Smart thinking, rule 34 has no exceptions. Rule 34 on tanks.
That’s worse than cannibalism.
Regards,
Shodan
Thanks for the article. It’s certainly more detailed than the one I linked in the OP. I’m glad the jury at least seems to have thought quite hard about things; I was probably wrong to assume they just tore him up for being a pervert. Too much Law & Order, I guess.
Also, if eating brunch with someone constitutes “surveillance” I’ve been using the word incorrectly. Am I the only person who assumed it had to be at least a little bit covert?
Just to clarify again:
I wasn’t offering that murder and cannibalism are acceptable behavior or that it is wrong to react to them with hostility. I was offering that it’s abso-freakin-lutely reasonable to assume people would be set against the guy simply because he found murder and cannibalism erotic. I’m sure people are convicted for murder conspiracies all the time but this is the one we’re talking about. Could it be because of “ick” factor? I think you could make that case. YMMV.
So, to get this straight: your plan for this debate is to set forth your position, invite rebuttals, and than address those rebuttals with an earnestly-pled, “Yeah, but, don’t you think my position is right though?”
In other words, yes, he sincerely does not believe “that the guy was convicted for sexualizing two of humanity’s greatest taboos at the same time just as much as he was convicted on the merits of the arguments involved?”
Do you have a substantive rejoinder? Or just more disbelief that other POVs exist in the world?
All that said, I do think the conspiracy case was insufficient and hope that it gets overturned on appeal. I think the error has less to do with shocked sexual sensibilities and more to do with the poorly defined nature of what separates innocuous imagining a scenario from the inchoate crimes of attempt and conspiracy.
I’m sorry my incredulity chafes you so much, but put some lotion on it and bear with me for a moment: I’m really comfortable with POV; I just think Hamlet’s was wrong and, hey, that’s my POV. Fortunately, POV doesn’t have to (and may not be able to) reflect an objective reality. My apologies for not offering a substantive rejoinder demonstrating that my opinion is beyond reproach while his is a waste of disk space.
I agree completely. Thank you for this most adequate and, perhaps, better phrased declaration of a feeling I’ve failed to articulate appropriately.
Actually, now that we agree with each other, I have a follow up on this point: Could one reasonably argue-within the confines of the law- that discussing your murderous plot on a public forum on the internet kind of discredits the notion that he thought he was secretly planning something? As regards the legal definition of conspiracy, is secrecy required?
If I went on Facebook and said, “Hey everyone, I’m going to murder Steve tomorrow and you can all come watch!”, have I conspired to commit murder in the legal sense?
To me, it’s still a thought crime and I believe it will be overturned.
The “bright line” that everyone says is hard to distinguish is the actual crime for which he has been convicted.
He is guilty of collecting information in an illegal way. He has yet to commit another offense (from the little we know)
Is “conspiracy to commit X” always an objectionable ‘thought crime’ charge, where X was not in fact committed?
Be nice. He rescinded his claim in the post two before yours. The Dope could use more people willing to admit they were wrong (I would, but it never comes up).
The problem is the Defendant himself characterized what he was doing as surveillance. If he’d merely had brunch with the girl, I doubt it would be so damaging, but he told his internet buddies the purpose of the brunch was to find out more about the girl. (probably make sure she’s not a vegetarian, I’ve heard their so stringy its barely worth the effort to kill and eat them).
I’m glad I’m not the only one who was hoping that you have to actually DO something illegal before you get sent to prison. I know it’s now acceptable for the government to tell me how much soda I can drink at one time or what kind of oil to fry my french fries in, but I don’t think we’ve reached the point where the government can tell me that what I am thinking is illegal. And I also think that if you discuss something on the internet, it’s no longer “covert” or “conspiring”. Unless you are extremely stupid/extremely naive, surely you know that your words are going to be used against you!
I’m sorry, this whole case just seems so wrong to me. We don’t jail people for what they SAY they are going to do, damn it. We jail people for what they have done. Help me understand how he DID anything wrong except access a data base he wasn’t supposed to access. Words are not actions. I cannot for the life of me get my head around this whole case.
What you’re thinking is already legal or illegal, in a sense. It’s called “intent.”
Conspiracy to commit a crime is illegal. And its not a thought crime, it requires you to take concrete steps to enact the plan you’ve discussed with your Conspirators.
If a bunch of Muslims were caught in Manhatten stockpiling (legally obtained) fertilizer, bomb making instructions, plans of the Empire States building and had hundreds of emails back and forth talking about how and why they were going to blow up said skyscraper, would you say we should be able to arrest them for a crime?
“Stupidity”, last I checked, was not a legal defence.
Words can be actions in many, many cases. Say the wrong words in the wrong context and you can be charged with uttering threats or treason.
However, this is not a case about “uttering words”, it is one about whether the words plus other actions taken by this guy demonstrate he was, or was not, actually conspiring with others to commit a crime. He did not just talk about it, he planned for it - or at least, so the jury found.
The jury may have been wrong - I haven’t seen the evidence.
Of course it’s objectionable.
The conspiracy charge needs to have two or more people and requires an “overt act”. I suppose that is where the bright line needs to be drawn. My little recollection of conspiracy charges is that they are usually the lesser of the crimes being committed. That isn’t the case here.
Is there much conspiracy case law to base this thin of a connection?
Conspiracy law always requires an agreement between two parties to commit an illegal act. In some jurisdictions (New York is one IIRC, but not in federal criminal law), it also requires an “act in furtherance.”
By way of contrast, attempt usually requires that the act pass from “perparation” to “attempt.” The law talks about “res ipsa loquitur” (the activities have begun clearly to betoken a drive to commit a crime) or “dangerous proximity.” This is poetry-as-law; neither of these clarify even slightly the question “When does preparation pass into attempt?” It’s just evocative terminology masquerading as legal definition. “A mystifying cloud of words” as Cardozo might say.
The harm that conspiracy is meant to avert, and thus the reason why it has a lesser threshold than attempt, is the worry that the co-conspirators will provide moral support/exert pressure on his counterpart and thus make it even more difficult for the parties to the conspiracy to abandon their attempt than would be the case if the person were acting alone. (Certain types of withdrawal are effective as defenses to conspiracy.)
The “bad fact” for Valle is that the misappropriation of the database can be seen as an act in furtherance. I think the totality of the evidence shows that the criminal activity was always intended to stop at that point.
In other words, I don’t think there was ever a genuine agreement between the two to commit the acts they discussed. And I don’t think “dangerous proximity” was reached. The officer should be punished for his misuse of police databases though.
On a related point, my hunch is that without abusing his access to those databases, no prosecution would have occurred.
Huh?
I asked whether a conspiracy to commit X charge was by definition unreasonable if X wasn’t committed. That is, for example, could a person be reasonably charged with conspiracy to commit murder if no-one was, in fact, murdered.
Is your answer to that question (i.e., the one I asked) yes or no?
I said nothing about other people and/or overt acts.
For that matter, this case under discussion arguably had both of those features - the “other guy” was arguably this “meatman” dude, and there were any number of “overt acts” - to name one, the database-info-stealing.
That doesn’t mean the jury got it right - have to have seen the evidence to know. Could be they were wrong. But IMO they weren’t clearly or obviously-on-its-face wrong.
If this had played out differently and the authorities decided to keep an eye on the guy to see if he made a move, at what point would stronger charges have been appropriate? E.g. “attempted cannibalism” or some such. It seems like if he was looking to act alone, a conspiracy charge would not be inappropriate. I know there are some other “intent to commit crimes” type laws, like possession of burglary tools (had a rock-climber student get nabbed for that on his way to a protest in the car where he stored his gear :rolleyes:.)
I get the distinct impression you have more than a passing familiarity with Law, Kimmy_Gibbler. Thank you for the illuminating response.