What is the law in NJ?
Questions asking for legal advice are best started in In My Humble OPinion.
Moved from General Questions.
samclem, Moderator
Was he being flip, like “My kid can beat up your kid!”? Or was it something more serious like, “I’m going to tell Tommy to beat up Jimmy at the bleachers tomorrow at 3pm!”
If you feel it was a legitimate threat, you should really contact the police and the principal of your son’s school. A restraining order might be in… order. You don’t need a lawyer to do those things, though. Start by advocating for yourself and your son ASAP, and if you meet with resistance, THEN get a lawyer.
IANAL but I have trouble believing it’s legal for an adult to threaten a child with violence anywhere.
IANAL, but, it is my guess that a threat/offer of violence is a crime, and that is what this seems to be. Using the minor child as his tool would only be considered the medium.
Your refusal to supply any context makes your question almost useless. Normally an adult will only make a comment like that if he feels the behavior of the other child is extraordinarily provocative or unacceptable.
Is it my son will beat up or go after your son if … what?
He doesn’t stop being so wonderful
He just exists
He keeps bullying his younger brother
He keeps interfering with my criminal empire
He doesn’t stop taunting my son
He doesn’t stop bothering my daughter
He doesn’t stop torturing kittens
What exactly is it that your son is doing that this adult feels is assault worthy by his son? Some stuff may be legally actionable and put this guy in jail, and some stuff may make the police want to take a belt to your son themselves.
Did he just have one of those “My kid can beat up your honor student” bumper stickers? Because I believe those are legal.
Give us some more details. Or my toddler will bite your ankles.
Looks like another One Post Wonder. A hundred to one the OP never returns.
Can an adult be charged with a misdemeanor for threatening a minor in NJ-The adult said - “If you say that again, I will tell my son to punch you”- A criminal attorney I know tells me it is a Class 1 misdemeanor in NJ- Harassment or making terroristic threats. Comments from any prosecutors or “legal eagles”? For the record, I do not plan on doing anything-I would just like to know so I can scare the crap out of the bully. My son actually did not say what he was accused of saying-his character is way too high. And, in fact, he is a black belt, quite strong and more than capable of defending himself. We don’t handle our business with physical violence however but we can go there if need be…
You’ll lose your bet: he just posted on the same topic again in GQ – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14659599
The ONE time I get cocky about it and shoot my mouth off… :smack:
Of course, I meant return to this thread rather than start a new one, so I still might win. 
I’m not a lawyer, but strictly from a common sense standpoint, I think the law frowns upon the idea of threatening anybody with violence.
I would think the crime of “uttering threats” applies whether the threat is “I will hit you” or “I will get someone else to hit you”. Of course, the literalist interpretation is “Just because I told him to hit you does not mean he has to or really will hit you”. However, odds are a judge will take the wording as “the victim and parent could reasonably expect the son to follow through, therefore it was meant as a threat and percieved as a threat.” Unless the son was half the size of the other person…
Well, good thing we can run the courts for free. I mean it’s not as if we have to pay for judges and prosecutors and public defenders and clerks and bailiffs and courthouses and records centers…
Oh, wait, in fact it’s quite expensive.
And for this reason, the law does not burden itself with adjudicating trifles such as “If your kid keeps doing X, I will tell my kid to kick his ass.” Such talk is all too divorced from what we’re really concerned about, namely actual physical violence. What if the parent is just making an idle threat and never really will advise his kid to do any ass-kicking? What if the kid doesn’t follow the advice?
For this reason, threats are actionable only if they are accompanied by an imminent danger of their being carried out. Saying you will tell someone else to carry out a threat does not, ordinarily, meet this standard. Although, if the speaker is particularly obstreperous while uttering this remark, he might be picked up for disorderly conduct. But that goes more to his conduct than the content of his speech.
[Moderator Note]
I have merged the GQ thread with this one.
jsapone, please do not post multiple threads on the same topic in different (or the same) forums.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Serious question: Do you ever say anything without condescension?
Chin up, buckaroo. I did the same thing to my mother last night. She wants to file a complaint with a state agency because she got sassed by her homeowners’ association’s property manager. I told her, while the receptionist on the phone may have been very sympathetic to her plight, nothing was going to happen, because it would be an extraordinary waste of public resources if we decided to litigate every instance of insulting language, poor customer service, and vaguely ominous pronouncements.
The law, like me, expects a certain measure of stout-heartedness (be it in response to threats of outsourced asskickings or icy posts on an internet message board) from all of us.
So your son won’t tell you what he is alleged to have said ?
And the parent could be charged with terrorism !
Something doesn’t add up here.
The OP should beat up the other kid’s father.
I think you are supposed to schedule a fight sometime after tanning but before the gym.