Hanging a Noose Can Get You Five Years

Skeptic said:
Nor is there any dramatic rise in such acts that necessitates more strict laws. So what's the point of singeling out nooses in particular?
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Actually there is at least the perception that "noose incidents" have increased following the Jena 6 trial.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/19/AR2007101902543.html
http://www.diversityinc.com/public/2588.cfm

I haven't seen a real authoritative tally, but many articles suggest a serious increase in the use of nooses as threats.

BPSCG-
Imagine this...
Paul failed to pay his bookee on time. The bookee shows up at Pauls house and says "If you don't pay by tomorrow-" he then draws his finger across his own neck to mimic a throat being slit by a knife.

The next day, Paul fails to raise the money, and while trying to sneak away to the bus station, is met by three burly men with baseball bats who break his legs.
Now is Paul incredibly confused, seeing that the threat directly referenced one kind of weapon while the actual attack was very different, and in fact not deadly?

No.

Because even though Paul is an idiot for getting himself into this kind of trouble in the first place, he understands what symbolism is!
 
I don't agree with BPSCG's "argument" but I'll try to play it his way for the moment. Lexis news search gives me (Sorry, no links in Lexis):

7th person guilty in beating death The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
January 27, 2009 Tuesday ​
Jurors convicted a seventh defendant on Monday of murder and related charges from a July 2007 gang beating death in East Ocean View.

The jury recommended that Andre C. Gaddie, 20, serve 78 years for first- degree murder, lynching, two counts of malicious wounding, three counts of robbery and six firearms charges. He is scheduled to be formally sentenced in April.
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Akron Beacon Journal (Ohio)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
November 18, 2008 Tuesday

The body of Wayne Anthony Tyler was found hanging from a tree. How the Akron man's life ended there on a branch remains unclear.

Tyler's death remains the subject of a police investigation. An autopsy has been completed, but police say it might be more than a week before a cause of death is determined.

Ryan McCargal, a St. Vincent-St. Mary High School senior fishing after school Friday along the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail, came upon Tyler's badly decomposed body dragging from a noose attached to a tree...

"His hands were tied behind his back, for sure," McGargal said. "They weren't handcuffed, they were tied with a rope . . . like the same stuff he was hung with."
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Is Toronto close enough?

GTA The Toronto Star November 28, 2008 Friday ​



Copyright 2008 Toronto Star Newspapers, Ltd.
The Toronto Star
November 28, 2008 Friday
York Region

Markham man guilty in wife's hanging death.

A 41-year-old Markham man has been found guilty of second-degree murder in the November 2006 death of his wife, who was found hanging in the garage of their Kruger Rd. home.

After two days of deliberation, a jury found Sugirthanraj Kailayapillai guilty of killing Thayalini Subramaniam, 31.
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Michael Donald

There were a pair of cases in the UK and one Aussie case too but I didn't bother posting them because I'm not sure if that would be good enough for BPSCG. I will admit some of the articles above are written rather ambiguously.
 
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Cavemonster said:
BPSCG-
Imagine this...
Paul failed to pay his bookee on time. The bookee shows up at Pauls house and says "If you don't pay by tomorrow-" he then draws his finger across his own neck to mimic a throat being slit by a knife.

The next day, Paul fails to raise the money, and while trying to sneak away to the bus station, is met by three burly men with baseball bats who break his legs.
Now is Paul incredibly confused, seeing that the threat directly referenced one kind of weapon while the actual attack was very different, and in fact not deadly?
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And yet under Virginia State Law the bookee has not done anything illegal by that gesture.

This has to be put into the context of Virginia State Law. It's not just a question of whether you should be allowed to intimidate someone by displaying a noose. It's whether sentencing someone to five years in prison for that offence is in line with other Virginia Law in regards to threats to a person.

Near as I can tell, the noose-related crime and sentence is so far utterly out of kilter with other Virginia laws that it is simply ludicrous.

Let's go over this again.

I can verbally and explicitly threaten to kill someone, and I cannot be charged. I can brandish a knife and verbally and explicitly threaten to kill someone, and the most I am likely to face is something along the lines of brandishing a weapon - probably a fine or something. I can explicitly write down on paper that I intend to kill someone and give that paper to them, and the most I will face is a very short sentence.

But if I hang up a noose purely to intimidate someone - not as a threat to kill, not expressing a desire to kill them, or harm them in any way - merely wanting to scare them - I can be locked up for five years.

In what possible way could anyone thing that was even remotely sensible?
 
gumboot said:
And yet under Virginia State Law the bookee has not done anything illegal by that gesture.

This has to be put into the context of Virginia State Law. It's not just a question of whether you should be allowed to intimidate someone by displaying a noose. It's whether sentencing someone to five years in prison for that offence is in line with other Virginia Law in regards to threats to a person.

Near as I can tell, the noose-related crime and sentence is so far utterly out of kilter with other Virginia laws that it is simply ludicrous.

Let's go over this again.

I can verbally and explicitly threaten to kill someone, and I cannot be charged. I can brandish a knife and verbally and explicitly threaten to kill someone, and the most I am likely to face is something along the lines of brandishing a weapon - probably a fine or something. I can explicitly write down on paper that I intend to kill someone and give that paper to them, and the most I will face is a very short sentence.

But if I hang up a noose purely to intimidate someone - not as a threat to kill, not expressing a desire to kill them, or harm them in any way - merely wanting to scare them - I can be locked up for five years.

In what possible way could anyone thing that was even remotely sensible?
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I don't have a problem locking up the guy for intimidating someone with a noose. I do have a problem that the other threat laws are so narrow.
 
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gumboot said:
And yet under Virginia State Law the bookee has not done anything illegal by that gesture.

This has to be put into the context of Virginia State Law. It's not just a question of whether you should be allowed to intimidate someone by displaying a noose. It's whether sentencing someone to five years in prison for that offence is in line with other Virginia Law in regards to threats to a person.

Near as I can tell, the noose-related crime and sentence is so far utterly out of kilter with other Virginia laws that it is simply ludicrous.

Let's go over this again.

I can verbally and explicitly threaten to kill someone, and I cannot be charged. I can brandish a knife and verbally and explicitly threaten to kill someone, and the most I am likely to face is something along the lines of brandishing a weapon - probably a fine or something. I can explicitly write down on paper that I intend to kill someone and give that paper to them, and the most I will face is a very short sentence.

But if I hang up a noose purely to intimidate someone - not as a threat to kill, not expressing a desire to kill them, or harm them in any way - merely wanting to scare them - I can be locked up for five years.

In what possible way could anyone thing that was even remotely sensible?
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I completely agree with you that the sentencing guidelines seem out of balance with other death threat laws in VA. That wasn't the point I was addressing.

I was trying (and apparently failing) to make it clear that the specific probability of an actual hanging has nothing to do with the sentiment expressed by the noose. The noose does not literally mean "I will hang you" any more than the throat gesture means "I will kill you by slitting your throat with a knife" So BPSCG's attempts to classify it as somehow less of a threat because hanging is vanishingingly rare misses the point entirely.

In a vacuum, I think placing a noose as a death threat should carry the same legal punishment as other written or otherwise concrete threats.

However, since the use of nooses to intimidate seems to have jumped dramatically, I don't think it's unreasonable to treat the outbreak as a minor crisis and create laws to address it. The upsurge in incidence shows that at least at the moment, current laws don't act as an effective deterrent to this kind of threat.

Here's a recent case in Virginia that may have spurred this law. The only black man at a company was routinely taunted with nooses by his white co-workers. It proved very difficult for prosecutors to charge the guilty party.

Are the exact punishments for this and other new noose laws in reasonable proportion to other threat laws given the circumstances? Probably not, and it's very likely that the increase in noose threats is a fad based on response to a news story that will disappear on its own.
 
Cavemonster said:
I was trying (and apparently failing) to make it clear that the specific probability of an actual hanging has nothing to do with the sentiment expressed by the noose. The noose does not literally mean "I will hang you" any more than the throat gesture means "I will kill you by slitting your throat with a knife" So BPSCG's attempts to classify it as somehow less of a threat because hanging is vanishingingly rare misses the point entirely.
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Oh I agree entirely. But I think perhaps you missed my point...:p


Cavemonster said:
In a vacuum, I think placing a noose as a death threat should carry the same legal punishment as other written or otherwise concrete threats.
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This is where I think you have missed my point. The new law doesn't outlaw using a noose as a death threat. It outlaws using a noose as intimidation. Admittedly the distinction is subtle, but I think important - all death threats are a form of intimidation, but not all intimidation is a death threat.

I can be intimidated without actually fearing for my life (the requirement to pass the "death threat" test).
 
gumboot said:
This is where I think you have missed my point. The new law doesn't outlaw using a noose as a death threat. It outlaws using a noose as intimidation. Admittedly the distinction is subtle, but I think important - all death threats are a form of intimidation, but not all intimidation is a death threat.
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That's the wording in the news story but it may not be the wording in the statute. Anyone have a full text version of the law?
 
KingMerv00 said:
That's the wording in the news story but it may not be the wording in the statute. Anyone have a full text version of the law?
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Here.

A. Any person who, with the intent of intimidating any person or group of persons, displays a noose on the private property of another without permission is guilty of a Class 6 felony.

B. Any person who, with the intent of intimidating any person or group of persons, displays a noose on a highway or other public place in a manner having a direct tendency to place another person in reasonable fear or apprehension of death or bodily injury is guilty of a Class 6 felony.
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The second part is a bit more reasonable, but only applies to public places. The first part makes no sense to me.
 
gumboot said:
Here.



The second part is a bit more reasonable, but only applies to public places. The first part makes no sense to me.
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Man, someone needs to go over there and smack around the guy who's been writing their statutes. I suppose the broad wording could be intentional. That would mean they really really really hate nooses over there. At least it has to be on someone else's property and intentional.
 
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KingMerv00 said:
Man, someone needs to go over there and smack around the guy who's been writing their statutes. I suppose the broad wording could be intentional. That would mean they really really really hate nooses over there. At least it has to be on someone else's property and intentional.
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If that is the case and it takes the hanging of a noose on someone else's property then it is a clear case of at least an implied threat. I still think the law is redundant but at least it makes some legal sense.
 
BTW I would fully support the homeowner should he shotgun the guy in the middle of hanging the noose.
 
BPSCG said:
Please show me where I said that. It's trespassing, at the very least.
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But that's not the point, is it? The point is whether if A goes on B's property and hangs a noose there is onlya tresspasser-cum-litterer, or whether A is threathening B.

If it's halloween, A is probably just a trespasser (and it's unlikely he'd be put on trial, either). If A has B's permission, A is comitting no crime at all. But in general, I would say A is probably threathening B. Especially if A is white and B is black: not because the law treats the crime differently based on the race of the perpetrator and victim, but simply because their race is relevant to determine the fact of whether A threathened B at all.

But I agree with you that this is a matter of fact, for the jury to decide, not something the law needs to make a special mention of.
 
Skeptic said:
But that's not the point, is it? The point is whether if A goes on B's property and hangs a noose there is onlya tresspasser-cum-litterer, or whether A is threathening B.

If it's halloween, A is probably just a trespasser (and it's unlikely he'd be put on trial, either). If A has B's permission, A is comitting no crime at all. But in general, I would say A is probably threathening B. Especially if A is white and B is black: not because the law treats the crime differently based on the race of the perpetrator and victim, but simply because their race is relevant to determine the fact of whether A threathened B at all.

But I agree with you that this is a matter of fact, for the jury to decide, not something the law needs to make a special mention of.
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I still fail to understand the significance of the noose. Why even highlight it in the law? Why not just make it a felony to trespass for the purpose of intimidation?
 
gumboot said:
I still fail to understand the significance of the noose. Why even highlight it in the law? Why not just make it a felony to trespass for the purpose of intimidation?
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We covered this above didn't we?

Lynchings are a symbol of racial tension. Lynchings (racial or otherwise) are not common anymore but some politicians want pick up a few votes. Virginia does need a more general intimidation law though.
 
KingMerv00 said:
We covered this above didn't we?

Lynchings are a symbol of racial tension. Lynchings (racial or otherwise) are not common anymore but some politicians want pick up a few votes. Virginia does need a more general intimidation law though.
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If this were true, shouldn't the law only make it a felony if the person displaying the noose and the person being intimidated belong to a different race?
 
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