[Ads-l] Post on Facebook, go directly to jail

[Joel S. Berson]

At 12/4/2014 01:27 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote:
>This is off-topic for a linguistic discussion but of interest nevertheless.
>I will now try to help the judges decide whether what sounds like a 
>blood-curdling threat
>on Facebook is really a threat or perhaps something more innocuous: If someone
>issued this seemingly blood-curdling threat against YOU (the judge) 
>would you take
>it seriously or dismiss it as harmless?

U.S. Supreme Court judge:  "I shall not today attempt further to 
define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced by hard-core 
threats.  But I know it when I hear it."

Joel



>Gerald Cohen
>
>________________________________________
>Message from Garson O'Toole [adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM]
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>The message I received looked like gobbledygook. Below is the relevant
>link together with an excerpt, I think.
>
>http://illinois.edu/blog/view/25
>
>Article: Post on Facebook, go directly to jail?
>Author: Dennis Baron
>Date: Dec 3, 2014 4:00 pm
>
>[Begin excerpt]
>Can a Facebook post land you in jail? When is a threat a threat, and
>when is it just good, clean fun, or even art? If you write a song
>about killing your spouse, but you haven't killed them, at least not
>yet, will the First Amendment protect you from prosecution? These are
>some of the questions that the U.S. Supreme Court considers as it
>decides the case of Elonis v. United States.
>[End excerpt]
>
>
>On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 11:51 AM, Baron, Dennis E <debaron at illinois.edu> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header 
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Baron, Dennis E" <debaron at ILLINOIS.EDU>
> > Subject:      Post on Facebook, go directly to jail
> > 
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