I’m truly sick of this stuff. What we have here isn’t even a close call. Michael Wiseman, 68, from Jupiter, Florida, was arrested by local police officers on July 19 because he posted ugly comments on social media expressing disappointment that former President Trump wasn’t assassinated in Butler, Pennsylvania. “The shooter missed,” he wrote on X. “He can’t be the only patriot. Cocksucker, mother and daughter fucker Trump.” And, “Why is Trump allowed to be alive? We need to train patriots. Thomas Matthew Crooks deserves a posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor, a stamp, and a national holiday.”
And, “Some people need to be better shots if they know they are going to kill a monster.” Shortly before his arrest, Wiseman wrote, “I am advocating Trump and Vance’s daughters get raped and THEN tell me they won’t fly their kids out of the USA for an abortion.”
None of that breaks any laws, but never mind, some “patriots” who don’t get the free speech thingy filed multiple online crime tips siccing authorities on a social media troll they didn’t like. Following a joint investigation launched by the Secret Service, Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office and Jupiter Police Department, Wiseman was interrogated and arrested on July 19 and has been in jail ever since. He pleaded not guilty to one count of written or electronic threats to kill or inflict bodily harm. Under Florida law, that crime is considered a second-degree felony punishable by up to 40 years in prison. Judge Cymonie Rowe agreed that the state has a valid case.
No, it doesn’t, unless there is a lot more than news reports have revealed. The judge is incompetent, the police are incompetent and irresponsible, and the whole incident is a blight on our civil rights. I hope some William Kunstler clone lawyer takes Wiseman’s case and sues the metaphorical pants off the authorities for false arrest.
There is a Constitutional right to be an asshole. Wiseman may have abused that right, but putting him in jail is more of a threat to the nation than anything he said.
Ethics Alarms 
I read somewhere a while ago that anyone that threatens the President of the United States is thrown in jail whenever the President is within 200 miles of the threatening individual, I wonder if this is somehow being applied in this situation. Threats of physical violence should always be taken seriously, always.
Threatening the President is different.
He didn’t threaten the President.
He said that the whack job who tried to assassinate Trump is some kind of hero and that he hopes there are others out there who will finish the job. That is uncomfortably close, and perhaps enough to deliver this kind of warning, where the case may well get dismissed but maybe you shock some sense into this idiot. And he is an idiot, anyone who puts something like this where a written record is created and it can be linked back to him is just asking for trouble. Also, but that is that if anyone said anything like this about Obama, the same people who are writing this garbage now would be tipping off the authorities or maybe even trying to get him swatted. Now he’s getting a dose of the same medicine. One of those jerks wrote that it’s justified to bash someone over the head because sometimes it just sucks to be a Nazi. Well, sometimes it just sucks to be an asshole as well
“That is uncomfortably close, and perhaps enough to deliver this kind of warning, where the case may well get dismissed but maybe you shock some sense into this idiot.”
Again: it’s unconstitutional to use the process as the punishment. If he said virtually the same thing and was Joy behar, nobody would touch him.
It may be unconstitutional, but what are you going to do about it? Because you are required to assume incompetence instead of malice and incompetence is tolerated, using the process as punishment is routine. For local officers, they are given qualified immunity, for federal officerers, they have absolute immunity in such cases. As long as they are allowed to say “Oops, I forgot about the last 15 times you told me I couldn’t arrest people for that”, this will continue to be an effective tool in the belt of law enforcement.
Also remember, when you are illegally arrested and your rights violated, you have to try to explain it to a judge like this. Watch the clip starting at 3 minutes 32 seconds and imagine trying to explain the violation of your Constitutional rights to this judge. From the judges I have seen in the last few years, this is actually a typical local judge.
(This clip is of an actual judge who is blaming Donald Trump for the murder of a 12-year old by illegal immigrants. Forward to 3 minutes 32 seconds )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ify2Eo82rIU
Remember that this is Texas. Lina Hidalgo is Harris County Judge — which means she is the elected political leader of Harris County. The title Judge in this case has nothing to do with courts, it’s an executive branch office.
I have no recollection what they call actual court judges in Texas, or whether you just have to figure it out from context.
If they’d gone to a local affiliate, they would have set them straight.
“the elected political leader of Harris County”
That makes it much better?!?
Harris County has a population larger than Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Delaware combined.
Irrelevant. We are speaking of the type of official, now how many deluded folks are her constituency.
If you had the same statement, but made by the mayor of San Antonio, would it provoke the same reaction? I’d submit not, because we normally think of a ‘judge’ in a different light than a mayor or county commissioner or governor.
And I’ve got to say, from all I’ve heard the Harris County Judge is as progressive as progressive can get.
There was quite a bit of shock and backlash to the idiotic statements of the mayors of Seattle and Portland during their BLM takeovers.
“…progressive as progressive can get…”
Our buddy Shejack has much of Houston as her district. Talk about Gerrymandering:
https://www.congress.gov/member/district/sheila-jackson-lee/J000032
In Texas, the position of County Judge is a misnomer. The position is really the county “mayor”. The County Judge oversees contracts within the county, and oversees the administration of the court system but has no authority over any of the court procedures or dockets.
Lina Hidalgo has been Harris County Judge for two terms. She is a naturalized citizen from Colombia. Hidalgo won the position in 2018 in a blue wave of straight ticket voting that ousted Ed Emmott from the position he held for over 20 years and, by all accounts, did a great job. She has demonstrated unbelievable incompetence and, if the allegations are true that she steered a multimillion dollar no-bid COVID outreach contract to her political friend, she is corrupt and stupid. The linked video shows how mindbogglingly inept she is. In fact, when Hurricane Beryl decided to wipe out the power grid in the greater Houston area, she was relaxing in Austin and had to “encouraged” to return to Houston to see how the less fortunate were fairing.
As an aside, the basis Texas court structure is:
Lowest/First Level: Justice of the Peace (small claims, evictions, truancy, etc.) Judge is not required to be a lawyer. There is some dispute over whether they are called “judges” or “justices” but most refer them as “judges”.
County Civil Courts: Civil cases up to $250k in damages, eminent domain, small claims/eviction appeals. Active law license required for the judges. There is County Criminal Court but, because that law scares the Hell out of me, I am not sure of the courts’ jurisdiction.
District Civil, Criminal and Family Courts: Courts of general jurisdiction over all civil, criminal, and family law matters, unless otherwise conferred on administrative courts. Judges must be licensed attorneys.
Courts of Appeals: Appellate jurisdiction of all cases arising out of the county and district courts. Justices must be licensed attorneys.
Texas Supreme Court and Texas Court of Criminal Appeals: Civil and criminal appeals are separated arising out of the courts of appeals. Both courts requires their Justices to be lawyers.
jvb
Thanks for explaining that. Here in North Carolina, counties are run by an elected board of commissioners. Generally the board itself elects a chairman, but there is no single executive — it is the board that exercises the powers granted counties by the state.
Jack, I read the story in the link and there may be more to this than the reporter could disclose. If all that exists are the statements that were printed I will agree that this is a free speech issue. However, there may be more to this than meets the eye. For that reason, I am withholding judgement.
“After investigating the reports and the suspect’s Facebook account, JPD detectives found that Wiseman had made multiple threats against Trump and Vance,” police wrote in a press release. “Threats were also made concerning bodily harm to members of the Trump and Vance families. JPD coordinated the investigation with the United States Secret Service and the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office. JPD officers took Wiseman into custody without incident.”
In the affidavit, police describe Mirandizing Wiseman and discussing the Facebook posts “which were threatening in nature” but several portions of the document are redacted.
Wiseman was interviewed and arrested on July 19. He was arraigned the next morning with his wife present, according to court records.
Dozens of documents have already been filed in the case, but few are available on the public docket.
In the report it claims that multiple threats were found on his FB account but I cannot determine if the statements cited were in fact the “threats” or were there other statements that were redacted to protect a more extensive investigation. He may be part of a broader group.
This it’s a useless news story, no? What good is a report about someone arrested for making “threats” that only quotes social media posts that aren’t threats? Absent such evidence, the presumption of innocence goes to the man arrested, and based on recent trends, the presumption of using the “process as the punishment” goes to authorities.
I am happy to presume innocence every time but that cannot mean that using the presumption of process as punishment is required.
Before I condemn law enforcement and the judicial branch I simply want more information. It is possible that more evidentiary information exists that led to the development of probable cause and a subsequent arrest. Based on my reading the story does not state that the FB statements were the threats, it just suggested that they were. I don’t think it is unreasonable to consider that the reporter only was provided information that provided reasonable suspicion to investigate the man for the story if other related individuals may be involved.
Getting a “scoop” using insufficient information which leads readers to an erroneous conclusion does everyone a disservice and occurs regularly. Call me cynical. It is possible that the reporter simply associated the free speech elements of the statements because they were the easiest to obtain to flesh out the story and because the reporter is ignorant about the first amendment. Most are; which is why we see so many calling offensive speech hate speech. I don’t know if our media on both sides is corrupt or just stupid.
So a news story is that someone was arrested while giving no hint of what he was arrested for? Isn’t the default assumption that he was arrested for the only “offenses” that are mentioned in the article? Otherwise, they are 100% irrelevant.
I don’t have near that much confidence in the competency of local newspaper reporters. I worked in a field that required considerable knowledge of state and local laws and processes in a certain field. The people in the bureaus that had to deal with those things regularly, generally knew what they were doing. Most state legislators knew very little, even though they would grandstand on issues, and periodically try to implement stupid laws. The reporters for the local papers knew even less, and could be counted on to make a hash in trying to inform the public, even after they had been briefed by an expert.
I was simply stating that they do things a bit differently when there are threats against a President and maybe that’s what they are doing now.
In explicit terms based on what you presented, you’re correct; however, we don’t have all the specific details and the article did state that there were multiple threats against Trump and Vance. I’ll wait for more information on this one.
Yes, but the article clearly implied that those WERE the “multiple threats against Trump and Vance.” Saying you wish something to happen or that something should happen are not threats. They are opinions.
Jack wrote, “Saying you wish something to happen or that something should happen are not threats.”
In my opinion, that may not entirely accurate.
If someone had written online that “Steve Witherspoon should be murdered…” I would consider that a direct threat and act accordingly because of the use of the word “should” which directly implies an obligation or duty. Wishful thinking and obligation/duty are very different because one is all in the mind and the other implies action. Without going into any details, a few years ago I had an experience with a mouthy online troll slinging physical threats at me that included the word “should” and then he began stalking me regularly and physically showed up at my front door after I left for work one day – I don’t take such things lightly.
Threats of physical violence should always be taken seriously, always. Shrouding threats behind the word “should” and claiming it’s “free speech” is a bit like yelling “FIRE” in a theater and claiming it’s free speech. People can choose to blow off threats that include the word “should” if they like, but they do so at their own peril. That’s my opinion based on my experience.
The legal issue here is when does free speech go beyond wishful thinking or implications of violence and becoming actual illegal threats as defined in Florida’s legal statutes. I don’t know Florida’s legal statutes.
All that said, I’m still going to wait for additional information on this case.
My long-suffering wife often says, “John Burger should be murdered repeatedly and often.” I know she is joshing but, you know, one must be careful. I have noticed everything tastes of almonds, even the meatloaf. I wonder if I should be worried . . .
jvb
Well, this seems to be a situation that was bound to come. With social media, the news, and the universities talking about ‘violence’ of speech and punishing people for conservative speech, how long was it before violent leftist speech was also going to be taken seriously? How many thousands of conservatives have been punished for their speech that violated the state-sanctioned morality at this point?
You also realize that a common tactic of the police is to arrest people for things that are not illegal to punish them. If they don’t like what you are doing, they will arrest you and put you through the system. The charges will get dropped, but you will be arrested, get a mug shot, have an arrest record (you may expunge it, but is it REALLY expunged?) and spend time in jail. You could sue them, but you have a high bar and the the best result you get is that you get some money from your neighbors (taxpayers). If they REALLY don’t like you, they will raid your house at 6 AM after cutting the power and jamming the cellphone signals in the area. A 20+ member SWAT team with a no-knock warrant will kick in your door with no warning and the result is that you will be dead after ‘threatening’ them and there will be no body camera footage.
Just google ‘first amendment auditor’. Welcome to ‘The System’, please enjoy your stay.
This story caught my eye because this guy is, frankly, a typical Democrat and just saying the quiet part out loud. I saw man on the street interviews with people on Venice Beach in California, shortly after the failed assassination attempt, and to a person, they were all saying they wished the attempt had succeeded. Even John McWhorter has said twice he would be fine with Trump being killed. It’s horrific. First, they call the guy Hitler and Mussolini, and then they reduce him to being worthy of being eliminated like a Hitler or Mussolini. Don’t these people have any ability to hear what they sound like?
I personally like it when they say things like this. It is nice to know who people really are.
All the people involved knew that the activity was protected speech. They all knew it was an illegal arrest. They just didn’t care and they are allowed to not care about violating Constitutional rights. Telling them what they already know won’t help anything.
We have a friend who is ex-Secret Service. In some conversations, he has said that most of the (many) threatening communications to the president were by harmless kooks, and they have to make subjective judgement calls on which ones need attention. Sometimes that meant deciding that merely the frequency or level of unhinged vitriol from a citizen warranted a visit to see if there were a real threat in the making. Most often, even then, that wouldn’t result in an arrest, as the writer would likely be just a not-too-bright sort with a loud mouth. Then, the visit and an admonition that “You can’t be doing this stuff” with a description of what might go down if he didn’t stop was usually enough to scare him into quitting. Sometimes, a visit raised other alarms, or the person just got worse, and further action seemed necessary.
It doesn’t sound like this guys comments as given would be enough to warrant an arrest, though I wouldn’t put it past some law enforcement to go too far and violate the First A, either. On the other hand, as others have mentioned, what’s reported may not be accurate or all of the story. I don’t think we have enough info to make a call on this one yet.
That sounds like a reasonable approach. But so often these days, reasonable is one of the first things to get jettisoned.
And, of course, this is more of a CYA culture these days, so an agent might be thinking “What if this old foul mouthed geezer should grab an electric scooter one day, hit his neighbor over the head with his cane to get a gun, and motor out to a rally? It could happen.”
There again, we also used to trust in agent’s competence and judgement. Of course, it appears that part went by the wayside in Butler, but still…
Not a lawyer, so I’m wondering how left-wing sympathizers are reacting. If they are coming to this vile man’s defense, how do they distinguish this ‘free speech’ from the alleged incitements by president Trump re January 6th? Mr. Wiseman’s vitriol on the surface seems a lot more damning than anything said by the President.