Court: Death Threats Addressed to Corporations Aren’t Illegal

[n2doc]

By David Kravets August 23, 2010 | 3:34 pm | Categories: Crime, Threats

An Arizona man who plotted a massacre outside the 2008 Super Bowl had his conviction overturned Monday by a federal appeals court because his snailmailed death threats went to no specific targets.

The case concerned Kurt William Havelock, who drove to the Super Bowl in Glendale, Arizona, with a newly purchased assault rifle and dozens of rounds of ammunition with the intent to kill. “It will be swift and bloody,” he wrote media outlets in packages mailed a half hour before he got cold feet and abandoned his plan. “I will sacrifice your children upon the altar of your excess.”

With the prodding of his father, he turned himself in to local police. Federal authorities charged him with six counts of mailing threatening letters. The defendant was convicted on all charges and sentenced to a year in prison.

During the trial and on appeal, the 40-year-old, who was disgruntled that he was denied a liquor permit to open a bar, argued that he committed no crime at all. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed in a 2-1 decision.

Under the threatening-letters statute, “the ‘person’ to whom the mail is addressed must be an individual person, not an institution or corporation,” wrote Judge William Canby, who was joined by Judge Betty Fletcher. Havelock’s communications were mailed to media outlets, not named individuals, the majority noted.



Read More http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/08/threatening-mail/

[fasttense]

1. Hmm, so I can threaten the death of BP, Goldman Sachs, AIG,

GE and Comcast? Just asking.

[LARED]

2. Can you add DirecTV to your list

I've longed to blow them up for quite a while.

[EC]

3. Wait a minute...

I thought corporations were people? Either they are or they are not...