CDR: RE: Make legal threats, go to jail for 20 years cpunk

[Trei, Peter]

> Declan McCullagh[SMTP:declan at well.com] wrote:
> 
> This is from a bill that both the House and Senate passed (yesterday):
> 
> Whoever knowingly provides or obtains the labor or services of a 
> person...by means of the abuse or threatened abuse of law or the legal
> process,
> shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or
> both.
> 
> URL: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d106:h.r.03244:
> 
> I can imagine some abuses of this, in workplace situations or divorce
> cases...
> 
> -Declan
> 
While almost any law can be abused, I think you'd need a really
odd situation for normal people to be able to use this one abusively.

For civilians, as far as I can see, it means that filing a totally bogus
SLAPP suit, or (for example) threatening to make false reports of child 
abuse to get leverage in a divorce are now punishable beyond what 
they already are.

Let us remember who the greatest abusers of law and the legal
process are: LEAs and prosecutors. It appears to me that this
law is far more a curb on the behaviour of bad cops and
over-zealous DAs than anyone else.  

DAs too often obtain false testimony against third parties or 
plea bargains by threatening trumped-up charges. Corrupt 
cops can similarly threaten false or totally overblown charges 
to obtain services from the weak and defenseless.

I suspect that in so far as far as any law can be considered 'good'
this is one of the less bad ones.

Of course, I rejoice that IANAL.

Peter Trei