Prosecutors aim new weapon at Occupy activists: lynching allegation

[derspiess]

How did that work?

Are you asking how effective it was, or how the litigation took place?

Also, have the Occupy types started blowing up buildings and sniping doctors?

Not that I'm aware of.  But they do certainly have their violent fringe elements.

[dps]

Which is why people think that it is fundamentally intellectually dishonest to charge the guy in your example with extortion.  Or to charge the guy in the article in the OP with "lynching"--it should be faily obvious that he didn't break someone out of police custody to string 'em up from the nearest tree or lamppost, which I the connotation that "lynching" carries.  There are plenty of charges that could be brought that don't have that connotation, depending on the jurisdiction--obstruction of justice, aiding and abetting, and others (also depending on exactly what the guy actually did).

How the hell is it "intellectually dishonest" to charge extortion.  Beating someone up in order to get them to pay you money is the very definition of extortion.

From wiki:

Extortion (also called shakedown, outwresting, and exaction) is a criminal offence which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person(s), entity, or institution, through coercion.

From the Criminal Code:

Every one commits extortion who, without reasonable justification or excuse and with intent to obtain anything, by threats, accusations, menaces or violence induces or attempts to induce any person, whether or not he is the person threatened, accused or menaced or to whom violence is shown, to do anything or cause anything to be done.

It's intellectually dishonest because you yourself admitted that the term has connotations of organized crime, regardless of the fact that the formal definition makes no mention of organized crime.

The term also carries a huge implication that the offender had no legal right to the money that they attempted to obtain, whereas in your example the defendant did have a right to the money (though of course he went about attempting to obtain payment in an inappropriate and criminal manner).

[Razgovory]

How did that work?

Are you asking how effective it was, or how the litigation took place?

Also, have the Occupy types started blowing up buildings and sniping doctors?

Not that I'm aware of.  But they do certainly have their violent fringe elements.

Both.  I suspect the violent Fringe element exists mostly in the propaganda of people like Breitbart.

[Barrister]

[deleted]

[mongers]

I love it when people do stupid stuff knowing it is against the law, but not knowing how serious the crime is.  I love laying charges of robbery and/or extortion when the accused thinks he only committed a minor theft.    

I love it when government hacks admit that they love it when their faceless unthinking bureaucracy exerts itself to inflict unjust punishments on the people it nominally serves. 

Indeed.

[Razgovory]

I do not love either thing.

[derspiess]

Both. 

I don't want to butcher the legalistic aspects of it (that's what our forum lawyers are for), but basically the RICO Act was passed by Congress in the 1970s specifically to take down organized crime family bosses and other members whose syndicates committed criminal acts but they themselves did not directly take part.  IIRC there are both criminal and civil penalties under the act.

I think NOW started suing anti-abortion activists in the 80s or 90s and won, and at some point there was a federal injunction against abortion clinic protests, based on RICO.  It eventually made it to the USSC about 7 or 8 years ago where it unanimously (?) struck down the earlier decisions by lower courts.

I suspect the violent Fringe element exists mostly in the propaganda of people like Breitbart.

Everything you disagree with seems to be a Breitbart conspiracy.  I suppose you think he orchestrated the Oakland riots?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45144941/ns/us_news-life/t/occupy-protesters-disavow-oakland-violence/#.Txdpj6VSTgd

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-11-13/occupy-movement-violent-fringe/51188258/1

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/turnstyle/issue-of-violence-divides_b_1101715.html

[garbon]

Not exactly a strong case, derspiess. That's just how Oakland rolls.

[Razgovory]

I thought he meant something series like bombings and shootings and stuff.