Is presenting a play showing Military characters in a bad light a crime in the US? Or does the First Admendment prevent this? This is a followup to Is it illegal to wear military surplus clothing? US Law 10 USC 771 provides that only members of the US military may wear: ...the uniform, or a distinctive part of the uniform, of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps; or a similar uniform, except as otherwise provided by law. To do so without authorization is a crime. 18 USC 702 has almost identical provisions. 10 USC 772 gives a list of exceptions: circumstances in which people not currently in the military may legally wear the uniform. Of these, paragraph (f) reads: While portraying a member of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps, an actor in a theatrical or motion-picture production may wear the uniform of that armed force if the portrayal does not tend to discredit that armed force. (emphasis added) It seems to me that the bold section would, if enforced, constitute an impermissible regulation of symbolic speech, in that it is a content-based regulation. Can it really be made criminal for an actor to portray a &quot;member of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps&quot; as a tyrant, or a bigot, or in some other way that &quot;tend[s] to discredit that armed force&quot;? There are some historical situations where an accurate portrayal might well &quot;tend to discredit&quot; a military service: For example the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam, or the Andersonville prison during the civil war, just to name two. Or a completely fictional portrayal of a modern Captain Queeg could be seen as discreditable. For the matter of that, the portrayal of the Captain in the classic WWII film Mister Roberts could be so seen. Of course, this only arises as an issue if someone tries to prosecute in such a situation. If it were, would a First Amendment defense be likely to prevail?
Yes, A First Amendment defense would apply. This is no longer a crime. Schacht In Schacht vs. United States, 398 U.S. 58 (1970) the US Supreme Court held the final clause of 10 USC 772(f) unconstitutional on just this ground. In that case anti-war protesters rehearsed and performed a skit in which soldiers shot and killed a character dressed as a member of the Vietcong, only to discover and proclaim that the character was a pregnant woman. One of them, Daniel Jay Schacht, was indicted in a United States District Court for violating 18 U.S.C. 702, ... He was tried and convicted by a jury, and on February 29, 1968, he was sentenced to pay a fine of $250 and to serve a six-month prison term, the maximum sentence allowable ... In the opinion by Justice Black, the Court held; This clause on its face simply restricts 772 (f)'s authorization to those dramatic portrayals that do not &quot;tend to discredit&quot; the military, but, when this restriction is read together with 18 U.S.C. 702, it becomes clear that Congress has in effect made it a crime for an actor wearing a military uniform to say things during his performance critical of the conduct or policies of the Armed Forces. ... ... it follows that his conviction can be sustained only if he can be punished for speaking out against the role of our Army and our country in Vietnam. Clearly punishment for this reason would be an unconstitutional abridgment of freedom of speech. The final clause of 772 (f), which leaves Americans free to praise the war in Vietnam but can send persons like Schacht to prison for opposing it, cannot survive in a country which has the First Amendment. To preserve the constitutionality of 772 (f) that final clause must be stricken from the section. Hamilton In United States vs Hamilton (2012) the US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals limited 18 U.S.C. § 702 (wearing a military uniform without authorization), and 18 U.S.C. § 704(a) and (d) (wearing military medals and other insignia without authorization). Hamilton had, among other actions, appeared at a Vietnam Veterans’ Recognition Ceremony in the dress Uniform of a Colonel of US Marines, wearing numerous medals and awards including two Navy Crosses, four Silver Stars, one Bronze Star, and seven Purple Hearts. He had in fact been medically discharged years earlier with less than 1 year of service, after an accident to his hand, with the rank of Private First Class (PFC). He had not been awarded any of the medals or decorations that he wore. (He had previously been apprehended on military bases three times wearing the uniforms of a colonel (once) and a lieutenant general (twice), but was not charged on those occasions.) The Fourth Circuit wrote: We observe that the Ninth Circuit applied such a limiting construction to Section 704(a) in United States v. Perelman, holding that the statute created a criminal offense prohibiting the unauthorized wearing of military medals only when the wearer &quot;has an intent to deceive.&quot; (658 F.3d at 1137-38) In our view, the imposition of a limiting construction requiring an &quot;intent to deceive&quot; is appropriate with respect to both Sections 702 and 704(a). ... Accordingly, we hold that persons violate the insignia statutes if they wear a military uniform without authorization, or wear military medals or imitations of such medals, respectively, only when they do so with the intent to deceive. The Fourth Circuit went on to hold these provisions constitutional when so limited, and to uphold the convictions under them, quoting Schacht is support of this holding.
In US Law, banning speech based on its content is called &quot;Content-based&quot; speech regulation (shocking, I know), as opposed to &quot;Content-neutral&quot; speech regulation like requiring all protests to end before a specific time. Content-based speech regulation can be constitutional if it passes strict scrutiny, but in the case of banning swastikas, it would fall under an even narrower subset of content-based speech regulation called &quot;viewpoint regulation.&quot; I haven't found a case where the swastika or Nazi flag was banned in particular, but we can find reasoning that appears to safely protect the peaceful display of the Nazi flag and ideology from government restriction in Police Dept. of City of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92 (1972), a case in which Chicago banned picketing within 150 feet of a school except in the case of labor disputes related to the school. The Supreme Court found that this amounted to viewpoint-based discrimination, writing in the majority opinion: But, above all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content Necessarily, then, under the Equal Protection Clause, not to mention the First Amendment itself, government may not grant the use of a forum to people whose views it finds acceptable, but deny use to those wishing to express less favored or more controversial views. And it may not select which issues are worth discussing or debating in public facilities. There is an &quot;equality of status in the field of ideas,&quot; and government must afford all points of view an equal opportunity to be heard. Once a forum is opened up to assembly or speaking by some groups, government may not prohibit others from assembling or speaking on the basis of what they intend to say. Selective exclusions from a public forum may not be based on content alone, and may not be justified by reference to content alone. As with all rights restrictions, a particular restriction may be Constitutional if it passes &quot;strict scrutiny,&quot; namely, it: is necessary to a &quot;compelling state interest&quot;; is &quot;narrowly tailored&quot; to achieving this compelling purpose; and uses the &quot;least restrictive means&quot; to achieve the purpose. In general, a ban on the peaceful display of Nazi imagery or promotion of Nazi ideas would fail the first test, as the government does not have a compelling interest to suppress ideas which might be distasteful to some or even the majority of people. I have seen an argument that because the Nazi regime's stated goal included genocide, that promoting that ideology amounts to advocating violence. Speech which advocates violence or criminality may be criminalized, but only under a specific &quot;imminent lawless action&quot; test expressed in Brandenburg v. Ohio: Freedoms of speech and press do not permit a State to forbid advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action. This case was brought against a KKK member who advocated various violent acts at a rally. The main distinction is that his speech did not call for specific violence, but merely advocated for it in general. This almost exactly mirrors the rationale for banning the Nazi ideology based on its advocacy of violence, and shows that a ban on such grounds would be unconstitutional. &quot;Imminent&quot; was clarified in Hess v. Indiana to mean that the action must be intended to produce actual lawless action at a specific point in the future, not simply advocate for it in general. Hess was a protester who was being forced off a street by police, said &quot;We'll take the fucking street later&quot; and was convicted of disorderly conduct for it, which the court reversed as his statement &quot;amounted to nothing more than advocacy of illegal action at some indefinite future time&quot; and was therefore protected by the First Amendment.
Whether or not a war between political entities can result from some action is completely political and strategic, and not legal. The specific incident is probably legal, given US and international law regarding military action. Unless the order was self-evidently unlawful there is no possibility of arrest and prosecution under US law, however there might be a framework for legal action by Iran, if e.g. a drone operator were to fall into Iranian hands. The specifics of the order are not generally known, though we know that DoD states that this was due to a presidential order. This article discusses targeted killing from a legal perspective. In the context of war, killing is legal though not entirely unregulated. There was a failed attempt to sue the US in the case Al-Aulaqi v. Panetta, which involved a targeted killing of a US citizen involved in planning terrorist attacks, a suit which was dismissed. One problem is that the suit "failed to state a 4th Amendment claim", and also failed to state a 5th Amendment due process claim since Al–Aulaqi's deaths was unanticipated. The court notes that a Bivens claim allows damage action against a federal officer for violation of clearly-established constitutional rights. However, No case has discussed precisely whether a plaintiff can proceed on a Bivens action that claims deprivation of life without due process based on the overseas killing by United States officials of a U.S. citizen deemed to be an active enemy. In the discussion, the question arises whether special circumstances counsel hesitation (Doe v. Rumsfeld and citations therein), which the Doe court notes would "require a court to delve into the military's policies", and they will not do that lightly. All of this is about US citizens. Soleimani was not a US citizen.
That is not a valid assumption. Many states have laws that let you presume someone is a threat to your life if they forcibly enter your house. Simple trespass on your land does not let you reasonably presume someone is a murderer. An autonomous killer drone is not a comparison you want to make: those may be illegal entirely, and are likely to seriously hurt any claim of justifiable force. “You forfeit your right to live when you set foot on my property” is not justifiable. If the dogs are trained to be a hazard to the community, that’s an argument in favor of having them confiscated and destroyed. Dogs are not people. Under normal circumstances, they cannot be protected under self-defense or the defense of others. Those doctrines only apply when a person is in danger. Deadly force is sometimes allowed to protect property, but this tends to be strictly limited. To start with, you can only ever use force to prevent illegal damage to property. If your concern is “this animal control officer will destroy my dogs within the scope of their duty,” that’s not protecting against an illegal use of force. Deadly force in defense of property is also normally limited to particular crimes that are inherently dangerous, like arson, robbery, or burglary. Even in Texas, simple theft only justifies deadly force during the nighttime. Deadly force is also not justifiable if there were reasonable other options. Shooting an animal control officer is unlikely to be the only way to temporarily stop them from destroying a dog. Threatening violence in order to influence a judge’s decision is terrorism. This hypothetical man is a terrorist. He may well find himself on death row for murder, but he’s also going to face separate charges for terrorism.
It's illegal if the intent is to deceive. Under S50(1) of the Police Act 1996: Any person who with intent to deceive impersonates a member of a police force or special constable, or makes any statement or does any act calculated falsely to suggest that he is such a member or constable, shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, or to both. Their intent would need to be proven. It will be fact-specific; in some cases far easier to prove than in others. The criminal justice system is overburdened and underfunded so it is no surprise that these trolling videos are given no priority whatsoever. Further complicating the matter is the need to correctly identify the individual to prosecute. Doing so would require a fair amount of police time, time that could perhaps be spent on more urgent priorities given the relative lack of harm these videos are doing compared to more serious crimes. However, in this video (Would You Help a Police Officer Having An Asthma Attack?) an S50(2) offence would seem to have been committed by the actor wearing the police clothing: Any person who, not being a constable, wears any article of police uniform in circumstances where it gives him an appearance so nearly resembling that of a member of a police force as to be calculated to deceive shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale. It does appear that both offences are being committed in these various videos, and the only reason people aren't being prosecuted is practical: there are more serious crimes to focus on, and the police would need to identify who exactly committed this crime--given these all happened at least two years ago, it would be challenging to say the least. They also seem to commit the separate crime of wasting police time, for example by approaching cops in the street and falsely confessing to crimes. Under S5(2) of the Criminal Law Act 1967, wasting police time is a criminal offence. Bringing proceedings in court requires the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) since those proceedings could have a chilling effect on the propensity of the public to report genuine matters to the police in the future. It is likely that while &quot;wasteful employment&quot; of police time was caused by these people, so committing the offence, it is likely viewed simply as &quot;part and parcel&quot; of the job and the officer likely didn't spend any time at all investigating the confessions (depending on their nature). Of course, even if the officer did spend time investigating the false confessions, the DPP would need to give their consent so unless the person has a demonstrated history of doing this (that would stand up in court) or the time wasted was of a particularly serious nature (e.g. the man who falsely claimed to be the Yorkshire Ripper), it seems unlikely consent would be granted.
There is no crime of "police misconduct" in the US, but murder or theft are certainly crimes which would qualify as "police misconduct". To take a real case, an officer in Georgia was convicted of aggravated assault, violating oath of office, and making a false statement (not murder, though he did kill the victim). In principle, he would also be liable in a lawsuit by the victim's family. However, these would be separate legal processes, the criminal prosecution being conducted by and at the discretion of the government prosecutor, and the monetary lawsuit being conducted by and at the discretion of the victim's family (on behalf of the victim). It is possible that an officer will be convicted yet not found civilly liable, or vice versa; or both, or neither. The victim (or family) doesn't necessarily have any connection to the criminal case, although they typically can testify during the sentencing phase. In some jurisdictions (e.g. California), the victim has a right to testify at a sentencing hearing. The result of a lawsuit can never be imprisonment – that has to come from criminal prosecution, and criminal prosecution does not result in a monetary reward to the victim (any criminal fine goes to the government).
Police officers are authorized to use force regardless of what they are wearing, to effect an arrest. One issue will be whether the defendants should know that they were under arrest, but there is no requirement to utter particular phrases when dealing with a combative lawbreaker. There will be an internal investigation at some level to determine whether the officers violated any department policy, and no doubt the video and testimony of those in the are would be relevant. There probably is some policy to the effect that you have to distinguish yourself from a street vigilante (you have to state your authority), though I can't find any specific online publicly-available department rules. There is no law that requires an officer to say that he is one, or to show his badge, before starting an arrest.
Some parts of his personnel file are improper to disclosure, although mere data on his history of promotions is probably not among those private parts of the file, as his rank would be widely available information displayed on his uniform every single day and probably publicized in every public communication he had with anyone. Every promotion is a commissioned officer is actually printed in an act of Congress, since all commissioned officer promotions must be approved by Congress. In any case, generally speaking, in U.S. law, liability for disclosure of classified information extends only to the person who improperly obtained that information, not to the person who published it, as the Pentagon Papers case attests.