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I am really mixed on this one: https://www.rawstory.com/trump-in-jail/
On the one hand seeing Trump in jail would please me greatly. On the other I'm left asking how a judge has the right to restrain free speech at all. saying someone should "rot in hell" outside of court and having that land you in jail seems like a huge violation.
Idk it seems like the whole point of having a court system is the first place is to prevent parties from being pressured to withdraw, drop the dispute, with public letter writing campaigns
Just STFU. When it’s over you can tell everyone how you’re poor now and your life is ruined. That’s free speech.
@jenny_wu Threatening people is illegal with or without a court order. If he said "this man should be murdered" then I would agree with you. But "he should rot in hell", no thats not even a threat.
@freemo @jenny_wu Taken very literally, "X should be murdered" is not a threat: it's simply a statement about a world you'd prefer to live in. Obviously that approach makes no sense, because then well-understood codes speech becomes a way to skirt around any laws prohibiting threats.
If one tries to include various coded threats, then the statement itself is not enough to detemine whether it's a threat: the whole point of coded speech is to make it easy to read for intended recipients and hard to convincingly convey to others, so it relies on lots of context.
@realcaseyrollins @jenny_wu @freemo @robryk Vocally supporting violence is protected by the first amendment. Committing or inciting violence is not.
@LouisIngenthron @realcaseyrollins @freemo @robryk
Narrow place-and-time restrictions. Wishing that the complainant would be murdered and burn in hell is a given, really. That cathartic speech can wait until after the lawyers are paid.
It says “Congress shall make no law” but the judiciary can impose reasonable restrictions with proceedings in motion.
If a law is what grants the powert to the judiciary then its a violation.
Obviously I do agree with the general consensus here that directly intimidating a witness goes beyond free speech of course. My issue is not with him going to jail for legit threats, in fact I'd **want** that. My issue is that the judge talked about it being legitimate to send him to jail for saying "rot in hell", to me that feels like a violation. Even if we can argue legally it isnt, it should be.
@freemo @LouisIngenthron @realcaseyrollins @robryk
1. It can be assumed that every criminal defendant wants every public prosecutor to burn in hell. If Congress explicitly passed an unconstitutional law that says “Thou shalt not say burn in hell in such and such scenario” the practical epistemic violence of such a law would be nil. No information has been lost.
Information loss is a pretty weak mechanism to justify (or not) a law or judicial act.
@freemo @jenny_wu @LouisIngenthron @robryk It’s hard to see Jenny’s case here, she’s not demonstrating that #Trump advocated, supported or condoned violence against the prosecutors, onlytha