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View Full Version : Be Careful of What You Say Online.


Pell Mell
08-22-2010, 08:55 PM
A shock jock from NJ was found guilty of threatening the lives of some judges. He said something like "They should be killed".

A link to an article about being careful online:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/la-na-blogger-suits-20100823,0,5169390.story

HUSKER55
08-22-2010, 11:49 PM
A scarier thought is that most journalist think they are similiar to your doctor and are entitled to keep their sources a secret.

slewis
08-23-2010, 12:24 AM
I'm missing something here...

If there are any attorney's on board, (or wanna-be's) please set this straight.

How is it, that if I say.."That judge deserves to have a bullet put in his head" is against ANY law in this country?

Am I threatening the judge?

This whole article sounds like a crock to me....

If it's illegal for me to say "someone deserves to die a slow death" be it online or face to face, I missed my history lessons and have been misguided in my thinking of "freedom of speech".

GameTheory
08-23-2010, 03:30 AM
I was taught in civics class that if you used the word "should" you could get away with most anything, i.e. rather than "I'm gonna kill X" you say, "I should kill X" or "X should die". In other words, turn it into a opinion of what ought to happen in your version of a just universe rather than a statement of what you are going to do.

That should be a valid defense in a matter of free speech (unless you are directly addressing the person, then they'd get you on some sort of menacing charge or something), but I guess that doesn't keep you from getting sued in the first place. If someone wants to sue you, they can sue you.

JustRalph
08-23-2010, 02:10 PM
juries are juries. They have your life in their hands. Go around the local bus station and see if you can find 8 people you would like to be on your jury ? Remember, you are putting your life in their hands.

You can be charged with anything. You may be vindicated upstream in the courts, but you better have a fortune to pay the lawyers and remember, you will be broke and in debt for thousands when you get done.

In fact, think of this one. I know someone who appealed a case to the State Supreme court in Ohio. After all was said and done, the court transcripts etc cost 20k to be copied and distributed (shipping , delivery etc) to all the parties involved and the Prosecutor decided that they had lost their copies and ordered new ones (all the cost to the person appealing) and it cost 8k for those copies to be redone and distributed. This person won on appeal but was re-tried and found guilty again. Eventually going to prison broke and 200k in debt to lawyers.

Greyfox
08-23-2010, 02:25 PM
juries are juries. They have your life in their hands. Go around the local bus station and see if you can find 8 people you would like to be on your jury ? Remember, you are putting your life in their hands.

You can be charged with anything. You may be vindicated upstream in the courts, but you better have a fortune to pay the lawyers and remember, you will be broke and in debt for thousands when you get done.

In fact, think of this one. I know someone who appealed a case to the State Supreme court in Ohio. After all was said and done, the court transcripts etc cost 20k to be copied and distributed (shipping , delivery etc) to all the parties involved and the Prosecutor decided that they had lost their copies and ordered new ones (all the cost to the person appealing) and it cost 8k for those copies to be redone and distributed. This person won on appeal but was re-tried and found guilty again. Eventually going to prison broke and 200k in debt to lawyers.

How true. For the innocent man the justice process is punishment.

Tom
08-23-2010, 02:50 PM
But, the taxpayers will foot the bill for Blagojevich's defense a second time.

bigmack
08-23-2010, 03:22 PM
It's not like the old days when you could threaten someone willy-nilly. Some jurisdictions aggressively pursue such threats, particularly those online.

I heard of a guy in town that was going through a nasty divorce and he sent an email to her attorney's, something to the effect of "You're going down". He was subsequently charged with terrorist threats. Last I heard he was in a real pickle.