What the hell is going on in Massachusetts?
Nobody needs to be reminded about the Boston Marathon tragedy, and many of you heard about Cameron D’Ambrosio from Methuen, MA, who was taken into police custody in response to a Facebook post and threatened with over two decades in prison for making “criminal terroristic threats”. I’m sure many, like myself, read about his case and assumed that they would “catch and release” him and put it out of mind. After all, it’s not really that shocking for an 18-year-old high school kid who aspires to be a hip hop artist to say stupid things.
This was what he wrote:
All you haters keep my fuckin’ name outcha mouths, got it? what the fuck I gotta do to get some props and shit huh? Ya’ll wanme to fucking kill somebody? What the fuck do these fucking demons want from me? Fucking bastards I ain’t no longer a person, I’m not in reality. So when u see me fucking go insane and make the news, the paper, and the fuckin federal house of horror known as the white house, Don’t fucking cry or be worried because all YOU people fucking caused this shit. Fuck a boston bominb wait till u see the shit I do, I’ma be famous rapping, and beat every murder charge that comes across me!
There is an argument that the reactions of Methuen High School’s associate principal James Weymouth were reasonable when he contacted the school’s police detail. Patrolman James Mellor, who was assigned to the school, picked up Cameron around 1:30pm on May 1. He states that Cameron was “polite and cooperative during and after the arrest.”
Now, I would not be one of those to agree with this reaction by the school, but I’m not inclined to fault them for being hyper-sensitive, either. The fiasco unfolding now in the courts is another story entirely.
May 9 Cameron stood before Judge Lynn Rooney at Lawrence District Courthouse. The “honorable” Judge Rooney, who has sworn to the Oath, denied bail for Cameron and ordered him held up to 90 days, pending felony charges of “Communicating Terroristic Threats.”
“I believe the behavior here has been escalating,” she said after reviewing a half dozen records of police and probation reports prosecutors submitted at the hearing. “And it’s very troubling.”
The record included a scuffle with his sister the previous year and a fight in 2006 where “CammyDee” bit the other boy. The police did respond to the incident with his sister, and that sister had already dropped those charges prior to May 1 and is more than willing to testify on behalf of her brother. [What do a schoolyard fight seven years ago and a scuffle a year ago do to show “escalation”? – Ed.]
Cameron was denied bail, and 20 civil liberties activists from the ACLU of Massachusetts, the Center for Rights, Digital Fourth, the Defend the Fourth Coalition and the general public attended a hearing on Monday. The tech activist group Fight for the Future has mounted an online petition that already has over 90,000 signatures from people worried about the kind of precedent locking Cameron up will set. Next for Cameron, his probable cause hearing has been continued to June 25 at the District Court in Lawrence.
At issue here is the First Amendment, and the limitations thereof. The 1969 Supreme Court case Brandenburg v. Ohio set out that merely inflammatory speech could not be criminalized. To be criminal, speech has to present a prospect of “imminent lawless action”, which does not include speech that “amount[s] to nothing more than advocacy of illegal action at some indefinite future time” (Hess v. Indiana, 1973). Given how non-specific Cameron’s rap lyrics are, and that they are not directed against any named person, it’s hard to see how his words could be criminal. Geoffrey DuBosque, the defense attorney assigned to D’Ambrosio, argued in court that vague lyrics did not threaten any specific person, persons, or places, and did not meet the criteria set forth in state statute. A full search was done of his property, and apparently yielded nothing.
What precedent stands to be set if Cameron actually goes to trial for using (as he recounts) “an absolute terrible choice of words”? Should someone be charged as a terrorist for a lyric like this?
[Article originally posted at Digital Fourth; reposted to BMG with updates by permission of the author, Garret Kirkland of the Defend the Fourth Coalition. Contact Garret if you’d like to get involved in the campaign to free Cameron.]
“an 18-year-old high school kid” isn’t responsible for the stuff he posts – you’re kidding right? He can register to vote and cast a vote about any candidate from municipal to president but he can’t be held responsible for this –
” Fuck a boston bominb wait till u see the shit I do,”.
He has a history of violent action (dismiss it all you like but then tell what should trigger a review after a threat?) and then he posted a threat with a brag he would get away with murder.
Just because you are dumb enough to post something threating after an attack that killed and injured hundreds of people doeesn’t mean the police and courts shouldn’t take you seriously. You get to say what you want but you also get to be held responsible for what you say.
Me – I’ll save my outrage for issues like taking DNA without permission to build a database.
Cameron will have his day in court. That sounds fair to me.
He wrote rap lyrics. He wrote a freaking song. Terrorism entails causing terror. The Boston Marathon bombings don’t even pass some “it’s violent and criminal, but is it terrorism?” tests.
He didn’t threaten anyone.
He didn’t threaten to do anything in particular.
He didn’t attempt to coerce an action from an actor.
He has no apparent religious, political, or other ideological motivation.
There is no public evidence that he’s been conspiring to commit a crime.
There is no public evidence that he’s been acquiring materials to perform a terrorist action.
He doesn’t even state that he wants to commit violence, but rather that he expresses concern that he might go insane and commit heinous acts.
And again, it’s a song for God’s sake. No different than a self portrait of him wearing a straight jacket but still blowing up a train stadium.
Of course it was. But then, I remember being 18 and dumb.
Nobody got hurt; there’s no evidence that he was actually planning to hurt anybody; and that’s after a thorough search of his home.
I’m not saying there should have been no response. It’s natural for the school to get worried and even to have the local cops check it out. But threatening him with 20 years in jail for something that is wholly speech-related and non-specific is not only irrational but unconstitutional as well.
18 is a pretty common black and white distinction between adult and child. Fair or foul, reasonable or not, I’ve never heard of somebody over 18 being tried as a child.
If he were 30 you’d be making every other argument in his favor exactly the same way. He’s an adult from a legal perspective, harping in him being only 18 suggests that, somehow, were he older these severe actions would be somehow more reasonable.
…but not in terms of sentencing. It’s common for judges to be a little gentler on younger defendants. While statutes don’t recognize any distinction between an 18-year-old and a 30-year-old at sentencing, a judge may.
This is supported also by developments in neuroscience that suggest that the frontal lobe of the brain, especially in boys, does not fully mature until the mid-twenties; this is the part of the brain that deals most with judgment and impulse control. So charging someone for a Facebook post is still crazy, but it’s easier to understand what d’Ambrosio did knowing that he is 18.
Sounds like his sister and some boy got hurt by this kid.He is certainly not a terrorist and I do not want any Patriot Act abuses rendered against him, but it sounds like the school officials and police acted responsibly and a fair judgment might convince this kid to stop acting out and start acting responsibly. No crime was committed here, but he is definitely a ticking time bomb if he is not given probation and help now. Let the justice system work, doesn’t sound like it’s broken here.
If he’s 18 now, he was about 11 when he bit a kid’s ear. You’re using a fight when the kid was 11 years old as proof that he has a history of “acting out” and is a “ticking time bomb” if he doesn’t get the help he clearly needs, based on your zero medical or psychological training, your zero minutes spent with the kid, and the zero lines of his criminal or medical records you’ve read?
Sorry man, there’s no way that denying this dude bail is evidence that the justice system is working in this case. It’s clearly broken.
But it sounds like he assaulted his sister recently. Listen, I respect what the ACLU does and what it is doing here, and I concede the judge may have Ben too harsh with the bail. A house arrest or electronic bracelet would suffice. But a discussion about constitutional rights has to be nuanced, as Kirth said below, and while some rights may have been violated here, it was not unreasonable to begin the initial investigation or take him into custody.
and, if memory serves me, the diarist pointed out the reasonableness of public safety officials ensuring that the young man’s comments aren’t an indication of a legitimate threat. I’m not even upset that they searched his house.
But look, they’ve apparently got nothing. A preliminary investigation, including a search of property may well be prudent. Following that though, making the man sit in jail for 90 days pending a hearing is outrageous.
…it’s right here.
http://warrantless.org/2013/05/dna/
However, the post absolutely strikes me as threatening and in light of the various school shootings and the like I think the action was appropriate. This is a case of shouting fire in a crowded theater and hiding behind the first amendment doesn’t impress me in this case.
This thread is a terrific illustration of the flexible rights phenomenon. Persons who espouse Constitutional rights as inviolable suddenly use their personal feelings about the circumstances or person in a particular case to justify prosecution, even when presented with a Supreme Court decision that clearly applies. The language of that decision is clear and specific. To ignore it because something “strikes you as threatening,” or advocate imposing probation while in the same breath admitting “no crime was committed” indicates a truly profound misunderstanding of the nature of Constitutional rights.
It does nothing useful to uphold rights only in cases where everyone agrees the subject is protected. It’s the cases that make us uncomfortable that are where the rights come alive and actually perform their function. Those are the ones that separate the real defenders of the Constitution from the fair-weather friends.
Let the system work. After all it’s not like the idea of investigating threats is new. If you make jokes about bombs in airports it will attract the TSA’s attention. If you make threats against the President, expect the Secret Service to be in touch. This falls squarely into the same category. The first amendment gives you the right to express an opinion no matter how taboo. It does not give you the right to threaten.
It has been investigated. No crime was committed or is imminent, or even likely. Why is the kid being punished? Because he had a fight with his sister “recently?” If there’s something criminal there, bring charges for that. The Facebook entry shows a possible lack of good judgement, but no actual threat is in it. They’ve got nothing, so they’re using this Patriot-act BS to persecute him. We’re losing the Land of the Free and becoming the Home of the Cowardly.
and the kid’s record that we’re not seeing, this is crap. A school would have suspended him pending a hearing on how likely he was to carry out such a threat.
Bail is to prevent people from running or it they present a danger to the public. The first concern can be dealt with using an electronic bracelet. The second has to be left up to the judge. DA’s and ADA’s often overcharge defendants for career reasons. And if the kid lacked effective counsel…
I remember when I was in college, some idiots at UMass took out a classified ad looking for someone to kill President Reagan. They were visited by law enforcement, but not jailed, even though Reagan had already survived an assassination attempt. The salience of an crime doesn’t mean an increased risk of it happening.
Our legal system is playing the terrorism card for a long time. Too long.
As our media continues to saturate us with sentimental crap about the Marathon Bombing, the relentless assault on our civil liberties intensifies. The spiral of hysteria, fear, and increased “security” tightens. While this story unfolds, we should not lose sight of the FBI shooting of an unarmed man in custody in Florida.
How many of us do anything more than a mild eye-roll and cluck-cluck when we learn that the fusillade of gunfire that nearly killed the remaining suspect in the Marathon Bombing was a “mistake” and that the victim was, in fact, unarmed, bleeding, and near death? Or that the Transit officer nearly killed in the original confrontation was hit by friendly fire — as hundreds and hundreds of rounds were fired during the massive display of overwhelming force?
It’s not surprising that the mainstream media continue to flog the several invented “scandals” — heaven forbid that too many people pay attention to the systematic dismantling of our most fundamental constitutional rights.
Grand jury rejects indictment of teen arrested for rap lyrics (Rolling Stone magazine)