To give you an actual answer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_threat
The true threat doctrine was established in the 1969 Supreme Court case Watts v. United States.[3] In that case, an eighteen-year-old male was convicted in a Washington, D.C. District Court for violating a statute prohibiting persons from knowingly and willfully making threats to harm or kill the President of the United States.[3]
The conviction was based on a statement made by Watts, in which he said, “[i]f they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J.”[3] Watts appealed, leading to the Supreme Court finding the statute constitutional on its face, but reversing the conviction of Watts.
In reviewing the lower court’s analysis of the case, the Court noted that “a threat must be distinguished from what is constitutionally protected speech.”[3] The Court recognized that “uninhibited, robust, and wide open” political debate can at times be characterized by “vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.” In light of the context of Watts’ statement - and the laughter that it received from the crowd - the Court found that it was more “a kind of very crude offensive method of stating a political opposition to the President” than a “true threat.”[3]
That’s a banger of a quote and a feeling I can totally get behind. Oh, you’re gonna make me kill people? Then let’s start with you.
So basically the shit-talker’s easy way out? I’m ashamed of, but not surprised, the fact that the Supreme Court was the one that came up with the coward’s way out to hate speech.
What a simplistic, destructive take.
Nuance exists in this world. In a free society, a distinction needs to be made between real, credible threats and simple hyperbole.
Also, “hate speech” is a real term, and it doesn’t mean ‘saying you hate someone.’
Because you’re not rich and powerful enough to have lawyers and public influence sway the judge to be more lenient to you.
Nominating judges that will throw out your cases on fictional grounds helps too!
Because you’re not rich. The repressive part of the US “justice” system is only for poor people.
And they don’t want to start a precedent of prosecuting politicians for threatening to or actually killing people. That would be bad for defense contractors.
Because Donald Trump is above the law – laws simply don’t apply to him.
(Or at least that is how much of the country is acting, INCLUDING the US Supreme Court.)
Trump has Musk and Murdoch money behind him. Vance’s life up until this point has veen thoroughly sponsored by Peter Thiel… They all have Epstein connections… A whole lot of people should be in jail.
Simple, because he didn’t make a direct threat, didn’t direct anyone else either. Hell, he didn’t even call for her death. Trump’s using the mob boss language he learned in NYC.
“I think OP should have 9 guns pointed in his face for posting this.”
See how that works? All I said was that you should be threatened. Didn’t threaten action myself nor direct anyone else to action.
Speech like this is clearly stochastic terrorism, but the US really doesn’t have laws around it. I would hope there’s an incitement angle to this, IANAL, but our strong 1A rights make it sticky.
I heard the word “LZ should be executed” from “media report”.
Would you be arrested? Probably not, but you’re more likely to be than Trump. See, committing a crime isn’t the only factor that influences whether or not you get slapped with the punishment for that crime, even if it’s plainly obvious to everyone you committed it. Another major factor is whether or not someone is going to go through the effort of ensuring you get punished - if nobody does, or if they try, but can’t get to that finish line of getting a judge to declare you to be guilty in court, then you walk away scot-free.
So, the thing that’s keeping you from being arrested is your relative insignificance. You’re just some person, so it’s unlikely that anyone will go through the trouble of ensuring you receive the punishment for the crime you committed, even if it’s a relatively easy thing to do. Now, if you were to go on TV and say it, that would significantly increase your risk, since now more people are seeing you and someone who gives a shit might decide to go after you. That would be damning for you, since it would require very little effort to punish you - you clearly committed the crime, and you have no way to influence the court to make you harder to punish.
For Trump, his protection isn’t insignificance - there are plenty of people who would like to ensure he’s properly punished; instead, his protection comes from making it really difficult for someone who wants to punish him to be successful in that endeavor. He has a lot of money and influence, so he can hire good lawyers that can drag out the expensive legal process - something he can afford, but a lot of people who might try to go after him can’t. His lawyers are also good enough to find loopholes in the law to avoid punishment, so even if you can afford a cheap lawyer for a long time, he’ll likely still walk away unscathed. He’s also shown that he has the ability to influence what judge gets put on trials he’s a part of, which is another factor that influences whether or not he might get punished for the crime.
Ultimately, you’d have to have a rock-solid case presented by a team of very good lawyers working non-stop for months to years in order to bring Trump to justice, and the only people who reasonably have that power are almost exclusively on his side to begin with. Trump has knowingly committed multiple major crimes, and has shown that he has the ability to prevent them from hurting him, so he knows that he has virtually no chance to be punished for minor crimes, and commits them openly all the time.
Thank you for posting this! I immediately thought of this public announcement of sorts when I read the question.
Some guy in Alaska threatened to assassinate six of the justices on the supreme Court and he was pretty quickly arrested.
Weird how that works.
Look guys, the law is not code. It is not if(strcmp(speech, “kill”) then return guilty();. There’s this whole concept of mens rea which means a required element of the crime is whether or not he meant it as a threat to her, which you will note requires human judgement (by a jury!) to evaluate. It is highly unlikely that anyone would take this rhetoric, violent and gross as it may be, as a plausible threat against Liz Cheney by Trump.
I know it’s different from a call to arms which is illegal. Maybe it’s assault? Like another user said, money and power makes a difference in what you can get away with.
you don’t have an enormous cult of personality that will get violent if you face consequences
Depends on the exact wording, medium you said it through, and jurisdiction you said it in.
He didn’t threaten anything; he made a (surprisingly, for Trump) valid comment against a dedicated war hawk.
unless harris wins this, the law doesn’t apply to trump.
