I’m not advocating the distribution of racist flyers anywhere but what law does this break ? Why are the Police spending so much time on this event. I’ve certainly found religious flyers in library books in the past. Does god offend me ? I dont know if it is up to anyone to tell me it does or doesnt.
Granted, I shouldnt have to find a racist pamphlet in a book I check out from the library. These “hate crime” laws defy logic though. Isnt murder a “hate crime” by definition ?
I’m new here and I cant imagine this topic hasnt been discussed many times in the past, but I would like to know what crime has been commited here.
The fact that the flyers called for violence against blacks would make them a threat, which police would be right to look into.
I’m not that keen on hate crime laws either, but society does take motives into account when sentencing criminals. The hate crime laws extend the range of punishment options when the motives are what we view as particularly bad. Premeditated murder is viewed as being worse than murder done in a fit of passion, so our laws call that a different flavor of the crime, in order to assess a different punishment. Hate crime laws are similar.
In the UK this might come under ‘Conduct Likely to cause a breach of the peace’ or ‘Incitement to violence’ or ‘Incitement to racial hatred’ right the way through to ‘Threatening words and behaviour’ the latter particularly if the flyers were delivered to those against whom the flyer is aimed, after all there is every chance that if you deliver down a whole street there will be differant racial groups living there.
I would think your chances of being dismissed from your employment for such things would be high too if you used company reprographics, even if you were not the original author, the company would be very concerned about liabilities if it were found to have been involved in any way.
Well I suppose it makes sense in a way. After all Freedom of Speach is situational. However, you always hear racists such as Tom Metzger and Anti-Abortion activits making a call to arms and they never get in trouble until they actually do something.
Again, I find it interesting that in the on-line article as well as the in the paper, there was no mention of what crime was commited. I read other articles on crime in the same paper, and each time they would mention “the suspect” is wanted for animal cruelty or homocide or whatever.
Any criminal lawyers around here ? …yeah right, like they would admit to it
I’m not a criminal lawyer, but I have a few thoughts to share.
First, in a college town like Palo Alto, there may very well be an “anti-racist flyer” ordinance. The question is whether such a law is constitutional.
I believe that certain types of advocacy of violence cannot be constitutionally prohibited. For example, if you were to say “Let’s elect members of the American Nazi party to government, so we can round up all the Jews and gas them” I think you could not be constitutionally punished.
On the other hand, under the right circumstances, “Let’s get that (&(&!!!” could be punished. As I recall, the protections for speech advocating violence are surprisingly broad. If you’re interested, there’s a recent opinion out there relating to the infamous “Nuremburg Files” web site.
There also may be a content-neutral flyer ordinance. i.e., a statute that prohibits leaving flyers in public library books. Note that the Constitution is much more lenient with so-called “content neutral” prohibitions of speech.
For example, if you were demonstrating at 3:00 AM on a side street with a megaphone, you could be cited(constitutionally) no matter what you were protesting.
The Constitution aside, I would guess that the Palo Alto Police Chief, as a high-ranking public official, is most concerned with appearing to be willing to Do Something ™. If they find the perp (yeah right), he can let the prosecutor or the municipal judge take the heat for announcing any constitutional problems.
(Standard disclaimer about legal advice)
If a Nazi/KKK/Milita/Black Panther/JDL/FALN/CANF member stands on a box on an American street corner and advocates direct political action to forcibly round up, imprison and/or otherwise potentially incite violence against members of a particular group are these “modest proposals” illegal or not. Where is the fine constitutional line?
