Discussing Liberally Salt Lake City

To: letters@nytimes.com
Cc:
Subject: Justice In Jena - OpEd - Sep 26
Date: 09/27/2007
Time: 1:35 PM EDT
Attachments:


Letters to the Editor
The New York Times
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10018

To The Editor:

Reed Walters, the District Attorney (“Justice in Jena” – Op-Ed – 9/26/2007), attempts to justify his prosecution of African-American high school students, five of whom were charged with second-degree murder despite being minors, while refraining from prosecuting their white class-mates who, in the dead of night, hung nooses from the branches of a “white only” tree on their campus beneath which an African-American had dared to sit.

Mr. Walters attempts to justify his “free pass” for the white students by claiming that they did not break any law.

As an attorney entering his fifth decade of practicing law, I can testify that the first-year curriculum of virtually all law schools still contains a course in criminal law. It teaches that “assault” and “battery” are two different crimes – battery is the infliction of bodily harm and assault is the mere threat of such harm.

Mr. Walters failed to explain why the nooses did not constitute a threat of death, much less bodily harm.

John S. Karls
JD, Harvard Law School, 1967
Harvard Club – Box 126
27 West 44th Street
New York, NY 10036
917-270-xxxx

From: letters@nytimes.com [Add to Address Book]
Cc:
Subject: The New York Times - automated reply
Date: 09/27/2007
Time: 1:36 PM EDT
Attachments:

Thank you for your letter to The New York Times.

(Voluminous irrelevant information omitted.)

Sincerely, The New York Times

Fax = 01-212-556-3622

Subject on Fax Cover Sheet in 20-Point Bold = Your Defamion of the Law

To The Editor:

The first five of the six “Letters to the Editor” that you printed this morning are based on the false premise propagated by the District Attorney (“Justice in Jena” - Op.Ed. – Sep. 26) that the law does not prohibit assault (as explained in my attached “Letter to the Editor” which you rejected, “battery” is the infliction of bodily harm and “assault” is the mere threat of such harm).

Indeed, the NYU history professor who wrote the first letter was on the right track by stating that “Hanging a noose constitutes nothing less than a threat of murder…” but then disgraces herself by “buying the line” of the District Attorney in stating that “The absence of laws proscribing murderous threats of lynching…”

Incidentally, your fourth "Letter to the Editor" falsely implies that "Freedom of Speech" has no exceptions. I can assure you that "shouting fire in a crowded theater" does in fact comprise a crime that is not protected by the Constitution, and that assault (which almost always comprises solely "speech") is likewise not protected by the Constitution.

If you are going to print “Letters to the Editor” that relate to a legal subject, then you should have someone who knows something about the law do the selection – rather than defaming the law itself due to your ignorance.

Sincerely yours,

John S. Karls, Esq.
JD, Harvard Law School, 1967
Who’s Who in American Law, 1988-2003
Who’s Who in America, 1988-2003
Who’s Who in the World, 1994-2003