointed yourself my & every one else’s keeper?” Ever heard of seek first to understand?
So sorry you don’t like questions about your precious guns. (See that’s sarcasm.)
I’m sure you’ll reply but I’ll be long gone. You can’t debate. You can only name call and yell at people. YOUR comments are snide and unyielding. If I wanted to talk to an angry toddler I’ll visit friends with kids.
Enjoy your hate for Somalis and your local meat and diary and your odd comparisons involving raping children and your insatiable desire to hate all government and keep calling people morons for believing in anything but guns and you. 5 years and 180 comments and all you got was angrier and more abusive. And I’m the megalomaniac?
You’re not happy here anyway: “Doom. Seven Days doens’t do facts, just propaganda and fairy tales. It’s time their advertisers are made aware of the type of company they are supporting.”
Bye.