Posted on 06/21/2009 7:02:07 AM PDT by stan_sipple
E-mails sent by a “conservative” student to a “liberal” professor, calling him a traitor and threatening to “puke” all over him are not protected political speech, the Nebraska Court of Appeals said in a decision last week.
Darren J. Drahota was found guilty of disturbing the peace and fined $250 for e-mails he sent to Bill Avery, then a University of Nebraska-Lincoln political science professor and now a state senator from Lincoln .
The Nebraska Court of Appeals upheld the conviction, saying libelous and insulting or “fighting words” are not protected by the Constitution.
The court described the content of all the e-mails, but based its decision on the last two, sent after Avery asked Drahota, apparently a UNL student, to stop.
From the content of the e-mail exchange, which began in the winter of 2006, it appears that Drahota falls on the “right” or conservative side of the conventional political spectrum, and Avery appears to fall to the “left,” or liberal side, the appellate court said.
The topics involved the issues of the day: the Bush presidency and its policies, the Iraq conflict, Muslims, terrorism, the use of force in the Middle East.
“Drahota’s e-mails are much longer, to the point that such might be called rants, and often laced with profanity and invective,” the court said.
“Avery’s responses, while suggesting disagreement, were quite brief.
“Interestingly, some portions of the e-mails from Drahota had friendly, respectful and admiring comments about Avery and his teaching, but in the same e-mail, Drahota would include disrespectful, hostile, angry, profane and arguably discriminatory comments about blacks, Muslims and people on the liberal, or left, side of the political spectrum, as well as comments that certainly could be read as disrespectful and insulting to Avery,” said the court decision, referring to the e-mail exchange that occurred in January and February 2006.
However, the court’s decision was based on two e-mails sent in June, four months after Avery had asked Drahota not to contact him again and said he would turn over the e-mails to the police if Drahota continued.
In mid February, Avery told Drahota that his latest e-mail was “far too extreme, vile and angry.”
“ Plus, it is full of untruths about very decent people (including me) whom you insist on accusing falsely of treason. So, let’s end this.”
In June, Drahota, using an assumed name and a fake address — (averylovesalqueda@yahoo.com) — sent two additional e-mails. One had the subject line “traitor,” and one had the subject line “Al-Zarqawi’s dead” (referring to a known high-level terrorist in Iraq).
Avery then reported the e-mails to the Lincoln police.
In those June e-mails, Drahota used a “libelous e-mail address” and accused Avery of being “aligned with a terrorist group responsible for unspeakable violence in this country as well as in Iraq,” the court said.
“He called Avery a traitor, said that he wanted to ‘puke all over’ him and stated that Avery is the ‘lowest form of life on this planet.’
“This hardly represents civil discourse or debate, and such accusations impugn Avery’s loyalty to the United States.
“And by labeling him a traitor, Drahota has accused Avery of the crime of treason.”
In upholding the disturbing the peace conviction, the Nebraska Court of Appeals used an earlier U.S. Supreme Court decision that explained the difference between political speech that is protected by the Constitution and speech that isn’t protected.
Unprotected speech includes “lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or ‘fighting words’ — those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of peace.”
“It has been well established that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality,” the U.S. Supreme Court has said.
“Resort to epithets or personal abuse is not in any proper sense communication of information or opinion safeguarded by the Constitution and its punishment as a criminal act would raise no question under that instrument,” the U.S. Supreme Court wrote.
Unprotected speech includes “lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or ‘fighting words’ — those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of peace.”
I’m sure glad those on the left who used this type of language towards Bush for 8 years are still behind bars. (sarc)
Our chump geniuses on the court of appeals must not have read about the public figure and vagueness doctrines. If SCOTUS can hold that a sign saying “F*** the Draft” is constitutional I dont see how this kid broke any laws. This prof/state senator is a liberal fascist, hear that Avery?
liberal fascist, TRAITOR!
Im sure glad my court of appeals stood up for states rights and ignored basic SCOTUS precedents like NY Times v Sullivan and Cohen v California
If it was the other way around it would have been thrown out of court.
well dont do it here in Nebraska, and dont look for our local SNIVEL liberties union idiots to help. Their plate is full defending illegal immigrants.
The guy should have just started each of his emails with a “In my opinion”.
That said, from the information I could glean from the article, I would be very hesitant to make this case the poster child for discrimination against conservatives on college campuses. It sounds like the student, despite the correctness of his political beliefs was a rude young man; and the professor, despite the looniness of his politics, tried to behave like a grownup in the email exchange.
As a professor, I know very well that you don't have to teach too many courses before you encounter a student in need of some maturity. Ocassionally a student on the receiving end of a 'C+' who thought he deserved a 'B-' will unleash a profane and lengthy email tirade. Most will be embarassed by their behavior if you answer them politely and reasonably, but evidently this student was very persistent. It's a waste of time to clutter up the courts with this kind of email flame war, but if a student is persistently profane or threatening, discipline within the university can be appropriate.
One of the phenomena that does occur with email is that some people will say things over email that they simply would never say to another person face-to-face. No matter who was right in the original dispute, the first person in a email exchange to resort to profanity or personal invective is almost always the loser.
"The professer he's the talkin' man" -Mark Knopfler
Pay attention, liberal journalists, KOS and DU...if this can happen to "the other side" then you're next.
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