Quote from: Eisenhower34 on September 17, 2014, 04:20:58 AM

Quote from: Spendulus on September 16, 2014, 02:54:56 PM

Quote from: TRex95 on September 16, 2014, 06:21:33 AM

Quote from: counter on September 16, 2014, 06:17:21 AM

Quote from: dontCAREhair on September 16, 2014, 06:09:29 AM

Quote from: counter on September 16, 2014, 05:35:20 AM

Quote from: bluemountain on September 16, 2014, 05:13:39 AM

Quote from: counter on September 13, 2014, 06:28:00 AM

He should be sentenced to some community service and home confinement for fair amount of time at most a relatively short stay in jail if you ask me. This is pretty disturbing to think a judge would even consider allowing such a long jail sentence and that DA should be worried about losing his job for having such horrible judgment on the matter.

I'm ashamed to admit how hard I laughed at the pics because that is a gross act in so many ways. But there is no way a person should go to jail for that long over something like this, that is the real crime..

I don't understand why you think he should be punished at all for this. It has been reported that he did this in protest against the church as he does not agree with the people of the christian religion.

I'm not saying he should be punished I'm saying he should atleast face a reasonable punishment if any at all. If that act is considered illegal that is what I'm talking about, regardless of what I feel is fair or right, it doesn't matter in the least. I'm not the DA I'm just stating what I think is plausible for someone to do in that position. If people are angry about this including then it's likely some kind of punishment is to come. My point is that the punishment if any at all should fit the crime simple as that.

I would argue that no crime has been committed. I would not be surprised if this case made it to the supreme court. It is clear that the DA is going to move forward with this case, and who knows how the courts will rule, but IMO his actions were clearly protected by the constitution.

Though I don't like what he did I don't think he should have any significant punishment. It's disrespectful and in bad taste to be done in broad daylight in public but the is the long and short of it IMO. I'd be interested to see how the supreme court would rule and I'd be surprised it the case made it that far honestly.

Why would it not make it to the supreme court? To my knowledge there has not been a supreme court case that involves the defacing of a religious statue in the way that it was "defaced" therefore there is not precedent for the lower courts to find him not guilty because of constitutional protections (especially the trial court). If the boy wants to stick up for his rights then he should escalate the case this high if he is tried for this crime, even if found guilty

Because the statute was not in any way damaged.

Consider as an alternative if he'd stood there and put a stream of urine on it. He could be considered to have damaged it. But he didn't.

So the "Defacing" is completely in the mind and not in the physical world.

There is no reason for this to go to the Supreme Court. There is simply no legal argument against the kid except the ability and desire of the DA and/or the property owners to harass him.

Side note: Of the people I know who consider themselves religious/deeply religious/fundamentalist I can't think of ANY who would condone prosecuting this kid. Zero.

This is exactly why this case would be accepted by the supreme court. I think this kid did actually break the law and should be found guilty for doing so. However I also think the application of the law is unconstitutional. It is very rare for a trial court to not enforce a law on constitutional grounds unless there is president from a higher court (either an appellate court or the supreme court), therefore the trial court would find him guilty but a higher court should reverse the decision.

http://law.onecle.com/pennsylvania/crimes-and-offenses/00.055.009.000.html

It's a real stretch, but I can see that charges could be brought under this statute. It seems though that the issue is more the flagrant promoting of the activity on facebook than the activity itself.