Charges dropped in Obama e-mail threat case

SF Gate ^ | 11/22/10 | Bob Egelko

[Libloather]

SAN FRANCISCO - Federal prosecutors on Monday dropped charges that a Northern California man threatened to kill President Obama after a jury deadlocked on whether his racist, violent e-mail was an actual threat or an empty rant.

U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel of San Francisco ordered John Gimbel released from custody after Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Barry said the government would not retry him. Patel said jurors reported Nov. 1 that they were split 6-6 on his guilt.

[Libloather]

Gimbel asked Patel whether the case established that his message was "protected speech" under the Constitution.

Sure sounds like it.

[Lazamataz]

Gimbel is an idiot.

[muawiyah]

6 jurors are certifiably IGNANT. The emails were clearly "just a rant", and not all that terribly abusive (given current standards).

Somebody somewhere in Department of Justice is also equally IGNANT. Some of the fellas' in the Obama Truth Squad should go talk to them about "rants" ~ after all Obama's own peeps put out stuff far worse than that, and on guv'mnt time and guv'mnt equipment!

[BenLurkin]

an actual threat or an empty rant

Kinda like MSNBC

[ModelBreaker]

“The emails were clearly “just a rant”, and not all that terribly abusive (given current standards).”

When I saw he split a Northern CA jury 6-6, I figured it had to have been pretty mild. You could not pick a jury there with fewer than eight far left radicals on it.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Reminds me of a case we had here in PA a couple of years ago.

Some guy sent an email rant to some state gov official in which he said “I pray that someone will kill you”.

The case got dismissed because the judge did not want to get into a First Amendment battle over whether government was able to set restrictions on what an individual could or could not pray for.