And my understanding is that this case revolves around a pattern of harassment of this doctor and his "patients" by the woman in question.
And again, a serious question. If someone persistantly came up to you on the street, reading to you what the Koran says about "infidels", would you possibly take that as a threat? Not one time, but constantly, outside your place of business. Knowing that radical muslims can be violent, as we have all seen, could that not be a threat? And this doctor in question, knowing that there have been acts perpetrated against doctors by the pro-lifers, could it not be seen as a threat?
I understand and totally agree with your opinion about how something should not be crimininalized based upon an individual's interpetation or feeling of one's thoughts, but that's why we have courts. Things have to be taken into context. Like I mentioned before, in Church, one would expect to hear such passages from the Bible and would not take that as a threat. But, being an abortion doctor, a person depsised by many pro-lifers - people who unfortunately have all been characterized as the same as the few who commit violent acts - has a reasonable belief that a person who constantly approaches them on the street to read such passages, could be a threat. Should the person automatically be prosecuted? No, as I said before. The restraining order should have been allowed. Then, if the woman was still stuborn, she should have been prosecuted for violating the restraining order.
I'm with you on the fact that being prosecuted first was not right. I think the doctor had every right o a restraining order.
I might take it as a threat, I might not. Many people take many otherwise innocuous things as threats. The question is whether the full weight of the legal system should be brought down on someone just because another takes their actions in the wrong way. Or, worse, if those legal actions are brought simply to harass or punish someone who happens to disagree with prevailing opinion and expresses these views in a non-harmful manner. And certainly, as my discussion with FReeper Poohbah alluded to, if one were to take harmful/lethal action in response to a perceived threat, there would likely be some burden of proof required on your part to support that. In some cases, that would be easy, in others, perhaps difficult or impossible.
People have a right not to be harrassed. That is true. And if a person is being harrassed to the point of, to a reasonable person, it becoming an undue burden or impairing their going about their (legal) business, then remedies are available. In this case the complaintant should be required to make his case on those grounds. Harrassment is one thing, but I think the accuser and the prosecutor in this case are engaging in a stretch to bring a criminal action based on a threat to one's life. My fear is that they are doing it for another reason, and that is intimidation and harrassment of this woman and those who may hold views similar to hers. They seem to be saying, we're sending you a message: as long as you hold these views we're coming after you with both barrels blazing, and we'll do everything in our power to take you down, including stretching the interpretation of laws or misuse of the legal system.