The lawyer’s argument that the death threat to the judge came from someone incapable of carrying it out, therefore of no consequence is interesting. How many death threats would he accept phoned into his home/family before he considered it consequential? Can they all be excused until someone shows up to make it consequential? Isn’t logic/critical thinking part of Juris Doctorates anymore?
@Catawu careful, because the lawyer might simply reply consistently and thus reinforce his position.
Yes, maybe they can all be excused, with logical consistency.
@volkris any judge that would accept that answer would themselves be at risk of such abuse. I doubt it would pan out that way. There can be no legal way to threaten the safety or lives of anyone, famous or not, without consequence. One does not lose their rights to live in peace simply by virtue of being public/govt employee, celebrity, etc. That makes no sense, much less legal sense.
@Catawu the argument is that it was not a legitimate threat to safety, and so it amounts to a restriction on speech without concrete cause.
@volkris If the argument is that it’s not a threat to safety, despite it being a threat, are we only to take action AFTER the violence has commenced? Who among us willing to live in terror, guessing which threat is real, which is not, as we go about doing our work, public duty? The argument is flawed on so many levels.
@Catawu you seem to be saying that the argument is flawed merely because you don't personally prefer the outcome it leads to.
That doesn't mean the argument is flawed. It just means you don't like its implications. Which is fair, but your personal opinion doesn't override the logic.
The point here is that there is no violence. Asking about what to do after violence has commenced doesn't make sense when there is no violence to commence.
But yes, in the real world we are left always weighing risks as we go about our daily lives. That's the real world.
@Catawu and in this case the speech did not cause harm, which is the whole point.
Again, you don't have to like the speech, but the reasoning is pretty solid.
Without that harm that you mention, there's no substantial justification for silencing the speech.
@volkris It’s flawed because it violates the rights of those being threatened. Putting the onus of determining if this person or that is really going to carry out the threat, further victimizes the target of the threats. Threats are not free speech when they interfere with or cause harm to anyone as a means to prevent that person from carrying out their job/ obligation. It’s called at the very least, harassment. Harassment is not legally accepted free speech.