I won't say how I got it, but now I have a much deeper understanding of
the "rationale" the Hemet DAs are trying to apply to me.
In law there is something called "eggshell theory." If you pat someone
on the head and because they have a skull like an eggshell and the pat
kills them, you can get prosecuted for one of the lower grades of murder
even if you had no intent to hurt them. I.e., you have to take into
account the physical or mental weaknesses of your "victim." This legal
theory, in concert with recently passed victim's laws makes it possible
(in the DA's view) for a person or group to complain to the police based
on irrational subjective fears and (in some cases) be taken seriously.
(Graham Berry suggested calling this the numskull theory.)
Of course, you have to have political clout with the DAs office to get
the police to act.
Here is a counter example: After thinking about the charges which had
been made against me, I realize that what Frank Petty did driving a car
right through where I was standing could certainly be subjectively
considered by me to be a threat. So I tried to report it as a 422 type
threat crime. I had 17 seconds of video tape (at
<a href="http://dweeb.com/~bstone/Kvid/">http://dweeb.com/~bstone/Kvid/</a> which isn't very good because I was
leaping out of the way of Petty's car at the time), my declaration, and
those of Brent Stone and Arel Lucas both of whom were witnesses. And
truthfully, while I was laughing about it, my heart was going
pitter-patter when I made it back inside Brent's car. I am not so agile
as I once was.
http://x60.deja.com/[ST_rn=ps]/getdoc.xp?AN=682614812&CONTEXT=977024517.67960880&hitnum=2
But the Hemet police to whom I tried to report it (Officer Douglass,
Incident Number 500837) said no dice, getting out of car and walking
across the potential path of the car driven by an aggressive PI to get a
tape of him showed a lack of fear (not to mention good sense), and when
Frank Petty was driving his car right at me I didn't show enough fear to
invoke the law. (I might should have asked for it to be considered
assault with a deadly weapon, but the police should decide which law to
apply.)
This was much like what Tony Greer said in his report before he sent it
off to the DAs.
"In reviewing all of the Internet postings I did not see any direct
threat of violence towards the church or any personnel of the church."
But in this case, when he submitted the case to the DAs office they came
back with a "request":
"On 08/16/00, the above listed victims were interviewed per the
District Attorney's Office request.
"On the above date, at approx. 0900 hours, I made an unannounced
visit to Golden Era Studios and contacted Hoden, the location manager. I
asked Hoden the number of personnel at this location. Hoden said that
there were approx. 735 workers. I advised Hoden that I needed to
interview five of these workers about the threat from Henson. Hoden
said that they have not notified all of the personnel because they did
not want to cause mass fear in the workers.
"Hoden said they have a paging system that notifies about 100 of
their personnel that Henson is present. Hoden said that these 100
employees have been briefed about Henson.
"Hoden said that when the page goes out there are several personnel
that will go to the two tunnels, which runs under Hwy 79 from one side
of the compound to the other. Personnel are also told to stay away from
Hwy 79 and fence next to Hwy 79 when Henson is present.
"All five subjects interviewed stated that they received information
about Henson from Ken Hoden. They are all part of the paging activation
system used when Henson is protesting at the Golden Era location. All
have seen Internet posting by Henson and know of Henson's dealings with
explosives. All fear that Henson is capable of carrying out his threat
to blow up the church and all fear that he might blow up Golden Era
Studios. They fear he might 'lob' some sort of grenade or incendiary
device over the fence into the compound.
[Note the use of "threat" which Greer was unable to find and "fear that
Henson is capable" in the previous sentence.]
"Several weeks ago I contacted Hoden, and advised that I would need
to interview some of the staff about this incident. Wagoner, Gilchrist,
Reid and Dufresne were contacted by Hoden and told of a possible pending
interview with detectives. All of the people interviewed stated that
they were not told what to say, just that there would be an interview
concerning Henson.
"Per the District Attorney's Office this case will be submitted with
an arrest warrant declaration."
<end of Greer quote--all this was in the "reformatted" post some weeks
ago.>
The arrest warrant Tony Greer wrote out at the "request" (order?) of the
DAs asked that I be indicted for making threats with weapons of mass
destruction (nukes, chemical and biological weapons). This doesn't have
much logical relation to "a grenade or incendiary device over the
fence." (Nuke hand grenade have never been a popular weapon--for an
obvious reason. :-) ) But the argument runs this way: If I know that
Scientologists believe Hubbard was nearly run down by a freight
locomotive on Venus or that they think they are possessed by the spirits
of murdered space aliens brought to Earth by the evil galactic ruler
Xenu, then the DA's argument to the court could be that picketers should
recognize that Scientologists ability to think or to classify "threats"
is seriously impaired. This implies that those with any skill or
knowledge which could conceivably be used to harm them or the armed and
razor wire fenced base should refrain from picketing or posting on the
net.
The thesis was applied to me because the Scientologists believe that I
know how to make things which go "boom" and did so professionally and
recreationally about 30 years ago. The Scientologists (under orders of
course) extrapolate such "knowledge" about my past into a fear that I
will do something along those lines, no matter how silly it might be
objectively. No matter that I have never in my entire life hurt anyone
or damaged property in this way, they claimed to Tony Greer to be in
fear simply from what they claim to think I am "capable of" and using
this argument (and a lot of political pressure on the DA's office) they
got me charged because some Scientologists claim a *subjective* fear.
There is a well known legal theory of "deadly hands." A professional
boxer can be charged with assault with a deadly weapon if he hits
someone. Can this be stretched to "deadly knowledge" being a crime? If
I had military knowledge (which I don't) would it be considered an
arrestable threat to describe how to do a military takeover on Gold
Base? Have we actually arrived in the era of thought crimes?
(Of course, we know the actual reason corporate Scientology wants to
stop me from picketing. They don't want staff or members exposed to
"entheta" i.e., the truth about Scientology practices of blackmail,
bribery, fraud, and the like not to mention unconcern about human life
so callous that it leads to deaths such as Lisa McPherson, Ashlee
Shaner, Stacy Moxon Meyer and a hundred others. Members and staff who
find out about such things are likely to leave and/or join the Freezone
Scientologists. In either case they quit paying money to or working--at
extremely low wages--for corporate Scientology.)
But the point to this post is how easily this kind of interpretation of
the law can be abused.
Take Barbara Warr's joke post about hunting scienos with an eagle.
(Which was prompted by some Scientologist making veiled death threats
about renewing his squirrel hunting license.) All a Scientologist has
to do is say that he has a pathological fear of being carried off by an
eagle and Barbara could be arrested because she knows falconry.
They could claim a pathological fear of being infected and use someone
having taken biology classes in high school and having worked with
bacterial cultures as an excuse to have them arrested. Point being that
every one of us has some knowledge an irrational person could fear would
be used against them. If you are able to drive a car they can claim you
might try to run over them. (Ahem!)
In the hands of the cult which framed Paulette Cooper by stealing
stationary with her fingerprints on it and got her under federal
indictment for "making bomb threats," has tried to frame Bob Minton for
assault (twice) and had Mark Bunker arrested for "trespass on a
public sidewalk" and then stole his video tape of the incident so he
could not show what happened, this new angle they have worked out with
the Hemet DA is just too dangerous to First Amendment rights to let them
get away with it. If they succeed (and they have so far from the
standpoint of using the state's power to waste our resources) they will
pull similar tricks on each and every critic till they silence the lot
of us.
Keith Henson
PS Does anyone have thoughts or knowledge with regard to whether the
statutes (California 422-422.6 below) would permit a successful
prosecution where the victim's fear is due to mental impairment? Or due
to a "feared" person's knowledge? Are there reported cases where either
argument has been accepted or rejected? (Perhaps in the area
of assault?) Thanks in advance for any help or pointers you can
provide.
PENAL CODE : SECTION 422
422. Any person who willfully threatens to commit a crime which will
result in death or great bodily injury to another person, with the
specific intent that the statement is to be taken as a threat, even if
there is no intent of actually carrying it out, which, on its face and
under the circumstances in which it is made, is so unequivocal,
unconditional, immediate, and specific as to convey to the person
threatened, a gravity of purpose and an immediate prospect of execution
of the threat, and thereby causes that person reasonably to be in
sustained fear for his or her own safety or for his or her immediate
family's safety, shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail
not to exceed one year, or by imprisonment in the state prison.
422.6. (a) No person, whether or not acting under color of law,
shall by force or threat of force, willfully injure, intimidate,
interfere with, oppress, or threaten any other person in the free
exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him or her
by the Constitution or laws of this state or by the Constitution or
laws of the United States because of the other person's race, color,
religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, gender, or sexual
orientation, or because he or she perceives that the other person has
one or more of those characteristics.
(b) No person, whether or not acting under color of law, shall
knowingly deface, damage, or destroy the real or personal property of
. . . .
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 21:14:37 +0100
From: Anonymous <nobody@mix.winterorbit.com>
Message-ID: <d7dabd96e80bbec351dd0973284ad7b7@mix.winterorbit.com>
Organization: mail2news@dizum.com
> I won't say how I got it, but now I have a much deeper
> understanding of the "rationale" the Hemet DAs are trying to apply
> to me.
>
> In law there is something called "eggshell theory." ....
Okay, so under this "eggshell theory" wouldn't the folks in charge of
the "Church of Scientology" be the ones who are committing the crime?
Analogy: a hypnotist hypnotizes someone and gives them the post
hypnotic suggestion that when they hear the word "cat" they will run
forward and jump into the air. Shortly thereafter the person with
the post hypnotic suggestion is at a roof party, someone says "cat"
and the previously hypnotized person jumps off the roof. Is the
person who said the word "cat" at fault? Surely the hypnotist is at
fault.
If the folks in charge of the "Church of Scientology" have worked
people into such a deranged mental state after years of conditioning
that they think a picketer is going to nuke them with an ICBM then
surely this "422 fear" is actually being caused by them.
Jim Jones killed his entire cult because a Congressman Ryan came to
visit the cult compound in Guyana. The Congressman was also
murdered, but was the mass suicide/murder the FAULT of the
Congressman because he visited? That would seem to be the logic that
the District Attorney is using here.
Of course this entire prosecution is bogus and a violation of the
First Amendment. The District Attorney who's prosecuting this case
needs to get some sunshine on him.
> ....
> "Hoden said they have a paging system that notifies about 100
> of their personnel that Henson is present. Hoden said that these
> 100
> employees have been briefed about Henson.
>
> "Hoden said that when the page goes out there are several
> personnel that will go to the two tunnels, which runs under Hwy 79
> from one side of the compound to the other. Personnel are also
> told to stay away from Hwy 79 and fence next to Hwy 79 when Henson
> is present.
One hundred to one! After all that Dianetics / Scientology training
they need 100 trained personnel to respond to a lone picketer. Sure
makes me want to spend five or six figures in order to achieve that
level of ability. Really prepares one to be able to deal with the
real world, all right.