(Download) "Threats in the Line of Duty: Police Officers and the First Amendment in State V. Valdivia and Connecticut V. Deloreto (Hawaii)" by Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Threats in the Line of Duty: Police Officers and the First Amendment in State V. Valdivia and Connecticut V. Deloreto (Hawaii)
- Author : Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy
- Release Date : January 22, 2004
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 279 KB
Description
The relationship between civilian and police officer occupies a unique position in First Amendment jurisprudence. The Supreme Court has intimated that words intended solely to harass ("fighting words"), excluded from First Amendment protection under Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, may enjoy broader tolerance when the only listener is a police officer. (1) Some state supreme courts have adopted this dual standard when applying their state harassment laws, due to a trained police officer's higher tolerance for verbal provocation, as well as the societal interest in expressing dissatisfaction with police behavior. (2) When speech constitutes a "true threat" on a citizen's person, however, neither federal courts nor many states have found that the First Amendment calls for a higher tolerance for law enforcement victims than for civilians. (3) In 2001, however, the Hawaiian Supreme Court found just such an individualized standard. In State v. Valdivia, it overturned the trial court's refusal to instruct that a victim's status as police officer was relevant to whether a defendant's threat to kill the victim constituted terroristic threatening. (4) Last year, the Connecticut Supreme Court explicitly rejected the Valdivia analysis and held, in Connecticut v. DeLoreto, that no higher standard should protect true threats when made to police. (5) The court stated that, while officers' training to resist provocation might warrant a narrower definition of unprotected "fighting words" when directed at them, they should be protected to the same degree as civilians from "serious expressions of intent to harm." (6) The Connecticut Supreme Court's decision is a positive shift from the dangerous ruling in Hawaii, which singled out the profession most commonly endangered by criminal violence for a lower degree of protection under the law.
 "Threats in the Line of Duty: Police Officers and the First Amendment in State V. Valdivia and Connecticut V. Deloreto (Hawaii)" by Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free){kind=link}