- Lonny Rae doesn't deny he used the N-word last October
and attached it to a threat he uttered against a black man who scuffled
with his wife, who, like Rae, is white. But he says he doesn't deserve
to be locked up for five years because of it.
-
- Prosecutors in Adams County, Idaho, however, feel differently,
and have charged Rae with disturbing the peace and felony malicious harassment,
a crime punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
-
- It's a case that has inflamed passions in this rural
Idaho county and illustrates just how hard it can be to interpret laws
against hate, determining when the line is crossed from angry, bigoted
speech that's protected under the Constitution to a criminal statement.
-
- For Lonny and his wife, Kimberly, at least, it's an obvious
case of an angry man who chose some inappropriate words that he had no
real intention of carrying out.
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- Bad Calls?
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- The Raes and their lawyer, Edgar Steele, say that it
all started as Kimberly Rae, who said she worked as a bookkeeper, production
editor, reporter and sports editor for the Adams County Record, was covering
a football game the local high school team lost, thereby ending the team's
chances in the state playoffs.
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- Rae said she wanted to take a photograph of the trio
of referees brought in from Boise who worked the game because she thought
they had determined the outcome.
-
- "A lot of penalties were called throughout the game
and I decided I was going to include that perspective in my stories,"
she said.
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- She said she left her husband at their truck to get a
photo as the referees went into the locker room. She had already snapped
one picture when one of the refs asked her not to take their picture, so
she turned to rejoin her husband, she said.
-
- She hadn't gotten more than a few steps away, though,
when one of the referees, who was black, grabbed at her camera and tried
to take it away from her, she said. She wouldn't give it up, and the referee,
who stood a foot taller than Kimberly and outweighed her by more than a
hundred pounds, wrestled with her to get it.
-
- "One of the other referees was telling him to 'let
her go, it ain't worth it,'" she said
-
- She started screaming for her husband, who came running
from their truck, some hundred yards away.
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- Angry Words
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- "As I approached, he [the referee] raised his hands
up and said, 'I ain't touched her. I ain't touched her.' The other referees
said, 'He ain't touched her,'" Lonny said. "I told him to keep
his damn hands off my wife and she said, 'Don't you ever put your hands
on me again.'"
-
- While the referees went on into the locker room, the
Raes said, Lonny asked his wife what happened and she showed him burn marks
on her neck from the camera strap. Lonny Rae said he was furious, and went
after the man who had tried to get the camera.
-
- He found Adams County Commissioner Ray Stoker at the
door to the locker room.
-
- "I looked at him and I said, 'You bring that n-----
up here. I want to kick his f---ing ass,'" Lonny Rae said. "He
looked at me and said, 'Yeah, sure you will, Lonny.'"
-
- Lonny said it was clear to Stoker that he was angry,
and not likely to do harm to the referee, who is larger than Lonny.
-
- Lonny took his wife home, and he said they called the
police, who took a statement and took a photograph of the injury to her
neck. Later that night he took his wife to the hospital, where she was
treated for the injury and given painkillers, he said.
-
- Neither the Adams County sheriff's office nor Stoker
returned calls requesting comments on the incident. The editor of the Adams
County Record, Tim Hohs, said the account given by the Raes "generally"
conformed to what his paper's investigation found.
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- Reading the Law
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- Lonny called the county sheriff the next day, and was
told the decision on how to proceed would be made by the county prosecutor.
Apparently the decision wasn't one that could be made quickly. Six weeks
later police called him and told him to come in.
-
- Lonny learned then that prosecutors had an entirely different
take on his altercation. "They said I'd been arrested for malicious
harassment and disturbing the peace," Lonny said, explaining he'd
been charged with a misdemeanor. No charges were filed against the referee.
-
- Prosecutors reconsidered again, however, and decided
just before Lonny's scheduled trial in March that the man's actions were
more serious, and raised the charges to a felony. His new trial is scheduled
for this fall.
-
- "It's a matter of reading through the statute of
the written law and seeing if the facts result in what you believe is a
violation of the statutory law," said Myron Gabbert, the Adams County
prosecutor. "These steps have been taken with regard to Mr. Rae. Under
the facts as they are alleged to have occurred, the thought is that Mr.
Rae has offended Idaho laws."
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- Lonny's attorney, Steele, who has represented the white
separatist group Aryan Nation, says the charges have less to do with the
law than officials who are overly sensitive to characterizations that Idaho
is a haven for white racists. He says Rae is being scapegoated for the
sake of the state's image.
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- Gabbert strongly denies the charge. "This office
would not prosecute or level charges against anyone without feeling there
was a basis under the laws of Idaho," he said.
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- A Difficult Debate
-
- The case is one likely to attract the attention of scholars
and legal experts. Attempts to legislate so-called hate speech have proved
more complicated than making crimes out of acts motivated by racial, ethnic,
religious or gender hatred. In 1992, the Supreme Court ruled in R.A.V.
vs. City of St. Paul, that "fighting words" can be regulated,
but only "so long as the selective prescription is not based on content,
or there is no realistic possibility that regulation of ideas is afoot."
-
- According to UCLA Law School professor Eugene Volokh,
a specialist in the First Amendment who was one of the legal advisers on
California's Proposition 209 anti-race-preference ballot measure, the ruling
by the court could raise questions about the Idaho law.
-
- If the jury believes the Raes' account, he said, the
constitutionality of the law might not matter, though, Volokh said.
-
- "Assuming the facts are right, the fact that he
used the word may just mean that was just the word that came to mind when
he wanted to insult this person," Volokh said. "In that case,
the jury would have to acquit. That just would not be covered by the statute."
-
- Despite that, Volokh said it is clearly understandable
why the referee might want to see Lonny prosecuted.
-
- "You have to sympathize with the victim here, the
ref, even if he erred in some way in dealing with this woman. Then he hears
this guy threatening him and he may feel he really meant it," Volokh
said. "When somebody is threatening to beat you up, it doesn't matter
whether it's because of race or whatever."
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- A Question of Motive
-
- Steele, the Raes' attorney, said he has filed a civil
lawsuit against the referee, which won't go to trial before next year.
In the meantime, he is focused on clearing Lonny.
-
- "What Lonny Rae said that cold night last October
wasn't right, but it wasn't criminal," he said.
-
- The Idaho statute on malicious harassment reads: "It
shall be unlawful for any person, maliciously and with the specific intent
to intimidate or harass another person because of that person's race, color,
religion, ancestry, or national origin, to: (a) Cause physical injury to
another person; or (b) Damage, destroy, or deface any real or personal
property of another person; or (c) Threaten, by word or act, to do the
acts prohibited if there is reasonable cause to believe that any of the
acts described in subsections (a) and (b) of this section will occur."
-
- What was at issue here, according to Lonny and his attorney,
was not the referee's race, but the fact that he had hurt Rae's wife.
-
- "Here's a guy in an enflamed state saying these
things, and was the intent to commit a racial slur or get at this guy personally,
any way he could?" Steele asked. "People are so sensitive to
the black eyes they've been getting one after another, and here they're
going to get another one, because this is a case I'm going to win."
-
- The referee could not be contacted in time to comment
on the case.
-
-
- Comment
-
- From Curtis Wood
tizokman@hotmail.com
8-23-1
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- Jeff,
-
- A turning point in the timeline of American freedom...hate-speech
laws are now upon us. Man calls wife's attacker the "n-word"
so is charged with a "hate-crime". Felony malicious harrassment
carries a 5 years prison sentence.
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- Please read the ABC news-story above then spare 30 seconds
to save Lonnie Rae...for the sake of justice, call the prosecuters of Adams
County, Idaho and give them your opinion:
-
- 208-253-6896 (refer to the malicious harrassment charges
against Lonnie Rae)
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- You, a family member, or a friend could be next. Please
call the prosecutors then forward this email to everyone you know.
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- All the Best,
Curtis Wood
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