If you were charged with a mid-level crime and had been granted bond awaiting trial, but you were committed to getting a nice jail cell to wait it out, you would have an extremely difficult time outdoing Brandon Fellows’ effort (with the exception of a violent offense). Fellows, so to speak, “checks off every box.”

United States District Judge Trevor McFadden genuinely sounds like he wanted to see Fellows get himself together while awaiting trial, but the 27-year-old grocery store clerk just, well, he couldn’t help himself.

First, and by far the worst, Fellows violated the terms of his pretrial release, while also refraining from being extremely creepy, by calling his probation officer’s mother. Probation officers watch over people on probation and pretrial release and if a person wants to speak to his probation officer (which most probation officers appreciate), that probation officer has an office.

If one wants to whine and complain, just call the probation officer and whine and complain. The probation officer’s mother isn’t going to make the decision and – again, that’s really creepy, possibly dangerous. Judges know this and probation officers damned sure know this.

Additionally, Fellows skipped a court-ordered mental health evaluation. This, of course, doesn’t speak well of one’s mental health to begin with, to say nothing about one’s ability to respect anything else the court orders.

Last, a defendant has the right to keep his mouth shut while awaiting trial, absolutely. No judge would hold that against him or her. But if one insists upon speaking, and Fellows does (to the media, others) it is best to not tell the world you’ve done nothing wrong.

He is one who propped his feet up on a desk and smoked a joint. He has sort of apologized for the weed but said he didn’t think he did anything else wrong.

So there you have it. He does something that is, at best, very wrong – kind of creepy, and at worst, possibly a violent threat. Not satisfied, Fellows then demonstrates that he’s disinterested in what the court orders him to do. And, just to be sure that he’s not being misinterpreted, he makes it very clear that he doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong. As we said, checking every box.

All of which led U.S. District Court Judge McFadden to speak fairly calmly and yet quite clearly, he has had it with Fellows. Contrary to “cool” public opinion, most judges are pretty decent people who genuinely want to see people better themselves through the process.

This is really a bad sign for Fellows because he isn’t likely to win this trial and it will be the same judge who sentences the young man. ALL judges, good and bad, have great memories.

Fellows may believe Trump was Making America Great Again, but he’s doing one hell of a job Making Himself Go Away, in spite of it all.

Jesus, these people.

We also just learned there was a plea offer in Fellows #CapitolRiot case: plead to the felony charge of obstruction of Congress. Guidelines 15-21 months but defense says govt won’t agree not to ask for terrorism enhancement.

— Josh Gerstein (@joshgerstein) July 15, 2021

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