A Muslim man was convicted for posting threats online aimed at the creators of South Park and sentenced to 12 years in prison. And he actually seems to have recognized that he did something wrong:
A Muslim convert from Brooklyn was sentenced Friday to nearly 12 years in prison for posting online threats against the creators of the “South Park” television show and others he deemed enemies of Islam.
The sentence — largely in line with the term sought by prosecutors — came after Jesse Curtis Morton, 33, offered an apology for his conduct, saying he “contributed to a clash of civilizations” by espousing a violent ideology.
“I justified atrocities by Muslims simply because they were carried out by the weak against the powerful,” Morton said.
Morton founded the now-defunct Revolution Muslim website. He said he wanted the site to offer a forum for nuanced dialogue on relations between the Muslim world and the West and that he thought his website was protected by the First Amendment. However, he admitted that the website devolved into coarse calls for violent jihad, and that he crossed the line by posting the al-Qaida magazine Inspire on the site. The magazine explicitly called for the murder of a cartoonist from Seattle who promoted “Everybody Draw Muhammad day” and featured an article titled “How to Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.”
A co-defendant was sentenced to 25 years, but he had additional charges for trying to join a terrorist group overseas.
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tbp1
June 26, 2012 at 2:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m not at all familiar with this kind of case or what the law is, but 12 years seems a tad excessive to me, given the unlikelihood of his ever being able to carry out such a threat and his realization, albeit conveniently after the fact, that he was in the wrong.
I’m willing to be persuaded, but that’s my initial reaction.
Wes
June 26, 2012 at 3:07 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I agree. 12 years seems very long considering he only made threats. I was a witness in a trial once, and the defendant threatened me, on top of the charges of burglary, vandalism and car theft already against him. He got 5 years total for everything.
I have to wonder if the sentence would have been different if this guy were a Christian rather than a Muslim.
skeptifem
June 26, 2012 at 3:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
…and every time I see a pedophile sentenced its for like 8 years.
flatlander100
June 26, 2012 at 3:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Wes@2:
“I have to wonder if the sentence would have been different if this guy were a Christian rather than a Muslim.”
I was wondering exactly the same thing.
Taz
June 26, 2012 at 3:53 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Why would that be unlikely? Killing some specific person in this country (other than the president) is very easy if you don’t care about the consequences to yourself.
dennisbierlein
June 26, 2012 at 4:13 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I, too, thought the sentence was excessive until I read in the linked article that he left the country after his friend was arrested. Would have been better if he had stayed and admitted his error, rather than this “oh, well, you caught me, I’m sorry”.
baal
June 26, 2012 at 4:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This also points out why friend don’t let friends use the rhetoric of violence. Radicalization only makes jihadis/commandos. 12 years does seem biased but if he fled (and maybe more bad facts) eh…
I had a neighbor couple we used to call the cops on regularly for domestic fights that sounded pretty bad. The female (best guess) half of the couple used to yell loudly out her window after the cops left a decent number of violent threats (“i’m gonna burn your house down”). We ignore them even though it’s illegal to do. We didn’t ignore stuff that sounding like potential injury to people. Her audience was extremely limited. A website with a potentially big audience and with the goal of violent radicalization (wind up & button pushing) is a much bigger deal.
abear
June 26, 2012 at 4:37 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Morton aka Younes Abdullah Mohammad deserves his sentence in my opinion. The propagandists/recruiters promoting terrorism and other criminal acts should be held responsible for their actions.
Likewise, the anti-abortion activists that encouraged the murder of abortion providers, making wanted posters with their pictures and addresses should be locked up.
Freedom of speech has limitations, crying fire in a crowded theater is one, counseling to commit murder is another.
erichoug
June 26, 2012 at 5:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Hmm, here again I am torn. Freedom of speech allows for some fairly messy stuff. Where exactly do you draw the line. If a teenager writes a lengthy and highly detailed essay about wanting to kill his gym teacher, does that warrant 12 years in prison?
If the answer to that is “no” than I don’t think 12 years in prison is justified in this case
mobius
June 26, 2012 at 5:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
But…but…but…the Sharia law…it’s taking over…isn’t it?
[/sarcasm]
raven
June 26, 2012 at 6:01 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
You don’t get it. Rights often conflict with other rights!!!
In fact, much of law is drawing lines between conflicting or competing rights.
Your freedom of religion doesn’t allow you to build a pyramid in your back yard and cut the hearts out of babies to keep the sun god happy.
Your freedom of speech conflicts with the rights of others to not be victims of terror and/or terrorized.
We draw lines on slippery slopes every day.
Area Man
June 26, 2012 at 6:21 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Sorry, but that’s just funny. Maybe this was a botched translation attempt, but the fact that someone felt the need to make it rhyme like this is just too much. These guys would be a lot scarier if they didn’t come across as man-children with 3rd grade reading skills who need to use their mom’s kitchen.
Marcus Ranum
June 26, 2012 at 6:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I bet if he’d conveniently found jesus, he’d have gotten less than 5 years.
These guys would be a lot scarier if they didn’t come across as man-children with 3rd grade reading skills who need to use their mom’s kitchen.
Their bomb-making skills are pretty pathetic, too. I was reading a palestinian jihadi manual that recommended making improvised explosives using match-heads. The mind boggles.
Azkyroth, Former Growing Toaster Oven
June 26, 2012 at 7:08 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Are you nuts? Manchildren with explosives are fucking TERRIFYING.
Markita Lynda—damn climate change!
June 26, 2012 at 7:45 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Next up, please: “Terry Randall gets 48 years for anti-abortion death threats and terrorism conspiracy.” Please, please? Let’s have equality of religious threat evaluation.
StevoR
June 26, 2012 at 8:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Good!
podkayne
June 26, 2012 at 11:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
in b4 “ZOMG, all Muslims are terrorists!”
Seriously though, given how much reactionary wingnuts tend to hate South Park, it would be sort of fun watching their faces get redder and redder, until yellow smoke starts comming out of their ears, while they try to work out who is being persecuted here, and how it’s Obama’s fault.
dingojack
June 27, 2012 at 12:48 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
abear – and for how long do they lock-up Illinois Nazis?
Twelve years, eight, five, three…?
Dingo
tacitus
June 27, 2012 at 1:04 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
12 years probably isn’t excessive given that this is America, the land of the not-so-free when it comes to incarceration of its citizens. One can only hope that if he proves to be a reformed citizen, he be given a chance at probation after a few years.
And I’m really surprised to see this type of sweeping comment here, instead of the numerous right-wing sites, like WorldNutDaily.
Please stop doing this type of thing — it does nothing but prolong the myth that too many criminals are getting away with shorter sentences than they deserve, when in fact more citizens in America are sentenced to prison for longer than in just about any other country in the world. And it’s a useless comment anyway, unless you qualify the statistic in some way. Does it include all those cases where an 18 year-old boyfriend is having sex with his 16 year old girlfriend, for example?
dingojack
June 27, 2012 at 1:26 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Tacitus – “…and every time I see a pedophile sentenced its for like 8 years.”
I read it as having the unspoken clause:
‘… because setting up a website advocating something we don’t like is 50% worse than sexually assaulting a child’.
YMMV
Dingo
dogfightwithdogma
June 27, 2012 at 2:52 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I don’t think anyone was suggesting that they should not be held accountable. The issue is not accountability here but proportionality. I think 12 years a bit out of proportion to the offense.
michaelbrew
June 27, 2012 at 3:49 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So… what you’re saying is that I shouldn’t use my power as a therapist to urge people to use their aggressive natures and let the hate flow through them? Because, you know, if they show no mercy and do not hesitate, their transformation to the dark side will be complete.
Dr X
June 27, 2012 at 4:30 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@Dingo:
Matt Hale? 40 years in federal supermax. But that was for soliciting murder of a federal judge rather than merely hinting for everyone and nobody in particular to kill someone less than a judge.
iangould
June 27, 2012 at 8:17 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The funny thing is many Muslims think Revolution Muslim was a fake organization set up by the Israeli or US governments.
Seriously, most if not all of its dozen or so members were Jews who claimed to have converted to Islam on their own and who had never been members of any Mosque.
IF some white guy you’ve never met before and who barely speaks Arabic comes up to you after Friday service and asks in so many words if you want to help him destroy The Great Satan what are you going to think?
abear
June 27, 2012 at 12:03 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It seems to me that some people want to give this guy a pass because they think he was engaging in harmless free speech.
Morton and his friends were inciting their readers to murder specific persons.
I used to read that website before it was taken down and they started arresting those clowns. It didn’t surprise me the authorities went after them, it surprised me they took as long as they did.
If some jackass posted my name, photo, and general location on an extremist website encouraging its’ readers to murder me I would hope the authorities would do something about it.
dingojack
June 27, 2012 at 12:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
abear – gonna march yourself to the nearest police station for aiding and abetting? ;)
Nobody’s suggesting ‘a free pass’, that is, that he shouldn’t be punished – he should – proportionally to the harm actually caused.
Dingo
abear
June 27, 2012 at 2:09 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Dingojack; How do you punish attempted murder when the shooter misses? What about the person that hires a “hitman” that turns out to be an undercover cop?
No harm done, right?
dingojack
June 27, 2012 at 3:07 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Intent matters – has his personal (& immanent) intent to kill been proved?
Is running a website really 50% worse than molesting a child (for example)?
Dingo
abear
June 27, 2012 at 4:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Dingo; My belief is that not everyone gets justice, not only are some child molesters not sentenced to enough time in prison, but many generally harmless people are sent to prison unjustly and for even longer terms than Morton received.
The case documents for this trial, including the sentencing brief from the prosecution is available online (investigativeproject.org). Morton’s actions went further than a simple threat,but I suppose it’s still a matter of opinion how dangerous he was/is.
dogfightwithdogma
June 27, 2012 at 10:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@25 abear:
Then you are not reading carefully enough. Not one person here has advocated that this person get a pass. Rather the question is over the magnitude of the sentence compared to the actual criminal offense. As I said in an earlier post it is about proportionality. This person rightfully deserves some prison time. No one who has posted here has said otherwise. But 12 years for making a threat? Out of proportion to the charge on which he was convicted.