Legal jeopardy for advocating assassination of an unspecified evil leader? Is there any legal jeopardy today in a Western democracy for saying that it would be right to assassinate an unspecified evil leader, for instance, one engaging in a genocide like the Holocaust? I live in a Western democracy, i.e., western Europe or North America. Whatever you think of particular leader here, we are not experiencing a literal Nazi-scale Holocaust. So nothing here implies harm to any Western nation or its leaders today. Furthermore, there are Western nations that pursue and assassinate leaders of terrorist organizations, using a &quot;decaptitation strategy&quot; to weaken them. Therefore, it would seem safe to agree with policies that one's own government is employing. But there could still be legal jeopardy through some channel that I am not aware of. That is my question. I see here a reference to a law which might bear on this, but the interpretations given there are are very broad, and free speech considerations might tip the scales in favor of permitting what I am suggesting. To clarify, I am not asking these things: I am not asking whether a truly evil leader or regime would tolerate such talk. Clearly they would not. Of course my nation's leadership could change, putting someone in jeopardy in the future. I am not asking whether assassination of an evil leader would be politically expedient. Historians and political scientists argue endlessly over whether removing Hitler would have allowed a more skilled military leader to assume power, whether it would have shortened WWII, etc., or whether the &quot;decapitation strategy&quot; works at all. I am not asking if assassination is ethical. My focus here is only on legal jeopardy in saying that truly evil leaders like Hitler or Stalin should be assassinated.
In the United States, at least, it's quite clear that merely arguing that the assassination of a leader would be a good policy decision is protected by the First Amendment. The United States Supreme Court addressed this question in Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U.S. 378 (1987). McPherson was a clerical employee in a sheriff's office when someone attempted to assassinate President Reagan. During a conversation about Reagan's attempts to cut food stamps and Medicaid, she told a co-worker, &quot;If they go for him again, I hope they get him.&quot; The sheriff fired her for the remark, and she sued, alleging First Amendment retaliation. The trial court held that her remarks were not constitutionally protected, but the Supreme Court disagreed: The statement was made in the course of a conversation addressing the policies of the President's administration. It came on the heels of a news bulletin regarding what is certainly a matter of heightened public attention: an attempt on the life of the President. While a statement that amounted to a threat to kill the President would not be protected by the First Amendment, the District Court concluded, and we agree, that McPherson's statement did not amount to a threat punishable under 18 U.S.C. § 871(a) or 18 U.S.C. § 2385, or, indeed, that could properly be criminalized at all. ... The inappropriate or controversial character of a statement is irrelevant to the question whether it deals with a matter of public concern. ... Debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials. Note also that this case arose in the context of public-employee discipline, where First Amendment rights can be quite seriously curtailed. If the First Amendment protects the statements in that setting, imposing criminal penalties for the same speech is generally going to be out of the question.
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.
If you wrote for example "I had thoughts about taking the axe from my garage and decapitating my neighbour", and your neighbour read that, he would reasonably be worried and contact the police. I would take that as a death threat, and the death threat is by itself illegal. There would be some range where I could claim that you were making a death threat and making excuses to avoid legal responsibility. You can have all the thoughs you like, you can write them into your private diary where nobody can read them, but as soon as you publish it, it becomes "speech" and some speech is illegal.
He will be thrown out of office (the "except in case of impeachment" clause means the president cannot immunize a person against impeachment); because he was pardoned by POTUS, he will not be charged of the crime that he was pardoned for – the prosecution does not get a chance to argue anything. They might however prosecute him for some other offense not covered by the pardon (if POTUS forgets a sweeping statement like "any and all crimes related to X"). I don't think a prosecutor is likely to try to argue that the Constitution means "the president cannot pardon a person who has been impeached".
If I want to protest for or against President Trump and decide to wear a Trump mask, isn't that speech protected by the first amendment? Probably. The matter of intent, in any event, is for a court to decide (if the prosecutor determines that the question should even be presented to a court). For example, someone seeking to rob a bank in a mask would probably fall afoul of this law, and it's not likely that using a mask of a political figure would enable a successful first-amendment defense. For a political protestor, it could be easy to show that the intent was to make a political statement and not to conceal identity, in which case it would not be necessary to consider the constitutional question, for a critical element of the crime would be missing. That is, if you say "I wasn't trying to hide my identity," and the court believes you, then you haven't violated the statute. That is a separate question from whether the statute is constitutional. For the law itself to be unconstitutional, it would have to be unconstitutional in every application, generally. If some applications of the law are unconstitutional, the law could stand, but prosecutions for the unconstitutional application would not succeed.
They never legally existed According to True West magazine, no government ever issued a wanted poster containing the phrase “dead or alive”. The iconic posters were promulgated by private organisations railroads, Wells Fargo, Pinkerton etc. No doubt, if challenged, those organisations would argue that they were simply stating the terms under which the reward would be paid, not encouraging or condoning unlawful killing. Pre-modern societies had the legal concept of the “outlaw” which meant someone who was outside the protection of the law - they had no rights and anyone could do literally anything to them without legal consequence. It was effectively a death sentence. The legal use of outlaw is different from the colloquial use meaning a criminal. However, it had disappeared from use under English law (even if it was still theoretically possible) before the split with America and the due process clause would likely prevent its return. It was reintroduced in the Australian colonies to deal with frontier bushrangers where a magistrate could issue a warrant requiring a person to present themselves by a stated date or be declared outlaw. Even so, in practice most outlaws were apprehended and tried rather than shot on sight.
One example is Sweden. Ebba Busch, the leader of the Christian Democrat party, accepted an order of summary punishment for writing in a Facebook post that the lawyer of her opponent in a real estate dispute has a criminal conviction, which is true. She said, &quot;I admit having committed a crime, that I in my soul and heart consider myself innocent of. [...] But in Sweden, even the truth can be libel.&quot; A professor of civil law commented: &quot;I'm a bit worried that there could be a campaign for true statements on social media always to be permitted, it would amount to terrible consequences and a negative development. In Sweden, libel law has been used to counteract spreading of revenge porn and sex videos of young women. Truth is not unimportant, it is taken into account in the libel process. It would be a negative development if it became allowed to spread everything that is true, in that case you'd need a more precise proposal about how you would permit certain actions and not others.&quot;
(I am not your lawyer. I am not here to help you. If you are reading this because someone has died, please stop and instead read the Scottish Courts and Tribunals guide to dealing with a deceased's estate in Scotland, or contact a solicitor.) Yes, in general. Section 1 of the Wills Act 1963, which is in force in Scotland, specifies that "[a] will shall be treated as properly executed if its execution conformed to the internal law in force in the territory where it was executed." Furthermore, Section 4 states that "[t]he construction of a will shall not be altered by reason of any change in the testator’s domicile after the execution of the will." "Construction" here refers to interpreting the language and effect of the will. So if the will was validly executed in England, it should also be in force in Scotland, and a Scottish court will give it the same meaning it would have had under English law. Furthermore, the same rule of validity seems to apply in both England and Scotland: Wills Act 1837 section 9. There may be other Scottish laws affecting the disposition of the estate that differ from English law. Relevant statutes include Succession (Scotland) Act 1964, section 21A, which seems consistent with Wills Act 1963. (I am trained in U.S. rather than English or Scottish law; I'm trusting the accuracy of the UK's excellent online legislation archive for the proposition that the statutes cited are in force in Scotland. I haven't checked the case law for contrary interpretations.)