Walter Bagdasarian Conviction Overturned

The La Mesa resident, who issued a racist online diatribe against Barack Obama during campaign 2008, was convicted on charges of threatening to kill a major presidential candidate. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the lower court's decision. At Los Angeles Times, "Court reverses conviction in online rant against Obama":

With the Internet now a popular forum for political discourse, courts are increasingly called upon to relocate the moving boundary between protected speech and credible threats to political figures.

The 9th Circuit recently heard testimony in another case involving an Arizona man's threats to shoot Super Bowl spectators in Phoenix eight years ago that were never carried out. The appeals court has yet to rule on whether the threat itself was a crime, even though it wasn't committed.

Peter Scheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition, said that he thought the majority "got it right" in interpreting Americans' free speech protection but that the ruling "pushes it to the limit."

"I only feel comfortable saying that having 20-20 hindsight in knowing that the threat wasn't carried out," Scheer said.

Debra Hartman, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in San Diego that brought the case against Bagdasarian, refused to comment on the case or the appeals court action.

Bagdasarian's attorney, Ezekiel E. Cortez, declined to comment or make his client available to discuss the ruling.

Bagdasarian's lucky.