Legal News

Man Arrested for Threats Against Seventh Circuit Judges

By Ashby Jones

“Let me be the first to say this plainly: These judges deserve to be killed. Their blood will replenish the tree of liberty. A small price to pay to assure freedom for millions.”

– Blogger and radio talk-show host Hal Turner, in a June 2 blog post, referring to Seventh Circuit judges Richard Posner, Frank Easterbrook and William Bauer, in the wake of the trio’s recent ruling upholding two handgun bans in Chicago.

Turner’s words will likely churn the insides of many LBers. But do they — and they alone — constitute a criminal offense?

Federal authorities in New Jersey feel that they do.

According to the NYT, Turner, described by civil-rights monitoring groups as a “a white supremacist, an anti-Semite and a ‘maestro of radio hate,’” was arrested on Wednesday in his North Bergen, N.J., home. The FBI said in an affidavit that it believed Turner’s comments constituted "a threat to assault or murder a United States judge,” despite the lack of evidence that anyone had taken steps to carry out the threat. The federal charges will reportedly be filed in Chicago. Click here for the Chicago Tribune story; here for the Bloomberg story.

Turner allegedly posted the work addresses of the judges as well as their photos with a note that home addresses would follow. Also included was a map of Chicago’s federal courthouse highlighting its “anti-truck-bomb.”

Three weeks ago, in a case still pending, state officials in Connecticut charged Turner with inciting violence against lawmakers in Connecticut.

According to Bloomberg, Chicago U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said that threatening to kill a federal judge is punishable by as many as 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on June 25, 2009 (boomark / email).