Court tosses conviction in Super Bowl threat

A federal appeals court has refused to reinstate the conviction

of an Arizona man accused of planning a Super Bowl massacre, saying

his rambling ”manifesto” did not constitute a threat to

people.

Kurt Havelock, who did not attack, was convicted in 2008 of

mailing threatening messages after he sent a disjointed

”econopolitical” letter to media outlets that promised to ”test

the theory that bullets speak louder than words.”

Havelock instead turned himself in to police, saying he changed

his mind after sending the statements and taking a semiautomatic

weapon and ammunition to a parking lot near University of Phoenix

Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., where people had begun to gather before

the game.

A full 11-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

ruled 9-2 Friday that Havelock’s rambling message did not violate

the law because it was addressed to corporations, not individuals,

according the Los Angeles Times (http://lat.ms/yMTCCH ).

Judge Betty Fletcher wrote in the majority opinion that the law

refers to communications containing ”any threat to kidnap any

person or any threat to injure the person of the addressee or of

another.”

Those terms mean people, not media entities, she said, according

to the San Francisco Chronicle (http://bit.ly/xCF8L3 ).

”It simply makes no sense to threaten to kidnap a corporation,

or injure `the person’ of a corporation,” Fletcher said.

Judge Raymond Fisher wrote in dissent that while the letters

were not directed at any specific person, they were a threat to the

general public.

”Unlike the majority, I see no reason to preclude liability …

when a threatening communication is addressed to, and threatens

mass murder against, a community rather than a specific

individual,” Fisher wrote.

Havelock’s lawyers said the letters were not meant as a threat,

but as a posthumous explanation, since he expected to be killed

during the attack.

Havelock, a former restaurant owner, told the FBI he was angry

over the Tempe City Council’s rejection of his liquor application,

according to court documents.

In response, he mailed an eight-page manifesto to The Associated

Press, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Phoenix New Times,

promising what he called an ”econopolitical confrontation.”

”I will not be bullied by the financial institutions and their

puppet politicians,” Havelock wrote, according to an FBI

complaint.

”I will test the theory that bullets speak louder than words.

Perhaps the blood of the inculpable will cause a paradigm shift.

… Someone has to start the revolution but no one wants to be

first.”

Havelock was sentenced to a year and a day in prison, which he

has already served.

A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in Phoenix didn’t

say whether the government would appeal Friday’s ruling, telling

the Los Angeles Times that prosecutors were ”studying the opinion

to review our options.”

—

Information from: Los Angeles Times, http://www.latimes.com

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