Thanks for that. I know the burden of proof is much ‘easier’ for civil suit, so perhaps my original idea has some merit, although I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t pass legal muster.
I never thought Coulter, et al, were criminally liable, merely liable for damages in civil court, which ain’t such a bad thing.
She had actually moved to Knoxville, but was originally from Texas. Here’s an article about Linda Kraeger. She sounds like she was a very talented woman.
In case I’m not clear, I agree that it’s a huge leap. I’m not citing these cases to show similarities: I’m citing them to show differences. They’re the closest cases I can think of, and they’re still not all that close.
Thanks, Bricker, for the added detail. I read that in the case, but I wasn’t clear (maybe I missed it) on whether the murderer was one of those trained by the church.
Daniel
Well, by that standard, Der Trihs would be liable for the deaths of American servicemen if you could show that some Iraqi kid planted an IED after reading his posts.
Yep a shootout with bullets flying would have been so much safer.
As fate would have it, while doing genealogy research last night I was reading the memoirs of an early settler of an Alabama county and the writer (a Baptist minister writing in the 1890s when he was in his 80s) was writing of his recollections of the religious climate when the county was settled en masse (1835-1836, during the Creek removal). He tells the story of a seminary educated Methodist minister who came to this podunk Wild West like land of few whites and slave-thieves and “renegade savages” (i.e. Indians who weren’t wild about the prospects of Oklahoma) and how the minister was soon “revealed to be” a Universalist in his doctrine! He at one point challenged the other ministers to a debate when they began preaching against his doctrine (Methodism was apparently very conservative at the time- the writer talks about how clothing was a major source of discussion (ministers feeling it had become too revealing and sinful [?] while the Universalist couldn’t care much less- and so his liberal teachings were not well received) and none of the other ministers would agree to debate him. (Instead the folks just ran him out of the community like Jesus would have done.)
Sorry for the hijack, but an interesting little hidden gem of insight into a frontier community and the way Universalists were perceived.
Goddamn frontier hippies.
This is the city I’ve moved to exactly a year ago to live with my girlfriend and her daughter. We’re not Unitarians (all atheists, more or less), but many of our friends are members of the church, and the daughter has gone to plenty of events there. The church is one of the more active supporters of homosexual rights in the area, which is an important issue to all of us. It just recently put up a big sign supporting the rights of homosexuals. It’s also known for being politically liberal in other ways. While the man was shooting at people he was saying very hateful and negative things he assumed about them. Everyone here is bright enough to be able to guess the kinds of things he was saying. This is exactly what hate crime laws are made for.
Without wanting to be a dick about it, is that a first-, second- or third-hand account of what happened?
From the Knoxville newspaper (which has the best coverage) http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/jul/29/suspects-note-cites-liberal-movement-church-attack/
"Adkisson went on a rampage at the church, Still wrote, “because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country’s hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of major media outlets.”
We have a lot of friends from that church. Just met with one in between the last post and this one (but as we were just picking the daughter up we didn’t want to press for details, but conveyed our sympathy). Multiple second hand accounts definitely beats any FOX News rosey-palmed accounts or the third or fourth etc. handed accounts most people catching up with news from the TV or etc. would have.
Genealogy research turns up the weirdest tidbits, doesn’t it?
I had to share this.
Again, civil liability against Der Trihs would IMO not be such a bad thing. Not saying he’s criminally liable, but advocating the death of anyone should be a crime.
Disagree, hope they loose, marginalize those you disagree with, that’s perfectly fine. Advocating killing them = Not OK.
Speech has impact. Speech matters. And some speech, advocating the death of others especially, should not be tolerated and should have penalties associated with it.
Really? This is an international messageboard, and many of the folks are from countries currently engaged in warfare against other countries. Should taking a pro-war stance on this board be a crime?
Daniel
Nope, but being pro- or anti-war is a far cry from calling for all soldiers to be killed as well as calling for specific individuals (soldier brother of a poster IIRC) to be killed. And again, not a ‘crime’ but if you advocate killing someone, and someone takes that advocacy literally and kills them claiming your words as justification, then I would think you bear some responsibility for that death.
Of course, random anonymous poster on a message board has a quite a bit less culpability than a nationally syndicated writer or talk show host to name other examples, but I do believe in responsibility for speech just as with any other action. Lie, or advocate harming or killing someone, and you should be aware that there may be a penalty. As Bricker mentions in his post, the more specific (and I would argue the more powerful your source of advocacy) you are, the more you are liable.
Advocating the death of anyone? You might want to think more carefully about that. You have just called for the criminalization of support for the death penalty, of advocacy for euthanasia, of sitting in front of a TV when the US army surrounds a house with Uday Hussein inside and saying “I hope they kill that fucker.”
You’d have more of an argument if you limited it to extra-legal killing. But we kill people a lot of the time as a society.
Just as long as the right people determine what speech “should not be tolerated and should have penalties associated with it,” eh?
As is always relevant in situations like this, we are all so certain that we would make the perfect censor. It’s just everyone else who would make a really crappy one.
I took ‘extra legal’ as read.
One thing - I am not censoring anyone. I never said anything about stopping anyone from saying anything what so ever.
Assume I am a minister. At my church, I tell my followers that they should kill all inter-racial couples with guns. I tell them where the couples tend to congregate, I tell them where to buy guns, and I tell them God will love them if they do this. Am I not responsible to some degree when one of my flock goes out and does what I say?
But see how it changes based on the circumstances of who’s advocating this and how. If I say the same thing on a message board. I am not in a position of authority over anyone receiving the message, and certainly aren’t well known outside of my tiny community of like-minded people. My culpability would be much less. Even more so if I say it to no-one other than myself, in your example of sitting around the TV and shouting that someone should die.
This is not new. I can talk about any person to my heart’s content, true or not, with or without malice aforethought. But if I am a writer for a newspaper, and make damaging untrue statements about someone in public eye for profit or malice, then I am liable for civil damages for libel and / or slander. I am simply suggesting that if someone is in a position of ‘authority’ of a degree, and advocates the death of a person or group of people, they should be liable to some degree for that death or deaths in civil court.
So liability for saying “Homosexuals should be killed,” but no liability for saying “The government should kill homosexuals”?
Supporting penalties for speech is censoring that speech.
And such liability already exists if the link is close enough. You seem to be advocating making it an awful lot closer.
If you think individuals cannot be liable for slander/libel for false public statements, then you don’t know the law of defamation.
Not what I said, although it would be damn hard to prove the government liability if they went out and started killing homosexuals because I told them to. I said liability is limited based on the relative ‘authority’ of the speaker as well as the size of the audience and the narrowness of the advocacy. Someone advocating the Government to do something is less liable than someone telling his friends and family to do something; the authority of someone telling the Government to do something is negligible, but the authority of me telling, say, my son to do something is much more. Reality will apply here.
Really? how so? Shouting fire is legal; shouting fire in a crowded theater is not and has penalties. Usage, audience, and environment do matter.
Where does the law state this? And if the law already supports my arguments, I would think my cause (of having wingnuts advocating the death of their political enemies be sued by a class action of this terrible crime’s survivors) not being so out-of-left-field as you’re attempting to portray.
Perhaps I don’t, and I’ve never claimed to be a lawyer, but it is true that libel and slander are more damaging if they come from a newspaper columnist rather than a private individual. You can sue the News of the World for hundreds of thousands of dollars for lying about you; an individual saying mean things about you to your neighbors I would doubt you could get anything from. The liability is less for an individual.