The Facebook Comment That Ruined a Life
dallasobserver.com
dallasobserver.com
The Comal County District Attorney's Office did not intend for Carter to suffer what happened next,
Flanary says, but it was reasonably foreseeable: He was sexually assaulted.
Then there's the fact that the context of the offensive speech was excluded from evidence.
Disgusting!
If there's a single way to spur the economy it would be to close down many of these prisons, and reprogram the law enforcement goal of populating them.
The government of the US does not even remotely work for her people. They serve themselves.
Edit: This is a slightly complex relationship but it holds. Once you start down a path of mass incarceration, there's pressure to find a profitable use for prisoners. Once you have a profit-making use, there's a demand for more prisoners. So while it is chicken and egg, it's pretty clear that the demand is a factor today. It is also worth noting that the the 13th Amendment specifically allows slavery as punishment for a crime.
That we citizens of the US have a tendency to tolerate this all-too-frequent failure is a shame to this entire nation.
Even more so because it is unclear whether it actually makes the public any safer, given the extreme re-offending rate.
> "He started threatening me, saying that he would kill me. ... I told the school officers, [and] they started watching him really closely. He would say that he would shoot up the school."
So I'll start by playing Devil's Advocate very briefly. It's interesting how facts can be shaped with different language ("his only brush with the law"): it appears the restraining order from two years prior related to similar threats to those alleged in the Facebook comments (although in a remarkably different context).
Now that notwithstanding, it seems there are many glaring issues, both ethical and legal, with the way this has been handled.
Based on a screenshot of a Facebook comment without context or verification from Facebook an 18 year-old was detained for months without trial, including his 19th birthday, and offered a plea bargain of 8 years jail (!). An unaffordable bail of $500k was set, and if not for media attention, pro bono counsel, and a generous anonymous donor he would still be detained. During his detention he was repeatedly sexually assaulted, withheld legal counsel, and coerced to confess with false promises of freedom. After media focus an offer of 10 years (!) probation was put forward.
On a technical note, the original warrant included false testimony (matching of the Facebook profile picture to a driver's licence when the accused did not have a licence) and the indictment misquoted the original Facebook comment.
How does anyone think this is reasonable?
I find the actions taken here infinitely more scary than facebook comment bullshit.
In recent years Obama justified various state excesses by saying something like "You can't have 100% security and 100% privacy." My immediate thought was, "Well, that's vacuously true, because you can't have 100% security ever."
Unfortunately, that's not the case: the job of the police seems to be to make a case, and when combined with the plea bargain system we have, it's basically a game of "how can we convict this guy".
Do I think investigation was warranted? Sure. But it definitely seems like overreaction to treat this as a valid terrorist threat, rather than a kid (or adult) saying something mean and flippant.
I also find it hard to believe that Facebook was "unable" to give details of the conversation. If the defense believes that the context (unshown in the screenshot) is important, I am surprised they can't subpoena the entire history of his actions in that timeframe, or of the threads he was posting in over that 48-hour period, and have an expert witness collect and show the context they say is so important.
Now if they needed a search warrant (which is quite possible, if this was treated like email and less than 180 days old), then it is quite possible they asked for one and got laughed at by the magistrate.
I find it ironic that with all of the talk flying around about nothing being private, a facebook conversation that would potentially exonerate this guy can't be dredged up.
It's hard for me to crystallize my thoughts on what needs to happen here, because the details, have up until this article, been incredibly confusing and contradictory. At the last report, this conversation took place within League of Legends itself. Apparently that wasn't the case. What other details about the information the jury had access to do we not know?
IANAL but I'm reasonably confident that a restraining order he received as a minor would not be admissible as evidence in this case, and thus should be irrelevant to the prosecution.
You absolutely cannot be tied to crimes you committed as a youth. This way, no matter how bad you screw up, you have a clean slate as an adult.
Adults deserve a second chance, too.
And yet it might be relevant to the reason he was arrested, if the quotation in the message above yours (which is unsourced) is true.
Kid gets arrested for Facebook talk: "INJUSTICE!"
...but he had a previous restraining order for similar threats: "They might have a point."
What's ridiculous about this case is that they kept at it.
If someone came up to me on the street and screamed I'm going to fucking kill you, I wouldn't argue for his freedom of speech.
But even so, would you argue for 8 years in prison for screaming at someone?
In other words, it isn't screaming at someone, it is a true and credible threat, that might be worth punishing relatively harshly.
Let me put this another way. Suppose instead of screaming at someone the individual went up to the home of a black family and burned a cross on their sidewalk (so no tresspassing) at 2am, and left a piece of cardboard on their door saying "Watch out. We are coming for you!" That's a pretty classic terroristic threat in US history. It may consist entirely of expressive acts and no real property crime. Certainly that's worthy of significant punishment.
Now this case doesn't even come close to that hypothetical and I think the differences are illustrative. It isn't specific. It isn't a threat directed at the target. It isn't disruptive by itself. So if the individual isn't taking any steps to make it happen, I think it really should fall in the category protected by Brandenburg v. Ohio. Indeed, if you read footnote 1 of that case, you will see that the speech at issue here was a lot less likely to cause imminent lawless action, was a lot less terroristic, and was a lot less credible than the speech found protected in that case.
>here is someone who threatening them.
Threatening them, who is them? As deplorable as his speech was, it was not an identifiable threat of some imminent danger to some specific victim. (ie. I would have a different opinion if he identified a school by name). A counter-argument to my opinion is that we could have people making very real, but vague threats and police could not take action until after it is to late. However, there must be a balance between right to free speech and police powers, I just tend to err on the side of rights over government power.
>If someone came up to me on the street and screamed I'm going to fucking kill you, I wouldn't argue for his freedom of speech.
Your example is good because it can highlights where the law can strike a fair balance better rights and powers. First, I agree in your example I would not argue for right to free speech, but the declarant in the story is more akin to someone on the street screaming "I want to fucking kill someone" not directed at anyone and otherwise not posing an immanent threat.
If this kind of speech is to be punished with 8 years prison or 10 years probation, police just need to log onto Xbox Live and have a field day with all the threats...in fact one of the statements from the thread in this story "go drink bleach", I have only heard before on Xbox Live and I have heard it many times from various players - though this example is not a threat there are plenty to be found...mostly involving mothers.
There are exceptions, but generally, it is not criminal to discuss committing a crime, in order to constitute a crime there usually needs to be a substantial step in furtherance of committing the crime.
It's the difference between "I'm so angry I could kill someone right now!" and "I'm so angry I could kill so-and-so neighbor right now!"
I really don't think that someone should be charged with 'making terroristic threats' - nor any kind of threats - with just a vague statement of intent.
If you took everyone seriously when they threatened non-specific murder, you would have to jail everyone who makes jokes about how many points you get for running over different kinds of pedestrians while driving, which at least in the UK seems to be around half of all drivers.
Meh....
While I was driving my two kids to school today (in Jakarta), my youngest climbed on my lap. Where I am there are no laws against that, so I just kept driving.
I think it is interesting that the people I know who have no kids fit your view of looking for absolute protection more than the actual parents I know. There's a certain point where, as a parent, you come to terms with the fact that the world is a dangerous place.
> If someone came up to me on the street and screamed I'm going to fucking kill you, I wouldn't argue for his freedom of speech.
This would be true especially if you knew the person and had reason to believe that the individual really intended to do that.
On the other hand, if it was one of your bowling buddies you were slated to play with the next day and he came up to you and said, "Tomorrow, I am gonna fucking kill you with a 300!" I would totally say "free speech" and I wouldn't think he was going to bring over the elite Spartan guard and kill you with Greek swords or something.....
So these things require context.
Knowing that a snapshot of a Facebook post taken out of context can land that person in jail for months is a goldmine opportunity for some people.
This just adds to the list the other things could include: plant child porn on their machine, call the terrorist hotline with a tip, launch a flood of ssh port scans into a .mil address from their machine, and bam! easy peasy that person's life is ruined.
This is not unlike the witch hunts in repressive regimes where people are encouraged to rat on each other. Quite often that is taken advantage. It used to be report the person to be a "Communist" or "report that person to be an Anti-Communist".
Unless there is public and swift punishment for the prosecutors or the "professionals" in the chain of people this has passed through, this will repeat again and again. There is just very little incentive not to "keep going" with these tips. The potential repercussions for ignoring it could be much harsher. So why not...
Listening to pud-pulling detectives stumble through the technical details of correlating an IP address to a service provider, at the rehearsed prompts provided by power-tripping district attourneys, and then glancing across the 22 other grand jurors, some withed glazed eyes, and others desperately nodding in agreement, as if they had something to prove to the phantom presence of their usually condescending 13-year-old children about their technical savvy, and the relationship that holds with being able to read a cable bill, I was deeply disturbed by the very low bar that was set, in order to prove to the lowest common denomenator that someone committed a computer crime, when I was out-voted on a whether to bring a flimsy case to trial.
Afterward, I casually chatted up each of the people that voted to bring a guy before the judge for allegedly creating fake credit cards and charging thousands of dollars under someone else's name, to gauge whether they understood what they had just voted on.
Most of them had a hard time using their smart phones for anything besides phone calls, couldn't tell me what an IP address actually was, couldn't readily distinguish AOL dial up service and AOL keyword searches from "Googling the internet" or typing in a URL in their browsers address bar, and were mystified by the difference between typing up a Word document and attaching it to an e-mail, versus just typing and sending the e-mail itself.
The difference between how quickly things went to trial, or how long we deliberated on a particular case often hinged on how close to 5PM it was. The DA's seemed to be aware of this, and the complexity and "appeal" of cases and the order of their presentation seemed to be planned accordingly.
If a Middle Age dude was an expert in chemistry, he'd probably be tried quite similarly. The fact that no one around him could even comprehend what chemistry is, is now completely irrelevant to them ruining his life.
Now replace that with technology, the people with modern day morons and death with impossibly high bail/languishing in prison for years together ruining any chance of an average, let alone decent future and you've got what we have today.
The point is, they don't know the subject yet feel that they know enough. History, it seems never changes.
Was the defense not able to submit the IM context themselves? The conclusion seems to be that it would basically exonerate him, so why could they not disclose it?
The article goes so far as to mention the context "hasn't surfaced". Why on earth not? Is this because Facebook refuses to release the IM history?
This case was so badly botched even before one gets to free speech questions that one wonders why, at some point, the state didn't just admit error and agree to have the case dismissed. This reads like "let's see. There are 10 Amendments in the Bill of Rights. How many of them can we mess with? Now obviously we can't violate the 3rd, 9th, or 10th amendments here but maybe we can mess with the first, second, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eigth..."
One wonders why they stopped at the Bill of Rights. Maybe they could get the city to pass a Bill of Attainder while they are at it. Maybe they could have gone for broke and asked the state to station national guardsmen in his bedroom on release?
It doesn't have much to do with his danger anyways, as far as I'm concerned. Adam Lanza did not have a criminal record [0].
Austin resident here. There is very little right about this case.
He was joking, and his original post included indications of this. Prosecutors intentionally misrepresented and truncated his comments to mislead the Grand Jury.
The arrest warrant issued claimed they found him by driver's license records but he has never had a Texas driver's license.
They failed to protect him, an 18 year old kid, in jail. He has been sexually assaulted.
The state maintains their case against him at this point only to blunt his eventual lawsuit against them.
In truth it is not exactly so, but I personally wouldn't want to live in any of those places. I probably wouldn't be happy living in the mid-west either though.
It generally holds true that these sorts of things can happen in any state now. If you 'threaten' to shoot up a school (no matter how jokingly) you're likely to get reamed for it.
Context no longer matters... There is a zero tolerance policy on certain words and ideas now it appears.
There's definitely an I don't know...afterglow effect? with this stereotype at play in the south today. It certainly used to be highly isolated culture with it's own weird problems ("fanatics, racism, and overreaction").
These days though thanks to television, the internet, decades of immigration etc. it's pretty much the rest of the US...with better weather.
There's this trope that Alabama (and most of the South) is a fucked up, backwards, redneck, inbred place afraid of all things change, and that just isn't true. There are episodes of each of those things - just like in California or New York. It's nice getting off of work and playing basketball out in your driveway, then enjoying a beer with all of your neighbors outside as it turns from dusk to dark. Generally people are nicer here and I try my best to be as well.
I think Alabama's a great state to live in. I also think people give in to regional stereotypes way more than they should.
The charge was assault with a lethal weapon (the car), the case went to trial and he was convicted. It's a circus.
[Edit: Turns out the guy was not a tourist. Here is the story, written right before the sentencing: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002601538]
I think it's important to remember a fact of humanity: you're generally safer on familiar ground, around people who are similar to yourself. It can be very interesting, exciting, and rewarding to be "the foreigner", but at the same time you should never forget when you're in that position.
Of course one of the horrible things about Texas is it does this sort of thing to actual Texans, in addition to other people. It's really an indictment of the people of the state: could you form a decent jury, judiciary, legislature, or police force if it had to be made up of Texans?
This is generally true. However, the United States is a multi ethnic country. So the question is, does this statement apply to all ethnicities, everywhere? The fact is, for a large number of Americans, they are "the foreigner" exactly in that position most of the time.
It wouldn't be hard to find prejudiced ignoramuses who would say the same about the people of any state (or religion, or ethnic group, or occupation).
What would you even be fearing? Burritos and Barbeque?
However he might be thinking of the backwards and corrupt policing of the state. For instance,
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-new-mexico-... http://www.elpasotimes.com/latestnews/ci_25024804/new-lawsui...
Granted, the Deep South still has a ways to go.
Well, if you're going to paint with such a broad brush, go ahead and list the other 38. I hear there are bad people in San Francisco, Madison, Boise, Olympia, Reading and Topeka too.
Then you should start listing Canadian provinces, because surely they've got some bad apples. And don't forget Mexico, since they've had issues with murderous drug cartels. At that point you should also mention the bloodthirsty populations of Central America as well as the black-hearted people of Iceland.
Really, I think only the Moon is reasonably safe but the place has gone downhill since 1969.
Vanderbilt Duke UNC Rice Georgia Tech Virginia Tech University of Virginia That's a partial list.
PLACES TO BE FEARED! It's legitimately damaging to the American South to perpetuate stereotypes like this. It makes smart people want to leave, or never go in the first place. I've lived in Memphis Tennessee for my entire life and I can guarantee you that it would be a better place if people didn't spew closed minded horse-shit like this.
The secret is simple: ask locals. That's the best way to be safe wherever you travel.
But maybe because the US is so big it's bound to happen sometimes? I don't know, but USA is certainly not on my want-to-visit list (though it's on a wish-to-visit along with Pakistan).
"What is Heaven like? It has everything at its best: delicious food, classy wines, mild climate, superb views from all sides.
A bit like France, but without the French."
(Jeremy Pascall)
The US is vastly better than many parts of the world and we get a disproportionate amount of attention on our ills because we're an economic powerhouse that does many things. The country is a collection of states that each have their boons and drawbacks.
Texas is near (or at) last in public education. Don't make public threats to kill children in a state that might not understand or care about sarcastic context.
According to what metric? They rank in the the top 25% in US News rankings, 14th in Quality Counts rankings, and have one of the highest high school completion rates in the country.
I would imagine that Austin in particular is probably over average compared to much of the rest of the state due to the number of colleges in the area and significant tech sector.
Either way, I find "shut up" to be inhibitive of civil discourse in all but the rarest of situations.
My country has lost its damn mind.
http://www.rockandice.com/lates-news/tnb-is-pakistan-safe-fo...
We're a collection of states that each are allowed to do things more or less their own way. Texas is one of the states with serious issues surrounding illegal immigration, income, and education, but has about the same economic power as Canada.
It's not merely anecdotes; there's plenty of hard data. The US locks up more people in absolute numbers than any country in the world, including China, which has 4 times the population and a totalitarian government. Per capita, the only countries with more inmates are a handful of tiny Carribean islands, I believe.
Law enforcement is structurally not being held accountable. Stories about police officers killing or tazering unarmed and even disabled people abound, usually followed up by a story that nobody got charged with any wrongdoing (except maybe the victim).
In talks online, I notice that a lot of Americans are afraid of the police. Tons of websites warn not to say anything to the police. The message that the police cannot be trusted is everywhere.
This is not the image of healthy, democratic, rule of law. It's a police state.
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2109777...
My grandparents were lucky enough to survive the Stalinist regime but many of our family didn't. There's no reliable numbers of how many where imprisoned by Stalin and, even worse, how many died in prison camps. For the latter, even the most conservative estimates are in the millions.
Is this hyperbole? Here are the facts. The U.S. has 760 prisoners per 100,000 citizens. That's not just many more than in most other developed countries but seven to 10 times as many. Japan has 63 per 100,000, Germany has 90, France has 96, South Korea has 97, and Britain--with a rate among the highest--has 153. Even developing countries that are well known for their crime problems have a third of U.S. numbers. Mexico has 208 prisoners per 100,000 citizens, and Brazil has 242. As Robertson pointed out on his TV show, The 700 Club, "We here in America make up 5% of the world's population but we make up 25% of the [world's] jailed prisoners.""
Obviously rates are more relevant than absolute numbers for policy analysis, here. But yeah, our prison population is absolutely enormous.
>Over all, there are now more people under 'correctional supervision' in America--more than 6 million--than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height
Oh wow, really? Maybe the USSR never surpassed it because people kept fucking dying in the Gulag.
Most Soviet deaths occurred as a result of (deliberately engineered) famine.
Would you care to do a "contrast and compare" between Soviet gulag conditions and those in a typical contemporary U.S. prison?
I thought not.
Of course, none of these diversions have anything to do with, you know, the topic at hand.
And yet, somehow, the US manages to lock more people in prison than this totalitarian scumbag. That should be food for thought for anyone with half a brain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_incarcer...
Sure, the rich and connected will get all sorts of rights and protections, but if you are Mr. Nobody (and worse, you were not born and bred in the specific area where you're being accused) then some sort of abuse is almost guaranteed. Look at the news in places like UK, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Canada: people "spontaneously" die in police custody, are killed in the street while unarmed, spend years in jail for crimes they didn't commit, spend months in custody before even being accused of anything... and these are just the ones we hear about. My father occasionally had to look after kids who had some brush up with the Law, in Italy; long story short, once you enter The System, you can kiss goodbye to any sense of respect, self-worth or personal rights.
Yeah if you're poor and vulnerable you're screwed anywhere in the capitalist world. But in the states you're screwed even if you are middle class (absurd bails) and have a good lawyer, because the government is so over its head that they will jail you with fabricated evidence and then give you no chance of justice.
True, the UK is not much better than the US. But otherwise many countries in Europe are incomparably safer. If not because of more reasonable justice systems, just because people are more laid back and sane here than in the states.
Are they? I distinctly remember the post-riot reactions in London last summer: people got sentenced to years of imprisonment for posting banter on Facebook and Twitter, with full support from mainstream public opinion. Because we're all cool until you touch private property, and then it's HANG THE THIEF! And if you think that's just Brits being Brits, I can show you the electoral results of people like LePen, Wilders, Haider, and the laws this pressure produced...
Do not make the error of confusing historical development with the essence of man: we might look more laid back and "civilised" because of accidents of history that bestowed us a set of marginally saner laws and a bit more perspective (and recent memory), but underneath we're as brutal as anyone else on the planet.
A note on rhetoric: I'm glad you mentioned this because I'd forgotten about those convictions. But please Do give links as justification, because you do your arguments a disservice by loose argumentationm and hyperbole.
I take your point on sourcing.
You mean like how there was no protection against double jeopardy for Amanda Knox?
The US prison-industrial complex can't be legitimately defended. The way it targets black and poor people in order to provide profit to private parties is something one might otherwise think only happened in China.
But this case is abuse of a whole different kind and on a level which is strikes at issues beyond the norm/
Get real.
you could say the same thing about europe, though. especially in the 20th century, but there's time yet for the 21st to catch up!
I'm visiting friends there for the second half of March, and one of the first things you're told by online guides, etc. is "don't ask people to talk about the genocide, or what ethnic group they are from".
There was a horrific series of events with long-term repercussions and damage, no one wants to see anything like that again, and no one wants to discuss such things in idle chitchat with tourists.
Um, yeah, let's judge the entire state of Texas based on one county's prosecutors. Sheesh.
This isn't about Texas, or even Austin. It's about a corrupt police investigation and prosecution.
My objection is when people in USA think USA is as bad as that.
Here's a video of police killing a man. He starts off calmly answering their questions, obeying their stupid instructions. He gets frustrated ar their bullshit. They beat him to the ground and sit on him and yell at him to stop struggling. He can't breathe - of course he's going to struggle. More police turn up. They asume the original officers are in the right and this guy is viole t on drugs, so they sit on him too.
http://www.popehat.com/2014/01/20/kelly-thomas/
It is fucking barbaric.
You didn't? Stories about attrocious behaviour by US police, and the sorry state of the US prison system, not to mention the fact that the US locks up more people than any other country in the world, have received a lot of attention here and elsewhere.
To me, the worst one was the prison that bribed a judge to convict more children.
By this thinking I hope neither of you drive a car to work every day. You'll really be afraid of the risks with that one.
If it was one story, it wouldn't be so scary. What is scary is the ongoing stream of horrible abuses of power that gets reported.
Especially because so many of them include aftermaths where nobody gets held accountable.
Have you read the post you're responding to? What a single story means or doesn't mean has ceased being relevant ages ago. It's systemic. It's normal. The corruption has become mundane.
And every other US state has a higher incarceration rate than Maine. Many 3 times as high, some 5, one even 10 times as high. The US as a whole has by far the highest incarceration rate of the whole world.
Maybe Maine is the exception as the only sane state in this regard. As a whole, the situation in the US is attrocious.
Then again, you could look at other metrics and reach a different conclusion...
The unavoidable fact is that what happened in Texas happened in the US. If Texas started segregating lunch counters and water fountains again, it would be legitimate to criticize the US for that, too.
edit: To be more specific, why are you blaming Texas for what happened in Travis County, Texas?
Could this have happened in Maine? Sure though it's vastly more likely to happen in Texas or other state with a higher rate of in-prisonment.
edit: I do not agree with the U.S. justice system being third world level; I just don't think the differences in states are relevant here when the average across all of them is so terrible on this particular metric.
And what happened in the US happened in North America. And happened on Earth. And happened in the Universe. How broad should we go here?
[s]I think since the tip came from Canada, we have a pretty good case to blame Canada for this. :)[/s]
Substitute "many European countries" for "Maine".
This probably has more to do with being Human than being American. Someone would probably bring up some analogy about the Olympics and nationalism as a retort. The thing is, though, when the US wins the most gold medals during the Olympics, they conveniently gloss over the fact that it is a first world nation with 300 million people. When something bad occurs, it is precisely because they are 300 million people - "we are so many and so different", "that would never work over here, we are too many and too different"
Compared to the rest of the world, the US is the outlier event.
So yeah, we put more people in jail. We also have more reason to.
There are bad apples, of course. But this case is horrible, but it isn't just the police. The District Attorney's office in this case was probably responsible for more of the mess than the police department. It is the DA's office that decides whether to charge the alleged offender, is responsible for working with the police to build a case, etc.
This story is so full of warning signs of an out-of-control prosecutor that it is beyond outrage. Ever wonder why they couldn't get the full words from Facebook? Because Facebook wouldn't give it to them? More likely because a judge wouldn't approve their request based on the evidence they had. The decision to push ahead in that case is entirely the DA's call.
The police in the US are generally speaking pretty good. I don't fault them. You just have to respect the fact that anywhere criminal investigation is about coming up with a good narrative, so it's better for everyone if you don't say too much.
Our problem though is with prosecutors, who, unlike police, can't get sued over crap like this and who keep getting handed more power by things like mandatory sentencing guidelines....
The fact that they don't even have the context of what was said, and yet they're still trying to hit him with a felony is beyond ludicrous. I'm honestly awestruck that a prosecutor could think that this is a trophy they want to earn.
Funnily enough, situations like this (and the various ethical issues) are the reason I decided to leave my law degree. I can't reconcile my own morals and ethics with the reality of the justice system.
What's the topic of the thread? We don't know.
Edit: Let's also not disregard the fact that the screenshot can be all made up. They can't find the thread. Maybe it was edited, or created through Photoshop. I think it's fairly easy.
I don't believe he has been sentenced to anything. He was given an offer of 10 years probation, which his lawyer bizarrely spouts off against as if deals are not the common actions in the justice system.
In any case, he confessed to what was stated, and despite the spin now that it was a false confession, in earlier versions of reports about this he freely admitted that he said what he said...but that he purportedly followed it up later by an lol that made it all okay.
It is actually interesting seeing how people sway in opinion about things. In the whole Flappy Bird fiasco, many were calling for the heads of those who "threatened the life" of the author, even though the threats were almost universally clearly absurd or satirical. Yet in this case it is an outrage that the police followed up on threats against children (shortly after Sandy Hook), and then when they discovered a confluence of concerning behaviors (suicide threats, restraining orders, bizarre behavior) they pursued actual charges.
Should people be raped in jail? Of course they shouldn't. No criminal should. Though it's interesting that many on here believe that he is not like those other criminals, when the jails are stuffed with non-violent offenders who likewise shouldn't face sexual assaults.
Should people face absurd sentences about thought crimes? Of course not.
But what you say matters. Words have consequences. This whole fallback on some rote "Freedom of Speech!" thing is devolving from a civilized behavior.
EDIT: I see that we're not looking for a rational, mature discussions. More of a rah rah rah mass outrage.
> In any case, he confessed to what was stated, and despite the spin now that it was a false confession, in earlier versions of reports about this he freely admitted that he said what he said...but that he purportedly followed it up later by an lol that made it all okay.
This reminds me of a courtroom scene in My Cousin Vinny. Upon being told that he was being charged for the murder of the sheriff, one of the main characters exclaims in disbelief, "What?! I shot the sheriff?!" And then in trial, the prosecutor asks him, "Did you not tell police, 'I shot the sheriff'?" That movie was a comedy, but you're seriously trying to make this argument. You're acting like a silly parody of a prosecutor. Agreeing upon the words used does not mean this guy "confessed."
And yes, the fact that it wasn't actually a threat does make it OK. Why wouldn't it? What interest does the law have in punishing people who aren't actually issuing threats? Should Alan Rickman be afraid of punishment for all the villainous lines he's delivered on camera?
The lawyer for the accused never recants either the confession, or that his client said what he is reported to have said. In typical defense lawyer posturing, instead he tries to draw doubt about the metadata around it. And for good reason given that the accused has repeatedly admitted, to the police, prosecutors, and even the media, having written exactly what was reported, but now we're to pretend that maybe it was a different person, or that Facebook messages were doctored?
Note that the prosecutor almost certainly has the messages from Facebook, and the fact that the police went on the early variant is utterly irrelevant.
What interest does the law have in punishing people who aren't actually issuing threats?
Since you like anecdotes, imagine that someone walks around pretending to punch random bystanders, but he pulls up at the last second. Hilarious, right? Now they have no intention of actually hitting, and can even point at a history of being the sort of person that pretends to hit people.
Is it assault?
Yes, of course it is. The recipients of the threat reasonably believed in its validity, so what the perpetrator thought is irrelevant. This is the same reason why bomb threats, threats against persons, etc, are prosecuted, despite this contrived notion throughout this thread that they need to prove that one has the means and intention of carrying it out.
Freedom of speech is one freedom. But as with most freedoms that need to be balanced between people, your freedoms end where my nose begins. Your freedoms to express violent threats ends where there are people who might reasonably assume them to be legitimate, for instance. This is the case in the US and almost all Western countries, so it's odd seeing so many seemingly thinking this is protected speech. It isn't.
Again I ask: Should actors be liable for threats they've delivered in a movie? Surely not. Why? Because of what you call "metadata," which is commonly called "context." We know that these actors were not sincere because they said the words in the context of a movie. The idea that context doesn't matter is positively absurd. Human communication is hugely reliant on context for meaning, and humor even more so.
> Since you like anecdotes, imagine that someone walks around pretending to punch random bystanders, but he pulls up at the last second. Hilarious, right? Now they have no intention of actually hitting, and can even point at a history of being the sort of person that pretends to hit people.
> Is it assault?
> Yes, of course it is. The recipients of the threat reasonably believed in its validity, so what the perpetrator thought is irrelevant.
Precisely — it is normal to assume that you are being punched when somebody swings his fist at you. But when somebody in the middle of a lighthearted conversation responds to the statement "You're crazy" with "I'm totally CRAZY — in fact, I'm so crazy I'm going to $CRAZY_THING," it is not necessarily the case that they are actually going to do $CRAZY_THING. If he had said "fling poop," would you have actually assumed he was going to fling poop?
The objection here is that there is no reasonable belief in the validity of this so-called terrorist threat. The mere fact that somebody said the words "I am going to shoot up a kindergarten" doesn't mean he is actually declaring an intention to do so. I just said them right now. Are you going to report me? The rest of this comment is, after all, just metadata.
If USA has an actual justice system that cares for due process I can't see how anyone involved in these actions can retain a position of any authority within that system.
Interesting point, though.
Note to 4chan. Create screenshots of terrorsm acts from DA and judge and send to other states PD
But I'm pretty sure burden of proof on the prosecution and 'reasonable doubt' went the way of the Dodo years ago.
What if he was hacked by a stupid hacker? Surely facebook keep logs which can be colsulted by the police. What IP address was the comments from? Where were you when the comment was made etc.
People need to realize that what you post on the internet can be interpreted different than what you actually meant. Besides, threatening with an act of terrorism is never funny, and always a bad idea. My El Al (Israeli airline) flight was delayed once because some prankster thought it was funny to say 'I have a bomb' to the flight attendant while boarding. He was thrown in jail and had to pay for delaying the flight.
In this case, the punishment doesn't fit the crime. I do wish people would think twice before making threats as a joke, though.
That's a little narrow-minded. I can easily imagine scenarios where it's funny and/or a fairly good idea.
It doesn't matter what the subject is. Anything can be funny.
My creative mind is thinking, what if the topic is like this... "What is the worst thing you imagine that you can't ever do?" And then he replied that way.
Also, I don't get it why didn't manage to see the whole thread? I guess it is sort of publicly available and can be accessed without even contacting the Facebook authorities.
A lonely teenager who's already angsty gets into a flame war with an internet troll. That happens every day. And much worse things are said between people.
What happened here is a dumb kid was dumb, and either the troll or some busy-body made the call to the cops. And, more importantly, an over-achieving DA with aspirations of being a district court judge thought this case could make her career - "Stopped a terrorist threat" would be a great line in her website, and she will get a whole bunch of publicity down in not-shit-ever-really-happensville Texas. Meaning she will be able to use this to campaign on later if she prevails.
None of this is about the idiot kid. It's all about political ambition and cops doing what they do best - terrorize the weak and the innocent.
So yeah, making a joke about a bomb or something might ruffle some feathers. But how many terrorists tell a plane full of people that they have a bomb BEFORE the people actually get on the plane? None of them. Because that's a stupid thing to do.
I mean, otherwise we can extend this just joking defense to anything. Mail baking powder to your congress man in an envelope with a note saying "this is antrax" -- what will you tell the FBI when they come for you? "What kind of idiot thinks I'd really be sending anthrax? Can't you guys take a joke?"
At what point can people make reasoned, defensive assumptions about the intentions of people who express threats?
And I'm not saying that threats shouldn't be investigated, or even that exercising your freedom of speech doesn't have consequences (it does and should).
But after they looked into his home life. Spoke to his friends. Tossed his room and spoke with teachers. And still found no actual evidence of a plan to commit a crime. The next step is get into contact with Facebook and get that thread. It wouldn't be hard and I'd assume FB gets this sort of request all the time. They probably have a protocol in place.
I'm saying that just saying that you're going to commit a crime is not the same as doing it. And that an idiot kid who says something on Facebook is not and should not be considered, the same as a billionaire-backed, militarily trained terrorist.
Do some disturbed people make threats on Facebook and then carry them out? Yes they do. And so yes, these things should be investigated thoroughly. But the case here was not investigated, it was rushed and sloppy.
Did the police go get the thread themselves? No. Did the police get the kid a psych eval? Not that I've seen here anyway. Did the police do any real investigation? No.
Innocent until proven guilty. That's the way it's supposed to be.
While there are obviously differences, I think the joke is fine in both contexts. I think part of the problem is that you are talking about a "joking threat". The point is, the way most people express those jokes, they are clearly not a threat.
Joking about terrorists at airports should be a common thing because it's a natural human reaction to the excesses of airport security. They treat you like a terrorist, so many people joke that they really are terrorists. There's always a big wink-wink that is implied. It is really very sad that so many people feel threatened into restricting their totally harmless and healthy human instincts.
Perhaps part of the reason we're having this discussion at all is that the original story is about a comment on the internet, and it is well known that subtle communicative clues do not convey well over the internet.
So when we evaluate jokes like "Hey, I'm packing a bomb into my suitcase now", I would argue that there is (or should be) no difference between doing that on stage vs. doing that in real life, but there may be a difference when you post it online. Putting a ;-) might be a good idea...
People will behave goofy. You cannot put the burden on them.
Yes, absolutely, really. If you are in playground type ranting slanging match, you go of the most extreme things to say, which could cause shock in the recipient. Right now, things like school shootings are the current shock fodder, and well in peoples minds. So people will use that subject. Same with pedophiles and terrorists. And of course, many strands of comedy also use this.
There is nothing whatsoever strange about this.
I'm sure the person he made the threats to knew he was joking, and thought it would be a good troll to report him to the authorities. Bad taste aside, when you're not 100% certain your 'threat' won't be perceived as such, please don't write them down.
Teenagers say stupid shit all the time, sometimes just to see if they can out-shock or out-weird their friends. Especially online. The context of the conversation matters.
And sometimes they do stupid shit.
Some simple advice: don't shoot people, and don't threaten to shoot people. Threats can be very serious, and shouldn't be thrown about so casually.
If enough people did blame the authorities, we wouldn't have the horrible system we have. It wouldn't even have to be a majority; we've made progress in the past based on a principled minority of citizens pulling their heads out of their asses. Since you apply the blame that should go to the "justice" system to its victims instead, you are part of the reason the system does not improve.
Side note 1: The fact that we're having this conversation shows that it's incredibly difficult to get all nuances of your opinion across over the internet.
Side note 2: Free speech in my opinion is the fact that you CAN say anything you want. It doesn't mean that you SHOULD.
Because of the context. What is the context in this case ? We don't know because the US justice system decided that context is not important.
But the "occasion" was not allowed as evidence (context of the posts).
They never found any evidence that he even said it. FB didn't give them access to his account. A screenshot is easily faked.
Personally, I'd consider a place where you could be convicted for making statements like the ones he did a police state. I say this as a father of a young boy who is at school right now.
I find the very sentiment that this kid deserves the weight of the law to come down on him outright disgusting.
Was it right to investigate? Yes. They might have found someone with a stockpile of weapons getting ready to shoot up the local school or kindergarten - they didn't know the kid or the context of the statements.
But the situation should have changed rapidly once they had searched his home and found nothing, had found nothing else to indicate he was going to actually shoot up a school, and found no evidence of actual planning or specific threats. Have him see a psychologist, maybe. That's about it.
What if one of them does something? Then their lyrics will be dredged and repeated on the news ad nauseam. "How did we not see it coming?" Humans are anxious monkeys. "Oh shit, words! What if there are intentions? What would we have done if he hadn't said words to let us know of his thoughts?"
I'm not sure why this part matters. The prosecutor might be fired, but at least an innocent boy is not raped while waiting for trial? The boy had no means to carry out the threat -- they searched his home. Your scenario works fine for Minority Report, but not in real life.
It's like writing the Anarchist's Cookbook about how to make a bomb, and writing a tweet about how you're going to plant a bomb in Boston in a couple minutes. The latter is a direct threat and requires immediate action. Most of the time, it's too late even for that.
Personally, this dude should've known better and restrain his impulsive internet lulz behavior.
Basic Bayesian approach to probability tells us that this metric of predicting violent events is counter-productive due to a great number of false positives.
Obviously, you've never played any online games.
There's an important point that should be made here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias#Biased_search...
You may have good metrics on the number of incidents that were pre-dated with announcements, but you probably have very bad metrics on the number of announcements that were followed by incidents.
There's no way you can make a statement about how strong the link is without that information.
Likewise there's that tired old example of yelling fire in a crowded theater (though i don't think that applies here)
But that is conveniently omitted in popular reporting.
What most people misunderstand about that is that it is okay to yell fire in a crowded theater, provided that a fire actually exists.
Doesn't really apply here, but I've met plenty of people who interpret it literally as "Don't yell fire under any circumstances at all."
He's not in prison, he's in jail, and there's a big difference.
Depending on the circumstances, you could sit in jail your whole life while you await some technical process to complete. You don't even have to be charged with anything.
What?! Jail and prison are synonyms. There is no real difference.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/prison - A building to which people are legally committed as a punishment for a crime or while awaiting trial.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/jail - A place for the confinement of people accused or convicted of a crime.
Both refer to being detained both before and after conviction.
Jails are also usually less well funded, older, and generally less pleasant (oh yeah) than are prisons.
A concise summary:
http://sheriff.org/faqs/displayfaq.cfm?id=4f892698-5c5d-40f8...
I actually laughed out loud at this. Is the Dallas Observer a rag or does the word 'dork' seem less ridiculous to people from Texas or the US?
Actually the comment was "i hope you fucking bring in hell you fucking prick". That is a pretty significant difference.
Explain? Difference and meaning of the latter version?
I ignore the whole 'went to jail for a random FB comment' crap. That's just sad but not surprising any more.
It's just a garden-variety wrong-word typo. I often make them, as do plenty of others.
I mean yes, the way it was written is a valid sentence, but it's an odd one. Assuming a typo makes much more sense, especially with the concluding insult.
The city was worried about a real possibility of shooting. So they searched his house and found nothing. They realized he wasn't a real threat. Just a jerk.
But they also wanted to send a message, loud and clear, to society: if you make jokes like this, you will suffer the consequences.
So they left him in jail. They set an illegally high bond. They manipulated this gullible boy into giving them a reason to move him to a worse jail, where they knew he would be raped. When it happened, they feigned surprise.
Sure, there were good intentions. They wanted to discourage the kind of joking that puts people into a state of panic.
But they went about it extremely unethically, immorally, and most likely illegally. I've gone to jail, I've been through the US court system, they're very manipulative and this is how they work. It's not right.
«Flanary believes it's paramount that if someone is
criminally charged on the basis of his words, a jury needs
to see all the words.»
There's so many things that make this situation _ridiculous_, but this takes the cake. I would have thought that in a case dealing with a few sentences, the full context of those sentences would be important.
I've been aware of this story for a while now and it always boggled my mind. But after reading this, there's some very troubling things going on that I didn't even know about.
Hope he can get out from under all this, recover, and move on with his life.
Texas owes this poor guy.
We have rules for a reason. The police broke them and this accused kid is suffering for it. There is no justification for putting him in jail just because someone thought they might feel threatened. There were multiple breakdowns in the legal system that should have protected him from illegal arrest and prosecution but comments like this make it seem ok to turn a blind eye.
He's never been convicted of anything. Why the rush to punish?
The more interesting discussion, to me, is "assume 'Bob' makes a clear and direct threat of violence against a school, and is found guilty in a fair trial. Should 'Bob' receive punishment, and if so what?"
Is it a direct threat if one doesn't have the means to carry it out? For example if I say I'm going to run you over in my car but I don't have a car, nor access to a car, doesn't that make it an empty threat. Context of course is vital to establish the force, if any, behind such a comment.
"They found no guns in his house,"
Huh. Guns = hallmark of a lunatic?
That's why I don't joke about shooting people.
10 years for trolling is way over the top, just fine him already and let him go.
The purpose, in my opinion, was fairly ridiculous. I'll tell a reasonably brief version of the story.
I moved to Atlanta to attend Georgia Tech for my masters. One late night, I was driving and took a right on a red light that had a "no right on red sign" accidentally.
Don't forget to check for no right on red signs.
No traffic was around and luckily no one was endangered, but I did receive a ticket (clearly the Atl police had set up a trap of sorts). Should have paid attention, but no big deal.
So the court date is approaching, and so is my first day of classes. In the rush of getting ready for the start of the semester, I forgot my court date.
Don't forget your court date.
The next day, in a panic, I call the courthouse to pay my ticket and any applicable late fees. I assumed that a late fee would cover the infraction and we'd all be on our way.
I paid the ticket. I paid the late fee. I forgot about the incident altogether.
Fast forward a few months, I was driving on campus on my way to class, early enough to get a coffee (yes!). I get pulled over for not having my seatbelt on.
Don't forget your seatbelt.
The officer took a few minutes and came back to ask me if I had anyone who could pick up my car. Of course I'm thinking, "Do I have a flat tire or something?", and he lets me know he's going to have to arrest me and take me to jail.
So I was put in handcuffs, on campus, and taken to Fulton County Jail, where I was fully booked into a holding cell. I could not call anyone to come post bail, because your "one call" was only allowed to be a local call, and you had to know the number by heart. I couldn't post the bail myself via card, of course. So, I spent 36 hours there. My parents even paid my bail, but somehow the bail didn't take effect (even though others arrested after me got out on bail).
Strangest 36 hours of my life, by far.
All of my clothes and belongings were taken, as is protocol. Not a single guard seemed to have any sense of regard for me (or any other person being held), uniformly ignoring simple requests like "can I have some water?" and "what time is it?". I was in a common holding room with about 10 others for most of the first day, until they did our physicals and booked us all into overnight cells. I was woken up to a yelling guard at 3AM to eat "breakfast." Everyone who had been arrested the day before was chained together (as in, chains around my waist) and taken to a prison court to see a judge via a camera mounted on a TV. The judge essentially looked at my case and released me, and a few hours later I was finally let out.
Turns out, when you forget a court date, your license gets suspended. For me, that meant I had to have someone take me to Alabama to have it unsuspended.
tl;dr; The crazy part of the justice system is, once the ball gets rolling and protocol is instantiated, your lost time is chalked up to collateral damage and "due process." Your sense of safety, clarity, and rights are removed, even in minuscule clerical cases like mine. I can't even begin to imagine the ridiculous feeling of being in jail and sexually assaulted for months, much less years, over something slightly more egregious than a suspended license.
P.S. My arrest was completely expunged from my record, but you can still find my mugshot online. My dad laughs at it every time he sees it.
I don't know what sickens me more, the american legal system or modern internet filled with people that have absolutely no understand of privacy because of their sheltered lives.
day to day knowledge of law suffices to throw this out. :/
I thought most of you would come to conclusion that this kid did have serious problems and did make a big mistake.
He needed a slap on the wrist (that's an idiom, don't report me to the police) and a lot of community service.
Also, from his lawyer: "They didn't find pentagrams and candles. He wasn't listening to Judas Priest."
WTF does that have to do with anything? Do only Judas Priest fans shoot up kindergartens? Is there something wrong with liking pentagrams and candles? I think that lawyer is the real creep here, and that kind of defense deserves to be ineffective.
In any case, if you threaten to shoot up a kindergarten, of course the police is going to look into you. Imagine the outrage if they got a tip like that, ignored it, and then the guy shot up a kindergarten? They have no option but to detain him, and the lack of candles in his home is utterly irrelevant to that.
And of course they then need to gather complete evidence, which includes the facebook conversation, details of his past, his mental health, etc. And maybe they messed up there. They clearly messed up some other stuff, in particular the jail where someone can get sexually molested, and the fact that they conned him out of a lawyer. The article does list a number of worrying aspects of US law enforcement injustice that seems way too common lately. But that doesn't change the fact that if you make a death threat, you should expect to get arrested.
There are (supposedly) fairly well-defined use cases for probable cause and sufficient evidence to prosecute, and it seems these were all trampled over in this case.
In regards to the Judas Priest comments, I think that may have been some unintentional hyperbole/satire, pointing at the widely disproved profiling of school shooters. The Harris/Klebold case had a lot of cultural baggage of that type, most of which was fabricated by journalists. Citing them as fans of Marilyn Manson is one example; they possessed no Manson albums or memorabilia.
Oh, absolutely. The utter travesty and corruption after the arrest is atrocious. And that sort of stuff seems to happen way too often in the US. I'm not defending that at all.
The only thing I'm saying is that treating threats as a joke is stupid and dangerous, and the police should investigate threats, and not assume they're merely a joke without investigating.
Apparently that makes me a minority on HN, and most people here seem to think joke threats are okay. I don't.
Hello, Thought Police.
It wasn't a threat. It was a series of tasteless jokes.
The consequences aren't even remotely proportional. You know what would be proportional? Someone calling him out for being tasteless, or perhaps even unfriend him, or report the abuse to Facebook so he had to tone it down.
It's scary that people think this kind of "justice" is remotely ok. It's not. This is on par of a witch burning for someone not adapting to social norms.
It's a joke that looks a lot like a threat. And threats aren't funny.
The arrest was not disproportional. The corruption that happened after the arrest was of course totally crazy and wrong, but the police investigating threats is not wrong. The problem here is that they didn't really investigate it; they just tried to get him convicted by any means possible. But when someone says he's going to shoot up a kindergarten, the police absolutely should investigate.
I'm gonna have to kill someone if I don't get to sleep soon.
You make me so mad I want to kill you!
If these kids don't calm down you'll have to restrain me so I don't kill one.
A: If they don't budge on this soon we'll have to consider some other options. B: What about kidnapping?
Plus a bunch of comedian, talk-show hosts and other free-spoken people. A joke is a joke; it's not an action and it's not a plan to action. It's irrelevant whether you personally find it funny or not.
If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged. - Cardinal Richelieu
Please reconsider the consequences of what you are proposing.
People say "I'm gonna kill you" every day to their friends as the way of saying "I don't like what you just did", does not mean they are violent in any way.
The society where it's OK to go to jail for saying something without being any real threat is not healthy at all. Stupid jokes are non-violent.
In my country there is a death threat law that says that person can be charged in court with a death threat if and only if there is a strong reason to believe that the threat was real. It's not enough to say "I will kill you", you must have had a real conflict or hold a knife to have legal consequences.
And people shouldn't assume they can do stupid things with impunity just because they _meant_ it as a joke. Some stupid jokes are far more stupid than people realize, and can really hurt people, directly or indirectly.
This wasn't a specifically targeted threat, but some "joke" threats are targeted, and the target can't always tell whether it's serious or a stupid joke. And assuming all threats are jokes means that the serious ones get ignored. And sometimes some real bastards hide behind "it's just a joke. Can't you take a joke?" while they're threatening and intimidating people.
And considering how easy it is to simply not make "joke" threats, I'd rather see threats taken too seriously than ignored.
Yes, the corruption and travesty of justice after the arrest is horrible, and (yet another) sign that something is really rotten in US law enforcement. But in principle, detaining someone who says he's going to shoot up a school is a sensible precaution. Don't want to be detained? Easy: don't say you're going to shoot people.
It's not discriminatory against fans of hair metal, just bringing in some period-specific music.