Posted on 04/08/2005 4:27:51 PM PDT by mdittmar
Mailing a letter to the White House supporting President Bush's death at the hands of terrorists is not illegal, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.
The decision overturns the conviction and 18-month sentence given last year to an Oregon inmate who sent a rambling, poorly written letter to the president. It read, in part, "You will die too George W Bush real Soon they Promised That you would Long Live Bin Laden."
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
What the Hell...
The same letter to Lord High Chief Justice Greer would land one in the slammer for life.
what exactly does the LAW say ?
I assume this guy will be forever watched by the secret service and with a little luck he'll step over the line and get himself into real trouble that he can't weasel out of.
9th Circus?
Like hell.You would never live to see a trial.He would just order his baliff to shoot you in the spine and drag your body to main street at high noon as a warning to other uppity serfs to never question the kings authority.
What's the big deal? Demorats say this all the time.
3 judge panel from the 9th Circuit. Figures.
I think Oregon is indeed in the 9th Circuit.
Yes. Unanimous 3-clown panel.
So I ask, just who is running this country?
18 USC Sec. 871:
"...Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail or for a delivery from any post office or by any letter carrier any letter, paper, writing, print, missive, or document containing any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States, the President-elect, the Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President of the United States, or the Vice President-elect, or knowingly and willfully otherwise makes any such threat against the President, President-elect, Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President, or Vice President-elect, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."
Actually, Judge Greer would order that the inmate be denied nourishment until this natural and peaceful demise.
he prolly dint use punctuation or capitals and wrote in hugh run-on sentences with many misspeelings and many abbrvs
"You can mail a letter to the POTUS saying he'll die and praising terrorists, but Teddy Kenndey pees his pants about Tom DeLay supposedly justifying violence against judges. (which DeLay didn't)"
WORTH REPEATING!
WORTH IMPEACHING!
...and I don't mean impeaching Dubya....
Of course it isn't a crime.
Patriotic heterosexual white Christian conservative male who likes guns? - now that's a crime!!!
democrats, republicans, no difference. Welcome to America 2005.
"What the Hell..."
That says it all. There is an out and out war of the left and the leftist judiciary against our President.
Imagine if Kerry were president.
LOL...silly West Coast Conservative, quoting U.S. law like that. Judges don't care about U.S. Code.
Get a rope...
Public school product, no doubt.
A close friend of mine once told the story of a classmate who had this brilliant idea to send the President of The United States a threatening letter as a prank. They were in high school at the time.
After two secret servicemen payed his friend a personal visit, the joke was no longer funny. The student never did that again.
This inmate is not a high school student.
But are we surprised at this ruling?
Any word on an appeal?
"any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States"
It appears to me that the guy didn't make a direct threat. He only expressed a wish for those things to happen. It's the difference between saying "I wish someone would kill you" and I'm going to kill you". I don't like it but it appears that the court is right.
We see DUmmies do worse all the time.
howjaguess?
I don't know, I don't want to join the site just to read the rest of the story.
Me neither - lol.
Now if this had been sent to Clinton, you could throw away the key on this guy. But since it is a conservative nothing is out of bounds.
"You will die too George W Bush real Soon....",looks direct to me,but hey,I don't wear a black robe.
As my old Drill Instructor used to say in boot camp: "You could F**k up a wet dream" with such comments.
google news,judge
But saying 'You suck' to a Democrat president while he's passing is more than deserving of detention and interrogation. We've passed through the Looking Glass, Alice.
according to this law, how in the blue-eyed world could the conviction be overturned ?
Circuit, circus, circle; what's the difference?
Just curious. The world needs more literary references.
It's been a pretty long time since that was important.
I believe you are correct.
Time for the Executive to round these AlQaida sympathizers up and toss them in the slammer for the duration.
9th Circuit needed reorganized, and new members anyway.
The precedent for doing this sort of thing was set by President Wilson in WWI.
The court in this case is splitting hairs so they can send a message of the purest hate to "W". These guys are too dangerous for this country to allow them to run loose.
unfortunately, you make a good point
This is a matter of fact finding. Presumably that lower court determined that this was indeed a threat under the law.
It is my understanding that the findings of fact of lower courts are not subject to judicial review.
Therefore, without reading the appellate opinion, I have to believe that it was not based on finding that the language was NOT a threat, but on some other flimsy, legalistic grounds.
the appellate court ISNT right IMO
Simple. He didn't say that he wanted to kill Bush, he implied that he was sure, and hoping, that Al Queda would do it.
You can legally say that you hope the president dies. You can legally say that you hope that X kills the president. You can legally wish all of the ill will you want on the president. What you can NOT do is say "I'm going to threaten|hurt|kill the president". In fact, people have been convicted of simply saying "I WANT to threaten|hurt|kill the president", even when there is no actual evidence of a plot, and the intent is debatable.
It's a fine line, but a line just the same. If wishing ill on the president were illegal, half of the people on this board would have been imprisoned during the Clinton years :)
If everyone in the country who endorses Bush's death got 18 months, there wouldn't be a Democrat on the streets.
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