Posted on 08/14/2010 9:04:42 AM PDT by marktwain
NEW YORK --- A right-wing New Jersey blogger was convicted at his third trial Friday of making threats against three federal judges in Illinois in retaliation for a ruling supporting gun control.
A Brooklyn jury deliberated less than two hours before finding Hal Turner guilty of making death threats.
A judge jailed Turner, of North Bergen, N.J., following the verdict. His attorney declined comment.
Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, thanked the jurors for their service.
"There is no place in society for threatening federal judges with violence. Period," he said in a statement. "We are grateful that the jury saw these threats for what they were and rejected any notion that they were acceptable speech."
Turner's mother, Kathy Diamond, said the verdict showed the jury didn't understand that "the First Amendment was the issue." She said her son, who is married and has a teenage son, "is a good man."
"The family is devastated," she added.
(Excerpt) Read more at suntimes.com ...
"Testifying in his own defense, Turner said he was a paid FBI informant who was trying to "flush out" dangerous neo-Nazi and white supremacist members of his audience on behalf of the government. He claimed his handler encouraged commentary on the 2005 slaying of the mother and husband of another federal judge in Chicago."
But let me guess, the feebs turned him loose shortly after that and he kept up the trolling, privately.
Not smart, but again it’s hard to see how such trolling could ever be intended to be a threat. Maybe this will get overturned at the appellate level and there will be a fourth trial, etc. ad nauseum... his attorney is quite smart to keep totally sealed lips.
Is it OK for a U.S. attorney to pursue a personal matter using his position as a U.S. attorney?
Patrick Fitzgerald goes after Peter Lance for his (Lance's) book Triple Cross: How bin Laden's Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets, and the FBI--and Why Patrick Fitzgerald Failed to Stop Him.
If I were on this jury, I’d have OJ’d the verdict just like in California....you betcha.
Hal is right wing? I thought he was a frickin nazi POS, not a right winger.
Both are Statists who work to maximize state power over the individual. The US was founded on the necessity of limiting state power, which the left finds abhorrent.
And apparently no place in Illinois for free speech.
A threat is not an action its merely words speech which are rather commonly spoken in anger, but only rarely carried out with.
The people of Illinois are a disreputable people. This “trial” bares only further evidence to that effect.
Pretty soon the elites are going to run out of compliant juries.
Fitzgerald seems to have a little monomania in pursuing this case.
I wonder what kinds of threats that the Usurper Judge, who overthrew the will of the people in California, is getting.
I’m thinking that we will return to a healthier state when these kinds of judges have some fear.
Or should I self-censor that remark?
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