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This is a static archive the Twin Cities Carry forum, maintained as a public service by the current forum of record, The Minnesota Carry Forum.
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[ 5 posts ] |
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Dee
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Post subject: Disturbing the peace? Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 3:47 pm |
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Longtime Regular |
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Joined: Fri Oct 31, 2008 11:39 pm Posts: 533 Location: Mankato Area
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We've all heard the outrageous stories of police in Wisconsin charging people with disorderly conduct for open carrying. We were all outraged. Well, that's nothing compared to this: http://techdirt.com/articles/20090618/0058075274.shtmlQuote: Student Found Guilty Of 'Disturbing The Peace' For Sending Nasty Political Email To Professor from the wow dept As we all know, online debates can spiral out of control pretty quickly -- with name calling and people quickly jumping to extremes. This is especially true in the political arena, where various positions are stereotyped and extreme passions come out quickly. I tend to find such discussions tiresome. However, they occur all the time (occasionally here in our own comments). But could you consider such a conversation disturbing the peace? It appears that's exactly what happened to a student in Nebraska who had a rather nasty political email exchange with a professor.
The student and the professor exchanged a series of emails over a short period of time. The two were at opposite ends of the political spectrum (which side was which, honestly, doesn't and shouldn't matter), and the student used some nasty language and accused the professor of being a traitor among other things. To be honest, if you've spent any time in online political discussions, this really isn't particularly out of the ordinary -- and (somewhat amazingly) after a back-and-forth exchange where the professor asked the student to stop emailing him and noting how insulted he was by the emails, the student did send a long apologetic email, telling the professor he was sorry that he got so riled up, and he really liked the professor and just wanted to debate someone intelligent who viewed the world from a very different perspective.
A few months went by, and then the professor received two anonymous emails from a new Yahoo email address that used the professor's name as part of the address (the username was "averylovesalqueda"), again ranting politically against the professor. The professor found the emails threatening and turned them over to the police. The police eventually tracked the emails down to the same student who was then charged with disturbing the peace. Yes. Disturbing the peace. For sending a nasty email.
First Amendment scholars look out. Who knew that sending a private ranting email could disturb the peace?
Amazingly, a lower court and now the appeals court agreed and the student has been convicted of disturbing the peace for sending those emails. The court even claims that the email address itself is libelous which seems quite difficult to square with reality. No one would look at that email address and assume that it was actually from the professor in question, and there's no indication that anyone outside of the professor himself ever saw the email address in question. O'Toole, in his post, puts the blame not on the judges, but on the student, who chose to defend himself, and appears to have done a pretty poor job of it, now leaving this ruling to be used as a citation in other cases. This is bad news no matter how you look at it. Even granting O'Toole's premise that the student is at fault for defending himself (and doing such a poor job of it), it's still bothersome that a judge wouldn't take basic First Amendment rights into consideration here.
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kecker
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Post subject: Re: Disturbing the peace? Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 4:06 pm |
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Longtime Regular |
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Joined: Tue Jul 15, 2008 9:57 am Posts: 818 Location: Apple Valley, MN
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The man who chooses to represent himself in court, has a fool for a client.
_________________ http://www.eckernet.com My mind is like a steel trap - rusty and illegal in 37 states.
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ironbear
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Post subject: Re: Disturbing the peace? Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 4:13 pm |
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Longtime Regular |
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Joined: Tue Aug 16, 2005 1:08 pm Posts: 546 Location: Roseville
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kecker wrote: The man who chooses to represent himself in court, has a fool for a client. There are plenty of fools for clients. Nothing new there. The problem here was, that he had a fool for counsel....
_________________ You can't save the Earth unless you're willing to make other people sacrifice. ~Dogbert~
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mrokern
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Post subject: Re: Disturbing the peace? Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 5:30 pm |
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Longtime Regular |
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Joined: Tue Jan 15, 2008 9:40 pm Posts: 2264 Location: Eden Prairie
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I'd like to see the emails, personally. If they were actually threatening, then the student is lucky that disturbing the peace is all they charged him with. Could very well be that the prof was uber-sensitive and a general PITA, though. That describes a lot of my college instructors. -Mark
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kecker
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Post subject: Re: Disturbing the peace? Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2009 1:53 am |
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Longtime Regular |
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Joined: Tue Jul 15, 2008 9:57 am Posts: 818 Location: Apple Valley, MN
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ironbear wrote: kecker wrote: The man who chooses to represent himself in court, has a fool for a client. There are plenty of fools for clients. Nothing new there. The problem here was, that he had a fool for counsel.... Thank you for the correction
_________________ http://www.eckernet.com My mind is like a steel trap - rusty and illegal in 37 states.
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