Penn Judge: Muslims Allowed to Attack People for Insulting Mohammad
Offline Jonathon Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, reports on a disturbing case in which a state judge in Pennsylvania threw out an assault case involving a Muslim attacking an atheist for insulting the Prophet Muhammad.
Judge Mark Martin, an Iraq war veteran and a convert to Islam, threw the case out in what appears to be an invocation of Sharia law.
The incident occurred at the Mechanicsburg, Pa., Halloween parade where Ernie Perce, an atheist activist, marched as a zombie Muhammad. Talaag Elbayomy, a Muslim, attacked Perce, and he was arrested by police.
Judge Martin threw the case out on the grounds that Elbayomy was obligated to attack Perce because of his culture and religion. Judge Martin stated that the First Amendment of the Constitution does not permit people to provoke other people. He also called Perce, the plaintiff in the case, a "doofus." In effect, Perce was the perpetrator of the assault, in Judge Martin's view, and Elbayomy the innocent. The Sharia law that the Muslim attacker followed trumped the First Amendment.
Words almost fail.
The Washington Post recently reported on an appeals court decision to maintain an injunction to stop the implementation of an amendment to the Oklahoma state constitution that bans the use of Sharia law in state courts. The excuse the court gave was that there was no documented case of Sharia law being invoked in an American court. Judge Martin would seem to have provided that example, which should provide fodder for the argument as the case goes through the federal courts.
The text of the First Amendment could not be clearer. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof-" It does not say "unless somebody, especially a Muslim, is angered." Indeed Judge Martin specifically decided to respect the establishment of a religion, in this case Islam.
That Judge Martin should be removed from the bench and severely sanctioned goes almost without saying. He clearly had no business hearing the case in the first place, since he seems to carry an emotional bias. He also needs to retake a constitutional law course. Otherwise, a real can of worms has been opened up, permitting violence against people exercising free speech.
It should be noted that another atheist, dressed as a Zombie Pope, was marching beside the Zombie Muhammad. No outraged Catholics attacked him.
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The case being dismissed for lack of evidence is what happened. Not even you, who insists there's some grave injustice here that you can't seem to clearly articulate will say there wasn't a dearth of evidence or that the ruling was clearly wrong.
Judges are no less entitled to express their opinions than anyone else.The fact you disagree doesn't make it an injustice. You're mad because a judge lectured a guy about acting like an asshole but not a single person who posted here would take up the laughable position that he wasn't acting like an asshole.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
1 - I'm not mad. I'm definitely concerned.
2 - This judge is biased. If this was a case of "not enough evidence" - as if nothing ever happened - then why bother giving your 6 minute opinion.
3 - This judge handled the case poorly. He could have washed his hands of it and this story would have never been published.
4 - While it isn't some thing I would do, it is absolutely, 100% the right of any one to speak their mind or act in a manner which makes them look like a doofus.
5 - You are totally missing the point.
Once it became obvious that for all we know there really wasn't any evidence and the judge's ruling was probably fair, your argument parted with any validity it had in my mind at least.
I don't care about the judge lecturing the guy because in honesty not only was he probably correct but it was completely within the judge's right to say those things whether I agree with them or not. I even looked it up it's called "obiter dictum" and it's perfectly within his purview. The fact that it is non-binding makes it all the more trivial.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/obiter+dictum
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
I don't dispute the reason for dropping the case, I've stated that previously. The issue is that he is obviously biased. If you understood what it meant to be reserved then you would see where I'm coming from; the judge fucked up.
This issue is far from over. It is going to a higher court for review and next election this moron will lose his seat.
Sarcasm fail
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Yes, there are biased judges. That is one of the reasons there are courts of appeal, four levels of them in the US.
Yes judges can be "fired" by other judges in most states. Yes this can become a crony system. That is why there are supreme courts.
No system is perfect. But I used to get upset by reports of judicial decisions. Then I started looking into the decisions themselves rather than reports of the decisions. I stopped getting upset. The reports were mostly nonsense. If not nonsense then false or lies or just plain stupid. There was a time when the Washington Star (not the current Times) had a column reviewing US Supreme Court decisions that always, literally always, got the decision backwards and railed against it.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
I've calmed down since the report first came out. I was really pissed off at the audio I heard of the trial. I hope they hang him from they highest yard arm.