How much is intentionality relevant to specific crime(s) in the US? Let's say, person A who is not fluent in English, calls somebody else (B) by a derogatory or racist name or names, which might generally fall under some law restricting such speech (eg. hate speech) and gets sued for that. Does it matter from legal perspective, if it can be proved that A either doesn't happen to know that this word is commonly understood as derogatory, or he was explicitly mislead by somebody else that it was a normal everyday word without any negative connotations, therefore, it can be proved that A didn't mean any harm to B by his speech?
In the US, there are no (and can be no) laws against hate speech. You also cannot sue a person for using an ethnic or similar epithet. A false accusation, however, might be grounds for a defamation lawsuit. Word connotations do not matter, what matters is the denotation, for example calling someone a "rapist" denotes a specific criminal act. Even calling someone a rapist isn't necessarily defamatory, since hyperbole abounds especially on the internet, so in order to actually be defamation, the statement would have to be understood as a particular accusation (a form of unlawful sexual assault). A defamatory statement has to be made with reckless disregard for the truth of a statement, which is not the case in the situation you describe (perhaps the person correctly said that so-and-so is a therapist, but was ineffective in their use of English).
Can a statement of one's beliefs constitute defamation if those beliefs can't be proven true? You might think that it is impossible to prove what's going on in your mind. But this is done all the time. Thoughts can be inferred from words and actions. For example, theft requires an intent to permanently deprive someone of property. If someone hides merchandise under their shirt and proceeds to the exit, there's generally not a reasonable doubt about whether they intended in their mind to steal it. Defamation laws vary by state. However, the First Amendment sets a baseline that all states must follow. Defamation requires a false fact. Pure opinion is not defamation. However, it is possible to defame via a statement which is an opinion, if that opinion implies undisclosed facts which are false. If you say that you "believe" the companies are deceptive, this clearly implies you know something that makes you believe that. You can get around this by disclosing the entire factual basis for your opinion. If you say that the New York Giants are deceptive because their stadium is actually located in New Jersey, that's not defamation, because people can judge for themselves whether that's actually deceptive. But if the team was actually located in New York, you could be liable. Would we still have some potential burden of proof The burden of proof is on the plaintiff, but it's only preponderance of the evidence in most cases, meaning the jury just needs to find it 50.001% likely that you are liable. But if the plaintiff in a defamation case is considered a "public figure" the standard of proof is raised, and they must prove by "clear and convincing evidence" that you acted with "actual malice" (which more or less means that you didn't actually believe what you were saying.) According to this paper it's an open question as to whether a corporation can be a public figure (although I don't know if their analysis is still valid since it's from 2001); the answer might depend on which circuit you are in, and even if you know how your circuit has decided the matter, the Supreme Court might rule the other way. And if your case goes all the way to the Supreme Court, you're going to be paying a lot of legal fees over the course of many years. You should also know that even if it's not defamation, you might not be off the hook. There's something called "tortious interference of business". If you're going to literally have people stand in front of businesses to try to drive their customers away from them and to you, I would highly suggest you get a lawyer from your area to determine whether and how you can legally do this.
That book provides advice on legal writing; it is not a source of rules for legal writing. Rather than repeatedly identifying themselves using their full name, parties customarily refer to themselves in the third person, e.g., &quot;The defendant refused to waive his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial.&quot; In practice, though, pro se litigants regularly refer to themselves in the first person, and there is no formal consequence for this.
There are not &quot;illegal thoughts&quot; in the abstract, but what you are thinking can make the difference between something being a crime or a basis for bringing a lawsuit, and actions being non-criminal or not a basis for any legal liability. If you fire someone because they are black, you've engaged in actionable employment discrimination. If you fire the same person, in the same circumstances, because you've noticed that they were late to work by 10 minutes every day this month but recorded their hours as if they came on time, you've acted legally. If you shoot someone in bear suit hovering over your toddler in your backyard at twilight believing it is a bear, you haven't committed a crime. If you realize that the person in the bear suit is your husband playing a prank and shoot anyway, you are guilty of aggravated assault or attempted murder if he lives, and murder if he doesn't. If you buy a $200 refrigerator thinking that it's a bankruptcy fire sale price, you are not guilty of anything. But, if you know that the refrigerator was stolen because you hear the store owner talking about it in the back room, you are committing the crime of trafficking in stolen goods if you buy it. If you record a song because it just comes to you when you've never heard it before, you haven't infringed a copyright. But if you've heard it (at least if you remember it) and then record it, you've infringed the copyright in the song (assuming you don't get permission to do so and the copyright is still valid, etc.). What a person committing an act is thinking is part of what must be proven in court for someone to be guilty or liable in the case of all but a small minority of crimes and torts (i.e. civil wrongs which can be the basis of a lawsuit). Often, the element that involves what you are thinking as one part of a case that must be established in court is described with the latin phrase mens rea (which translates literally as &quot;guilty mind&quot;). Conversely, sometimes thoughts are not crimes or torts unless there are actions taken in connection with the thoughts. If you carefully plan out a murder, but take no concrete actions to carry out your plan, you haven't committed a crime or tort. But, if you have planned out a murder and take significant affirmative acts to carry it out, you've committed attempted murder, even if those acts might not have constituted attempted murder if you took those actions for purposes unrelated to a plan to commit a murder. Similarly, if you imagine a seven year old having sex with you in your head, you haven't committed a crime (although if you are a sex offender, doing so might prevent you from receiving parole), but if you download or make a video depicting that act, you've committed a crime.
Relying on this version, proof of truth is only allowed in order to establish a "public interest" defense or for a "necessary defense"; but also "if an official is charged with the commission of an act in the exercise of his office". Good luck with "necessary defense". It is not a defense to say "But what I said is true". However, if the defamed person has been convicted in court of said act (the defamatory statement) then there can be no punishment.
Specifically, the threatened action is about stalking and implicit threats to his family. I'm not suggesting that there is a lot of merit to the claim, but that is how he is presenting the argument. The question would be where there is an intentional, repeated following of a person for the purpose of harassing the person with express or implied threats of violence or death. The jury would have to decide whether the implicit threat is credible (somebody plans to blow him or his family out of the sky), a decision would probably turn on the number of death threats he receives.
A statement cannot be libel unless it actually identifies the plaintiff to defame him. The identification need not be by name, but it must be specific enough that the public would be able to determine who the statement referred to. You can read more about this concept at Prof. Eugene Volokh on Libel Law Therefore, if nobody other than the plaintiff or defendant learned about the connection before the filing of the case or the publication of discovered emails, the original work of fiction was not a libel. And by telling everyone that the connection existed, yes, the plaintiff was impliedly consenting to any further alleged libel and it would be a defense from liability for the plaintiff. Furthermore, there wouldn't be libel unless whatever the fictional character did was untrue (something the real plaintiff didn't do) and the public would think that whatever the character did was actually an assertion that the real plaintiff did it. I could write a satire about a President Brock O'Bama who is actually a lizardman in disguise, and that's my First Amendment right, not a slander of the President. Disclaimer: only describing the common law and majority rules. State laws may differ.
Eugene Volokh categorizes this as "crime-facilitating speech" in his articles, "The Freedom of Speech and Bad Purposes", and "Crime-Facilitating Speech". He characterizes the situation like this: Some chemistry textbooks discuss how explosives are made, some posts to computer security discussion groups discuss security bugs in a leading operating system, and some works on criminology or forensics discuss how hard-to-solve murders are committed. May the explicitly politically connected speech be treated as more valuable than the scientific speech? The Supreme Court has never decided a case squarely involving the suppression of scientific speech, but it has repeatedly described scientific speech as constitutionally equal in value to political speech. He presents a split amongst the circuits and statutes regarding mens rea for crimes stemming from such speech. The Supreme Court has not ruled on the issue. In one example case, the 9th Circuit ruled that merely distributing computer code "with the knowledge that it would likely be used for bookmaking" could be punished. Other cases have held that speech must "purposely" rather than incidentally inform people how to commit a crime in order for that speech to be punished.