It’s used in "In the year of our Lord, ". That’s like saying any scientific document that uses BCE is biased by Christianity.
He agrees with me that bomb threats were illegal from day one even if not
specifically prohibited, and he suggests that assault law might have been
used to obtain conviction. What do you think he meant?
Nonsense. The issue is whether conviction could be obtained without specific law
forbidding the specific act. See assault, endangerment, bad tendency, disturbing
the peace, disorderly conduct, and how about malicious mischeif?- have I mentioned that?
Yes we are talking about bomb threats, and here you have changed your tune
because in your post #107, in answer to my question about the first fake bomb threat :
"(Should we have) Just let the asshole (perpetrator) not only go scott free, but
also free to make more fake threats until the legislature gets around to writing
a new law? "
You replied:
“Well, yes. The point of criminal legislation is to allow people to conform their
conduct to the law. That’s why we don’t allow ex post facto laws.”
Better not let the ACLU see how you are waffling-- they might not offer you a job
after all.
What the fuck are you talking about?
Okay. Find a conviction that fits your claim, then.
Put yourself in Chicago operating a business and Mayor Rahm Emanuel makes a request. Or a TV station gets a request from a member of congress who is connected with the FCC.
There is definitely a hidden power behind such requests.
Unquestionably, but that doesn’t make them First Amendment violations- absent some implicit threat, at least. It makes them bad policy.
yes.
Thank you.
I don’t think it’s a hijack …
I’ve spelled it out as much as it needs to be spelled out. Your problemmo
if you still don’t get it.
Nah. That kind of job needs to be filled by people who have access to law libraries, and know their way around them.
Like some Law 2 grind.
I missed this before.
My contention is that in Holmes’ Schenk opinion shouting “fire” was *already *illegal, and was offered
as an example of the kind of case to which the clear and present danger doctrine would apply.
It’s not really my problem that you keep making bizarre and apparently random allusions to the ACLU.
Oh.
You’re not the ACLU type? My bad!
Not quite. It was offered as an example of how the right of free speech is not absolute. That’s all. Earlier, you argued more.
I haven’t fully read all of the exchanges in this thread, but it was my understanding that you contended that a person couldn’t be convicted of falsely shouting fire in a theater because there was no specific law against that, and that an effort to prosecute a person for that would be an ex post facto law.
Even in the absence of any prior convictions for falsely shouting fire, doesn’t the point still stand?
So basically we already have anti-blasphemy laws? It’s illegal to make fun of Islam? But not say, Christianity or Buddhism?
No, I contended that Holmes wasn’t saying that shouting fire in a crowded theater was illegal. It’s not necessarily a big distinction, though; I don’t think a person could be convicted of anything for doing so, unless someone was actually injured.
From what I understand of the case history, speech itself cannot be prosecuted. The damage that results from that speech can be, if the speech was intended to cause harm. Libel, incitement, etc.
Speech that is not intended to cause incitement but does because someone else wants to silence the speaker is still protected speech. The crime is committed by the heckler, not the speaker. Which would be 100% clear if there was a riot in Salt Lake City over Parker and Stone’s “Book of Mormon” play.
I do not see what you are getting at here, and I do not see where anything I have said
is in conflict with anything else I have said.
Earlier you cited my post #78 where I suggested that a person who falsely shouted “fire”
might be tried under endangerment law. I also suggested Holmes must have had endangerment
or some other doctrine such as bad tendency in mind when he characterized the “fire” perp
as beyond the protection of free speech doctrine.
Well, at least you are yielding a little ground here- the guy who yells “fire” might be liable
for criminal penalty after all.
However, I would really like to know how the Law1-2-3 Professoriate teases out a distinction
which would allow an obviously endangering act to go unpunished if no one is hurt, despite
the fact that endangerment and other non-specific, flexible law is availble for use against
those who take pleasure from putting other people at physical risk.
I think the point is that yelling fire was not the incident at hand in the case. It was about giving out leaflets opposing the draft during WWI.
Okay, fair question.
The first reason is the rule of lenity. Because the purpose of criminal law is to allow people to conform their conduct to the standards of the community, people are typically not punished for actions that aren’t clearly defined as crimes. So, the first guy who called in a bomb threat would probably not be culpable if all he said was “there is a bomb in your building”. If he said “I’m going to blow up your building”, that would probably be actionable like any other threat of physical harm.
The second reason is that the law doesn’t prohibit all wrongful conduct. Today, it’s somewhat difficult to image what actual harm would result from shouting fire in a crowded theater. People injured in a stampede, maybe. The point is that just putting other people at risk is not necessarily a crime. I put people at risk constantly by driving a car, smoking, using a cellphone near a gas station, and so on. That doesn’t mean I am criminally culpable.