Helpful US Attorney Is Helpful

US Attorney Troy Eid is helpful, saving taxpayer money and stuff by refusing to prosecute those three fellows in Denver that allegedly threatened to kill Obama at the DNC Convention a few months ago.

Eid, who was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2006, declined to prosecute the three men on charges of threatening to assassinate Barack Obama during his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, saying that the suspects were "just a bunch of meth heads" and their words failed to meet the legal standard for "true threat."

Nope, not a serious threat. Even though they had weapons. But hey, it's not like Republicans are soft on crime or anything.

Legal experts say that Eid's definition of true threat directly conflicts with the statue covering threats to presidential candidates, 18 U.S.C. 879, which defines the threat as "whoever knowingly and willfully threatens to kill, kidnap, or inflict bodily harm upon a major candidate for the office of President or Vice President, or a member of the immediate family of such candidate."

While noting the statute must be weighed against First Amendment rights, they argued that because voluntary intoxication is not a viable defense the First Amendment does not protect a speaker's threatening speech.

George Fisher, Stanford Law Professor and one of the nation's top scholars of criminal law and evidence, explained, "Certainly when there's a state of mind requirement in a crime, 'knowingly,' for example, you could say as a logical matter that somebody can't do something knowingly while under the influence. But there are these other laws, sometimes in the form of statutes and sometimes in the form of case law, that will say, 'But voluntary intoxication is no defense.' And the Supreme Court many years ago upheld those laws as not being a violation of due process."

Colorado defense attorneys agreed. They said Colorado state law does not differ from the Supreme Court's ruling on voluntary intoxication.

Thus, legal experts agreed that a verbal threat alone, intended by the speaker to be taken seriously, and said willfully and knowingly, is all that is necessary to satisfy the legal requirement for true threat. Contrary to what Eid told the press, a prosecutor in this case would not have to prove a plan existed or the viability of any such plan, only that a threat was made and understood by the speaker and receiver of the words to be said in earnest.

But a Bush appointed US Attorney from the Bush Justice Department (home of a not-too-long-ago scandal involving the mass politicization of the department and ended with former AG Alberto Gonzales resigning in shame) once again taking unusual action that can only really be explained by a refusal to embarass McSame supporters by prosecuting folks threatening to kill Obama say, a few weeks before the election.

That's not political at all.