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Federal Court: Man’s Call For Obama Assassination Was Freedom Of Speech (1328 hits)


By JasmineHughes

Many are wondering if this issue is being taken too lightly. On Tuesday, a federal appeals court overturned the conviction of a man who posted internet messages threatening Barack Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign.

Walter Bagdasarian was convicted in 2009 of two felony counts of threatening a major presidential candidate for his actions in October 2008. Bagdasarian posted several messages to a Yahoo Finance message board, including one that called Obama a racial epithet and another that said “he will have a 50 cal in the head soon.” A reference to a .50 caliber gun.

A retired Air Force officer forwarded the postings to the Secret Service. Yahoo provided Bagdasarian’s subscriber information to investigators, who raided his house and seized six guns and a hard drive containing an email with similar sentiments.

A divided three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that violent and racist creeds against Obama were “repugnant” but not criminal. The court also said it was obvious the San Diego man wasn’t planning to attack the candidate and that the postings were protected by Bagdasarian’s free speech rights.

District Judge Marilyn L. Huff found him guilty and sentenced him to 60-days in a half-way home. But the appeals panel said no “reasonable person” could have taken seriously Bagdasarian’s posts.

“The evidence is not sufficient to support a conclusion that a reasonable person who read the postings within or without the relevant context would have understood either to mean that Bagdasarian threatened to injure or kill the presidential candidate,” Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote for the majority.
Posted By: anita moore
Friday, July 22nd 2011 at 9:10AM
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Muslims are sent to prison for LIFE, for saying less

---- than this paganChristian, who wrote and said about "50 cal to the head", of the Greatest President in American History, Baraka Hussein Obama


Friday, July 22nd 2011 at 11:03AM
powell robert
Anita until we as a nation once again U-N-I-T-E and force our laws already on the books to be enforced...

our laws already on the books will be determined by the powers that be we vote for. example, Can you think of any laws passed in teh 60s that the powers that be are not trying to get rid of that is if they have not already gotten rid of already?(NUP)
Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM
ROBINSON IRMA
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