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Canadian sci-fi writer Peter Watts found guilty by U.S. court

Toronto writer Peter Watts was found guilty of resisting a U.S. customs officer at a trial in Port Huron, Michigan, today.  As previously reported by Q&Q, Watts was on trial for assaulting a customs officer, although the writer claims he simply questioned why he was being beaten.

“He could face up to two years in jail,” explained Chris Szego, manager of the Toronto sci-fi bookstore BAKKA-Phoenix and a friend of Watts’, who has been waiting since Tuesday to hear the jury’s verdict. Watts will be sentenced on April 26, 2010.

Watts took to his blog to report on his experience:

I cannot begrudge the jury their verdict. Their job is not to rewrite laws, or ignore stupid ones; their job is to decide whether a given act violates the law as written. And when you strip away all the other bullshit — the verbal jousting, the conflicting testimony, the inconsistent reports — the law doesn’t proscribe noncompliance “unless you’re dazed and confused from being hit in the face.” It simply proscribes noncompliance, period. And we all agree that in those few seconds between [the custom officer’s] command and the unleashing of his pepper spray, I just stood there asking what the problem was.

Whether that’s actual noncompliance or simply slow compliance is, I suspect, what the jury had to decide. That’s what they did, and while I think they made the wrong decision I’m obviously not the most impartial attendee at this party. I still maintain I did nothing wrong; but as far as I can tell the trial was fair, and I will abide by its outcome.

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