Woman Charged in Threat Against Schiavo's Husband
New York Lawyer
April 7, 2005
By The Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO -- A California woman has been charged with threatening to kill Michael Schiavo, the man whose decision to remove his brain-damaged wife's feeding tube enraged religious conservatives.
The federal charge against Dera Marie Jones stems from a posting on an America Online message board: "If she dies I will kill Michael Schiavo and the judge. This for real!"
Jones told FBI agents she was "just kidding" and soon began receiving threats herself, FBI Agent Christopher Sadlowski wrote in an affidavit filed Monday in federal court in San Francisco.
Jones, 32, is charged with transmitting in interstate commerce a communication containing a threat to injure a person.
Schiavo's wife, Terri, died at a Florida hospice March 31, almost two weeks after her feeding tube was removed. She had received food and water artificially since 1990, when she suffered brain damage that court-appointed doctors determined had placed her in a persistent vegetative state.
Michael Schiavo had been in a prolonged legal battle with his wife's parents, who wanted their 41-year-old daughter kept alive.
I believe that traditionally the crime of assault is defined approximately like this: "ASSAULT, crim. law. An assault is any unlawful attempt or offer with force or violence to do a corporal hurt to another, whether from malice or wantonness; for example, by striking at him or even holding up the fist at him in a threatening or insulting manner, or with other circumstances as denote at the time. an intention, coupled with a present ability (italics mine), of actual violence against his person, as by pointing a weapon at him when he is within reach of it. 6 Rogers Rec: 9. When the injury is actually inflicted, it amounts to a battery." If I remember correctly the threat has to be credible, i.e., if I threaten to vaporize your house with my Illudium Q36 explosive space modulator, it's not likely to be considered assault.
I have nothing per se against prosecuting people who use message boards or e-mails to hound, stalk, and otherwise scare people for real, but it seems Orwellian to me that this lady, whose politics I'm sure I despise, is being prosecuted by the Federal Govt. for what is essentially intemperate and hyperbolic speech. What say you?
― M. White (Miguelito), Thursday, 7 April 2005 18:49 (twenty years ago)