Replies to post #221468 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Contempt of court, seems obvious .. threats to federal officers, not so straight forward ..

Three Ways That Nevada Rancher And His Right-Wing Militia Supporters Could Wind Up Behind Bars

By Ian Millhiser April 14, 2014 at 9:00 am Updated: April 14, 2014 at 9:13 am

[...]

There is one big caveat to this approach, however. Although the First Amendment permits some laws banning threatening language, under the “True Threat” Doctrine, these bans are only permitted when they target “those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.” Moreover, at least one older Supreme Court case suggests that threatening language is not a “true threat” when it is made using conditional language. Thus, for example, if Bundy said something like “if you Feds don’t get off this land in two days, I will kill every last one of you,” that may not constitute a true threat because he placed a condition on what the federal officials would have to do before he killed them.

Among legal scholars, the current state of the True Threat Doctrine is widely viewed as incoherent, so there is some uncertainty about which kinds of threatening statements could form the basis of a prosecution against Bundy and his supporters.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/04/14/3426222/militia-rancher-behind-bars/

and/or criminal charges against militia who brought guns and who made statements saying they intended to use
them .. Bundy's contempt of court has to be close to a gamble to not win a hand lay down misere, and lose it ..