{"id":134521,"date":"2017-09-02T09:24:46","date_gmt":"2017-09-02T15:24:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=134521"},"modified":"2017-09-02T10:09:54","modified_gmt":"2017-09-02T16:09:54","slug":"lese-majeste-us-dept-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/02\/lese-majeste-us-dept-justice.html","title":{"rendered":"L\u00e8se-majest\u00e9 and the US Dept. of Justice"},"content":{"rendered":"

L\u00e8se-majest\u00e9<\/i> is the crime of offending the majesty of the sovereign, of insulting or demeaning or disrespecting the head honcho. It crops up formally here and there around the world (a person who posted on Facebook in an uncomplementary way to the King of Thailand is now serving a 35 year sentence for the crime<\/a>, and in a number of countries even insulting a foreign head of state can land you in trouble<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Of course, even where l\u00e8se-majest\u00e9<\/i> laws aren’t on the books, you can still get in trouble for saying mean things about the people in power, especially if they have angry mobs or secret police to enforce their bidding. Perceived opponents of Vladimir Putin, whether protesters or journalists or oligarchs, tend to not end well.<\/p>\n

And then there’s the United States, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where freedom of speech — particularly political speech — is enshrined in the very foundation of our laws.<\/p>\n

Unless the guy in charge of enforcing those laws decides you’re dissing him<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jeff Sessions\u2019 Justice Department plans to put a woman who laughed at the now-attorney general back on trial yet again, a federal prosecutor told a D.C. judge here on Friday. Desiree Fairooz, a woman taken into custody after she laughed during Attorney General Jeff Sessions\u2019 confirmation hearing, will go to trial in November for a second time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fairooz broken into brief laughter<\/a> during Sessions’ confirmation hearing<\/a>\u00a0upon the assertion by another Senator that Sessions had a record of “treating all Americans equally under the law.” A rookie Capitol cop took her into custody, at which point Fairooz protested more loudly and vocally.<\/p>\n

Fairooz was tried in federal court disorderly and disruptive conduct and demonstrating inside the Capitol, after rejecting a plea deal, and a jury found her guilty — but later stated they were focused on her behavior upon being arrested, not on the initial laughter.<\/p>\n

The government, however, had explicitly argued during the trial that Fairooz\u2019s laughter, in and of itself, would have been enough to find her guilty. Morin, the judge overseeing the trial, rejected that assertion and tossed out the jury\u2019s verdict, calling the government\u2019s argument that laughter alone was sufficient to sustain a guilty verdict \u201cdisconcerting.\u201d He ordered a new trial.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fairooz declined another plea deal that would admit guilt, and the Justice Dept. has since decided that the best way to spend taxpayer money (recall that we are in the midst of a national financial crisis<\/a>, according to Our President) is to spend the time and effort to once again seek a conviction for laughing at the thought that their new boss treats “all Americans equally under the law.” Fellow protesters (who didn’t just laugh) received suspended sentences, but it’s unclear what Fairooz faces should the Justice Dept. prosecutors convince the judge this time that her l\u00e8se-majest\u00e9<\/i> is so serious a crime that they had to prosecute her twice to be sure justice was done.<\/p>\n

[h\/t +<\/span>Stan Pedzick<\/a><\/span>]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n
\n<\/a>
\nJeff Sessions’ DOJ To Put Woman Who Laughed At Jeff Sessions On Trial Yet Again<\/a><\/span>
\nDesiree Fairooz’s brief chuckle during the attorney general’s confirmation hearing in January has turned into a nine-month ordeal, and it’s not over yet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

L\u00e8se-majest\u00e9 is the crime of offending the majesty of the sovereign, of insulting or demeaning or disrespecting the head honcho. It crops up formally here and there around the world (a person who posted on Facebook in an uncomplementary way to the King of Thailand is now serving a 35 year sentence for the crime, … Continue reading “L\u00e8se-majest\u00e9 and the US Dept. of Justice”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134523,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,350,358,376],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-plusposts","category-civil-liberties","category-poor-citizenship","category-taxing-spending"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/unnamed-13-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":51777,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/18\/tales-calculated-to-drive-you-hoover.html","url_meta":{"origin":134521,"position":0},"title":"Tales Calculated to Drive You Hoover","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 18-Jul-15 10:11am","format":false,"excerpt":"Fun little article on how Mad Magazine repeatedly tweaked J Edgar Hoover, whose FBI not only held ever-growing files on publisher William Gaines, but kept sending people over to the magazine's offices to \"firmly and severely admonish them concerning our displeasure\" over their satire in an iconoclastic vein.The remarkable thing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49190,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/01\/07\/on-the-need-to-mock-and-the-reaction-of-tyrants.html","url_meta":{"origin":134521,"position":1},"title":"On the need to mock and the reaction of tyrants","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 7-Jan-15 2:34pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Good post by +Yonatan Zunger on the Charlie Hebdo terror killings. Originally shared by +Yonatan Zunger: The powerful must never be immune from mockery. If there is one thing which the past several hundred years have taught us, this is it: power which is not subject to examination, to criticism,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":137841,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/17\/donald-trump-doesnt-like-being-mocked.html","url_meta":{"origin":134521,"position":2},"title":"Donald Trump doesn't like being mocked","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 17-Feb-19 11:32pm","format":false,"excerpt":"To be fair, nobody likes being mocked. On the other hand, when you are a public figure, especially President of the United States, a certain amount of mockery and criticism is to be expected. As Harry Truman put it, \"If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.\"Not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25226,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/09\/tweets-from-2012-01-09.html","url_meta":{"origin":134521,"position":3},"title":"Tweets from 2012-01-09","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 9-Jan-12 9:45pm","format":false,"excerpt":"6 weeks to our office movie, and I'm trying to do a bit of sorting\/tossing\/packing every day. It would help if they distributed boxes ... # Inconvenient meeting request meant missing lunch but securing a window seat in the New Office Order. # Hate days that are bundle-up cold in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~Tweets"","block_context":{"text":"~Tweets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/tweets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12337,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/05\/27\/hated_speech.html","url_meta":{"origin":134521,"position":4},"title":"Hated speech","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 27-May-08 5:05pm","format":false,"excerpt":"For all that I am a non-confrontational believer in polite discussion of controversial issues, I've never been enamored by \"hate speech\" laws. They far too easily go from an encouragement...","rel":"","context":"In "ZT & PC"","block_context":{"text":"ZT & PC","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/zt-pc"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":44978,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/07\/b5-rewatch-4x01-the-hour-of-the-wolf.html","url_meta":{"origin":134521,"position":5},"title":"B5 Rewatch: 4×01 “The Hour of the Wolf”","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 7-Sep-14 4:35pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The end of Season 3 of \"Babylon 5\" brought a near-end of the PTEN \"network\" of stations. Warner Brothers (eventually) found the budget to support more of the one show that was making them any money from it -- but only for one season further. The result was Joe Straczynski\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Babylon 5"","block_context":{"text":"Babylon 5","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/media-tv-babylon-5"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/PTEN-logo.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134521"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134522,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134521\/revisions\/134522"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}