Hanging a Noose Can Get You Five Years

[Cavemonster]

Well this kid
Was charged for his verbal death threats as well as electronic ones. The verbal ones are covered under this law.

§ 18.2-416. Punishment for using abusive language to another.

If any person shall, in the presence or hearing of another, curse or abuse such other person, or use any violent abusive language to such person concerning himself or any of his relations, or otherwise use such language, under circumstances reasonably calculated to provoke a breach of the peace, he shall be guilty of a Class 3 misdemeanor.

(Code 1950, § 18.1-255; 1960, c. 358; 1975, cc. 14, 15.)

If they occured more than once they'd also be covered here

§ 18.2-60.3. Stalking; penalty.

A. Any person, except a law-enforcement officer, as defined in § 9.1-101, and acting in the performance of his official duties, and a registered private investigator, as defined in § 9.1-138, who is regulated in accordance with § 9.1-139 and acting in the course of his legitimate business, who on more than one occasion engages in conduct directed at another person with the intent to place, or when he knows or reasonably should know that the conduct places that other person in reasonable fear of death, criminal sexual assault, or bodily injury to that other person or to that other person's family or household member is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.

If the threat is to bomb, burn, destroy or damage a building or vehicle it's covered here

§ 18.2-83. Threats to bomb or damage buildings or means of transportation; false information as to danger to such buildings, etc.; punishment; venue.

A. Any person (a) who makes and communicates to another by any means any threat to bomb, burn, destroy or in any manner damage any place of assembly, building or other structure, or any means of transportation, or (b) who communicates to another, by any means, information, knowing the same to be false, as to the existence of any peril of bombing, burning, destruction or damage to any such place of assembly, building or other structure, or any means of transportation, shall be guilty of a Class 5 felony; provided, however, that if such person be under fifteen years of age, he shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.

B. A violation of this section may be prosecuted either in the jurisdiction from which the communication was made or in the jurisdiction where the communication was received.

(Code 1950, §§ 18.1-78.1 through 18.2-78.4; 1960, c. 358; 1975, cc. 14, 15; 1982, c. 502.)

The noose law will join already specified laws that address swastikas and burning crosses. These laws place them on the same punishment level as a written death threat, which seems pretty reasonable to me. If they were spending any money on a special anti-noose task force or spending months of valuable time debating this, it might be a poor use of resources, but that isn't what's happening here.

This law simply clarifies that noose threats are to be taken as seriously as written threats, something that was not previously clear. There is a specific law on the books that makes it an offense to shine a laser pointer on a police officer. I think if this law prevents a single case of noose harassment, it has probably done more good than the laser pointer law.

They probably spent less time passing this law than we did talking about it. We have addressed that-
1) It is in fact it is in line with other VA threat laws.
2) It was not superfluous, there are two recent precedents that show the need for this law.

I can see a clear possible benefit if one offender is tried or one would-be offender is discouraged. The worst possible downside I can see is the small loss of time to pass this law. If anyone still has objections, please explain them, because I just can't see a reason this law causes any type of harm.

edit: Oh, Merv beat me to it with at least one of them. I'll add that a verbal threat to abduct or kidnap actually bumps it up to a felony. I'll let you look that one up.

 

[gumboot]

In other words there's no specific law making it illegal to make a verbal death threat.

I must confess I find it pretty sad that there's a law making it illegal to say mean things to someone else. Maybe this stupid noose law is in line with Virginia State Law.

Freedom of Speech? Not likely.

 

[Cavemonster]

In other words there's no specific law making it illegal to make a verbal death threat.

It's quite well covered under the law quoted twice above. You stated before that a verbal death threat was unchargeable. You were wrong and now you have moved the goal posts. A high profile case of a verbal death threat was recently tried under this law.

I must confess I find it pretty sad that there's a law making it illegal to say mean things to someone else. Maybe this stupid noose law is in line with Virginia State Law.

Freedom of Speech? Not likely.

You still haven't pointed to anything measurably stupid about the noose law. If it's a freedom of speech issue, are you saying that threatening someone with a noose should be protected speech?

Every one of your assertions of problems with this law has been shot down by the facts. Instead of presenting evidence or admitting you were wrong, you move on to a different unfounded assertion. Normally you seem like a fairly thoughtful poster so I'm not sure why this particular issue gets a different treatment.

 

[KingMerv00]

In other words there's no specific law making it illegal to make a verbal death threat.

That's why i've been bashing VA legislators for a good portion of this thread. Seems like a major oversight.

 

[KingMerv00]

It's quite well covered under the law quoted twice above. You stated before that a verbal death threat was unchargeable. You were wrong and now you have moved the goal posts. A high profile case of a verbal death threat was recently tried under this law.

It is covered, but not well enough for my tastes. I somewhat understand that written threats MAY be worse than verbal ones but the gap in punishment seems pretty severe to me.

 

[Cavemonster]

It is covered, but not well enough for my tastes. I somewhat understand that written threats MAY be worse than verbal ones but the gap in punishment seems pretty severe to me.

It does seem odd that it isn't stated specifically, but as this recent case proves, it functions as it should. I can't think of a verbal death threat that is both worthy of legal action and not covered under current law.

I think looking at the maximum limits, the gaps between written or verbal threats seems pretty broad, but I think that covers the range of the offenses covered. A spoken threat can be practically unintentional. Two people get into a fight over something stupid at a bar and "I'm gonna freakin' kill you!".

The verbal threat carries from 0-1 years, it isn't hard to imagine instances where anything in that range is appropriate.
Edit: Whoops, I screwed that up. Actually the verbal threat is a class 3 misdemeanor, not a class 1. It only carries a fine up to $500

The written threat carrie from 1-5 years. Now one year minimum does sound like a lot for some written death threats I can imagine, again, alcohol enters into the picture, but the option is available of a suspended sentence with probation, involving no actual jail time.

Both carry identical fines of up to $2,500
EditI was wrong, the verbal threat only goes up to 500) But with the discretion of the court and the ability to suspend a sentence, the court has the power to sentence written offese as leniently as verbal, and repetitions of verbal offense, or more specific references (bombing, kidnapping) give the court the power to charge verbal threats more aggressively.

There is a lot of leeway for the court on these issues. Abstractly, one could argue that there's too much power placed in the discretion of the court, but that would be an argument about most state laws, and is sort of out of the scope of this discussion.

 

[gumboot]

It's quite well covered under the law quoted twice above. You stated before that a verbal death threat was unchargeable. You were wrong and now you have moved the goal posts. A high profile case of a verbal death threat was recently tried under this law.

Well I have stated a number of different things. I was wrong about not being charged with anything for a verbal death threat, as you kindly pointed out. However it is true that a verbal death threat is not a specific crime - saying "I'm going to kill you" would be no worse, legally, than saying "you're a retard".

You still haven't pointed to anything measurably stupid about the noose law.

I've pointed out several stupid things. What is the law trying to address? Intimidation, or the use of nooses? If it's intimidation, fair enough, but why even mention the noose? Why not have a catch all law that's something along the lines of "any person who displays an object on private property without permission for the purpose of intimidating a person or group of people has committed a felony"? Why single out the noose in particular as an intimidating symbol? If you ask me, as far as intimidating symbols go it's pretty tame. What about the Swastika? A KKK hood? An axe dripping with blood? A severed horse's head? A bullet?

Alternatively, if the real target is the noose, which the specific naming of the noose suggests it is, it's stupid unless you can provide some evidence that there's a particular problem with nooses being used for intimidation. And you can't do that, because there isn't.

The logical end conclusion to this is Virginia State Law will end up with hundreds of intimidation laws, all citing different unique physical objects. Stupid.

If it's a freedom of speech issue, are you saying that threatening someone with a noose should be protected speech?

Threatening someone, I'm not sure on. Intimidating someone? Yes. It should be protected.

There's a problematic trend here in many legal systems, which is demonstrated in this case. There's an established legal principle that committing one crime in the commission of another crime justifies escalation to a more serious form of crime. For example, if you trespass for the purpose of retrieving your ball off your neighbour's lawn, that's one thing. If you trespass for the purpose of stealing your neighbour's new barbecue that's another matter entirely.

The idea is that crime is cumulative.

I don't mind that. I get it.

However.

There's another trend which uses the same cumulative attitude towards things that are "bad" but not "illegal".

What this essentially does is find a way to punish legal acts as illegal acts.

I absolutely do not approve of that sort of thing.

Which is why, for example, I am strongly opposed to escalation used for "hate crime". If it's legally acceptable to dislike blacks (and it is) shooting a black because he's black should be treated exactly the same as shooting a black because you got in an argument with him about basketball.

If you label one a "hate crime" and pass a tougher sentence based on cumulative principles, you're essentially saying that disliking blacks is illegal.

It's unconstitutional, as you Americans would say.

Every one of your assertions of problems with this law has been shot down by the facts. Instead of presenting evidence or admitting you were wrong, you move on to a different unfounded assertion. Normally you seem like a fairly thoughtful poster so I'm not sure why this particular issue gets a different treatment.

I think you made the mistake of thinking two separate points were the same point. There were two different arguments here:
1) The law is stupid
2) The law was not in line with other VA laws

You've responded to my points on 2), and conclusively convinced me I am wrong. However you haven't addressed my points in reference to issue 1).

 

[Cavemonster]

Well, it's been harder to address the "stupid" angle because the statements you've made are mostly philosophical ones on what it is right for law to cover. Before you made statements in the form "I think laws should/shouldn't x" which is hard to refute, you can think what you want.

I think you've made some clearer statements in this last post and I hope I can speak to them.

I agree with you that a general content neutral law on intimidation would be better. You may be interested in this interview with the ACLU lawyer who defended against the Virginia Law that outlaws burning crosses.

The problems with a more inclusive law are more practical than philosophical. It's a broad concept, and to get the language to such a point that it still covers what it needs to without criminalizing expression that should be protected would be a much more time and thought consuming task than the issue is worth. A new broad based intimidation law would have cost the state huge amounts of the legislators' time, while this law was easy to agree on.

Yes, 80 or so incidents in a couple years is not an emergency on the level of terrorism or AIDS. That's why they're not spending millions of dollars on it. If there were 80 or so arsons a year that through some loophole were not prosecutable on the level they should be, and it came to state attention, I think it would be worth the trouble of patching up the loophole.

I'm sort of on the fence for the concept of hate crimes, but this noose law is not cumulative, so it isn't relevant. I think that shooting someone because of an argument make me and my friends nervous around where that guy lives. Shooting a guy because he's black makes every black person in town nervous about going out. The laws address the extra consequences of hate based crimes, they do not outlaw the hatred, only making it clear through action that you're willing to act violently on that hatred. That's an act of intimidation aimed at an entire community, a meaningful and separate crime from the violent act itself. There is a real and practical effect of hate crime, but that's a different discussion for another time.

So, yes, in an ideal world, there would be a blanket law that covered everything from horseheads to puddles of blood. This would be a very difficult law to write, and seeing as how there's no urgent call to address all the horsehead intimidation, a quick and sloppy patch to address a small but growing problem is a better use of their time than getting sidetracked on a more comprehensive bill instead of attending to the alarming state budget on one hand, or ignoring the problem because it's not that many people on the other hand. They gave it the exact level of attention it deserved.

 

[gumboot]

The problems with a more inclusive law are more practical than philosophical. It's a broad concept, and to get the language to such a point that it still covers what it needs to without criminalizing expression that should be protected would be a much more time and thought consuming task than the issue is worth.

This should set off rather large warning bells. If you have to perform somersaults to get a law in place without it infringing free speech, you probably shouldn't be trying to implement the law in the first place.

Yes, 80 or so incidents in a couple years is not an emergency on the level of terrorism or AIDS. That's why they're not spending millions of dollars on it.

It's not an emergency at all.

If there were 80 or so arsons a year that through some loophole were not prosecutable on the level they should be, and it came to state attention, I think it would be worth the trouble of patching up the loophole.

The bolded bit is the crux of the matter though, isn't it?

I'm sort of on the fence for the concept of hate crimes, but this noose law is not cumulative, so it isn't relevant.

Yes it is. It uses an escalation of trespass or vandalism related laws. The law specifically relies on the noose being displayed without permission from the owner of the property. If your boss gives you permission to hang a noose, no foul. If it's your own house, no foul.

I think that shooting someone because of an argument make me and my friends nervous around where that guy lives. Shooting a guy because he's black makes every black person in town nervous about going out. The laws address the extra consequences of hate based crimes, they do not outlaw the hatred, only making it clear through action that you're willing to act violently on that hatred. That's an act of intimidation aimed at an entire community, a meaningful and separate crime from the violent act itself. There is a real and practical effect of hate crime, but that's a different discussion for another time.

You're trying to argue that hate crime is worse, because a hate crime is essentially terrorism - it has the objective of instilling fear in others beyond the immediate victim.

That's categorically false, however. Consider three scenarios:

1) Man A kills Man B because Man A hates Man B.
2) Man A kills Man B because Man A hates blacks and Man B is black.
3) Man A kills Man B because Man B is black and Man A wants to scare other blacks.

You're talking about scenario 3), but current typical hate crime law covers scenario 2) as well.

So, yes, in an ideal world, there would be a blanket law that covered everything from horseheads to puddles of blood. This would be a very difficult law to write, and seeing as how there's no urgent call to address all the horsehead intimidation, a quick and sloppy patch to address a small but growing problem is a better use of their time than getting sidetracked on a more comprehensive bill instead of attending to the alarming state budget on one hand, or ignoring the problem because it's not that many people on the other hand. They gave it the exact level of attention it deserved.

Nonsense. I've already offered an alternative blanket law. It took about five seconds to write. Try this:

A. Any person who, with the intent of intimidating any person or group of persons, displays any object 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 any object 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.

That wasn't so hard, was it?

Alternatively you could dig up VA law on the matter of defacing private and public property (I am sure they have something on the books) and add an amendment that defacement for the purposes of intimidation is a more serious crime.

There's two separate arguments for why this law is stupid:

1) Intimidation should not be illegal
2) If you want to make intimidation illegal, this is a poor way to do it

I agree with both points, but I can at least accept that others might disagree on 1). I cannot fathom any way anyone could disagree with 2) however.

 

[gnome]

Why not make it a $100,000 fine? Then you'd only have to arrest and convict 30,000 people.

Well, you know, there's a few noose-hangers that might not be able to afford more than $30,000 in fines.

 

[gumboot]

Well, you know, there's a few noose-hangers that might not be able to afford more than $30,000 in fines.

It would take over 1,000 years of arresting and fining noose hangers in the entire USA to cover VA's deficit.

 

[Cavemonster]

This should set off rather large warning bells. If you have to perform somersaults to get a law in place without it infringing free speech, you probably shouldn't be trying to implement the law in the first place.

1) What? The most important laws in every country needed very careful and rigorous work to make sure they worked correctly. The idea that a law requiring exact language to avoid infringing rights means there's something wrong with that law is ludicrous. And you contradict yourself later when you can write this law in 5 minutes, so one of your two statements about the broad law is false.

2) They decided not to attempt to write this broad law and avoid the somersaults by writing a simpler law, so this is a non-sequitor anyway.

It's not an emergency at all.

Look through the law books of any state. It doesn't take an emergency of people dying in the streets to pass a law. There is a law in Virginia against people pointing laser pointers at cops. I don't imagine there was an epidemic of that costing millions of lives.

If a legal situation is suboptimal, and the amount of time/effort/money needed to fix it is worth the result, legislators will try to fix it.

The bolded bit is the crux of the matter though, isn't it?

What?

Yes it is. It uses an escalation of trespass or vandalism related laws. The law specifically relies on the noose being displayed without permission from the owner of the property. If your boss gives you permission to hang a noose, no foul. If it's your own house, no foul.

No. The noose law does not require vandalism or trespass. You may also be guilty of those crimes, but you can be charged with the noose law in places you're allowed to walk and places you're allowed to leave things. Your boss giving you permission to hang a noose does not absolve you of the crime of intimidating your co-worker with that noose. Permission is not stated in the law.

You're trying to argue that hate crime is worse, because a hate crime is essentially terrorism - it has the objective of instilling fear in others beyond the immediate victim.

That's categorically false, however. Consider three scenarios:

1) Man A kills Man B because Man A hates Man B.
2) Man A kills Man B because Man A hates blacks and Man B is black.
3) Man A kills Man B because Man B is black and Man A wants to scare other blacks.

You're talking about scenario 3), but current typical hate crime law covers scenario 2) as well.

The problem is that for the community effected, 2 and 3 cause the same fear. But this is an issue for another thread.

Nonsense. I've already offered an alternative blanket law. It took about five seconds to write. Try this:

This is the zookeeper fallacy. You're not a legislator, so you can't know all the ways this law could go wrong. But an easy one to start with, Leaving a note on a door saying "If you can't make your dog stop barking, I will call animal control!" is considered a class 6 felony under your law. I think that's inappropriate, don't you?

Alternatively you could dig up VA law on the matter of defacing private and public property (I am sure they have something on the books) and add an amendment that defacement for the purposes of intimidation is a more serious crime.

Placing an object that can easily be removed does not fit any definition of defacement commonly used.

There's two separate arguments for why this law is stupid:

1) Intimidation should not be illegal
2) If you want to make intimidation illegal, this is a poor way to do it

I agree with both points, but I can at least accept that others might disagree on 1). I cannot fathom any way anyone could disagree with 2) however.

1) Not only is intimidation in many forms already illegal, I can't imagine you really believe this. Look at the case of the man whose co-workers thought that taunting him with nooses was funny. The question is, should intimidating that man by surrounding him with nooses be legal? Of course not.

2) This law alone is not making intimidation illegal. There are already laws for written threats, spoken threats, threats to destroy property, threats to kidnap, brandishing a weapon, sexual harrassment, and displaying a swasktika, burning cross or other burning object.

The purpose of this law is to patch a loophole in the already constructed net designed to criminalize intimidation. So your second statement is a bit like "when did you stop beating your wife?" it begins with the false assumption that this law is trying to do something much broader than it actually is, when in truth, that broader job has been accomplished already by a system of laws. The noose law is a bit of maintenence to patch a hole.

 

[gumboot]

1) What? The most important laws in every country needed very careful and rigorous work to make sure they worked correctly. The idea that a law requiring exact language to avoid infringing rights means there's something wrong with that law is ludicrous.

Why?

And you contradict yourself later when you can write this law in 5 minutes, so one of your two statements about the broad law is false.

I'm not the one who claimed a broad law would come dangerously close to infringing freedom of speech - you were. For what it's worth, I think my version of the law does infringe free speech, but I think the noose one does too, so I don't see the contradiction.

2) They decided not to attempt to write this broad law and avoid the somersaults by writing a simpler law, so this is a non-sequitor anyway.

So why did you bring it up?

Look through the law books of any state. It doesn't take an emergency of people dying in the streets to pass a law. There is a law in Virginia against people pointing laser pointers at cops. I don't imagine there was an epidemic of that costing millions of lives.

The fact that Virginia has other stupid laws is no argument for supporting new stupid laws.

What?

The basic question is whether the act in question should be prosecuted to that level. The coworkers should have been fired. And that should have been the end of it.

No. The noose law does not require vandalism or trespass. You may also be guilty of those crimes, but you can be charged with the noose law in places you're allowed to walk and places you're allowed to leave things. Your boss giving you permission to hang a noose does not absolve you of the crime of intimidating your co-worker with that noose. Permission is not stated in the law.

Um... have you even read the bill?

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.

Permission is explicitly stated in the law. It's a requirement for the crime.

The problem is that for the community effected, 2 and 3 cause the same fear. But this is an issue for another thread.

Irrelevant. Guilt is established by the intention of the perpetrator, not the consequences on the victim.

This is the zookeeper fallacy. You're not a legislator, so you can't know all the ways this law could go wrong. But an easy one to start with, Leaving a note on a door saying "If you can't make your dog stop barking, I will call animal control!" is considered a class 6 felony under your law. I think that's inappropriate, don't you?

Good luck trying to prove that would be intimidation. But you're wasting your time asking me if I think it's inappropriate. I think criminalising any intimidation is inappropriate.

1) Not only is intimidation in many forms already illegal, I can't imagine you really believe this. Look at the case of the man whose co-workers thought that taunting him with nooses was funny. The question is, should intimidating that man by surrounding him with nooses be legal? Of course not.

It should be illegal for his boss to allow that environment at work, and it is. The boss should have solved the situation by firing the offending coworkers. The coworkers should not be charged with anything.

2) This law alone is not making intimidation illegal. There are already laws for written threats, spoken threats, threats to destroy property, threats to kidnap, brandishing a weapon, sexual harrassment, and displaying a swasktika, burning cross or other burning object.

Anything relating to an actual threat is not just intimidation, so that's a separate issue. Intimidation means nothing more than making a person afraid. Afraid of what? Doesn't matter. Anything. A threat causes a fear of harm do to a specific physical act by the person threatening. Totally different issue.

Displaying a burning cross or swastika shouldn't be illegal either. As for sexual harassment, that's only illegal in the context of a work environment, and it's because it's a form of sexual discrimination. Even the UN agrees that sexual harassment only applies in the context of a work environment.

The purpose of this law is to patch a loophole in the already constructed net designed to criminalize intimidation. So your second statement is a bit like "when did you stop beating your wife?" it begins with the false assumption that this law is trying to do something much broader than it actually is, when in truth, that broader job has been accomplished already by a system of laws. The noose law is a bit of maintenence to patch a hole.

It's part of an accumulative effort to do something broad - criminalising intimidation. The stupidity of the methodology applies to this particular law, but equally to swastikas, burning crosses, and other specific laws that relate to intimidation.

And this isn't new, of course. Virginia's laws on cross burning have been challenged, and partially overthrown by the US Supreme Court. Many people think the USSC's partial reinstatement of the cross burning laws are wrong, and they make some good arguments why.

I agree with them.