Splitting Hairs Over Causation: When Is Amish Beard Cutting A Hate Crime?

A Sixth Circuit ruling earlier this week is a victory for critics of federal hate crime legislation, as well as the defendants in the case, a group of Amish men and women who forcibly cut the hair and sheared the beards of their Amish victims. The defendants, members of the Bergholz Amish community, admitted to a series of attacks against other Amish with whom the defendants had longstanding feuds. In the Amish community, men wear long beards and women grow long hair as signs of piety and view voluntarily cutting one’s own hair as a sign of contrition. Cutting another person’s hair is a forceful condemnation of the victim. Prosecutors had argued that the defendants assaulted their victims because of their religious identity. The case is the first appellate case involving a religious hate crime brought under The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. The statute prohibits “willfully caus[ing] bodily injury to any person . . . because of the actual or perceived . . . religion . . . of [that] person.”

Read more: 
http://abovethelaw.com/2014/08/splitting-hairs-over-causation-when-is-amish-beard-cutting-a-hate-crime/

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Ventura's Best Lawyer

Jay Leiderman 

Please visit my homepage 

JayLeiderman.com

5740 Ralston St 300

Ventura, California 93003

805-654-0200

‘Find the best defense attorney you can’ Hackers being prosecuted under the CFAA don’t just need digital experts; they need good defense against a law vague enough to encompass most anything

Most criminal defendants, whether fighting a DUI or fighting Computer Fraud and Abuse Act charges, have a small legal team, often just one overtaxed defense attorney. Matthew Keys, the social media editor who’s accused of helping Anonymous vandalize the Los Angeles Times’ website, has not just Tor Ekeland on his team, but also Jay Leiderman, another lawyer developing something of a reputation as a specialist in hackers charged by the government with violating the CFAA.

- See more at: http://www.cjr.org/cloud_control/lawyers_hacker_call_part_2.php?nomobile=1#sthash.VUl5TdmK.dpuf

Ventura's Best Lawyer

Jay Leiderman 

Please visit my homepage 

JayLeiderman.com

5740 Ralston St 300

Ventura, California 93003

805-654-0200

The Sabu Effect: An Interview with Jay Leiderman

The knock at the door. The blinding lights, the shouted orders, the helmets, the uniforms, the guns, the confusion, the melee.

The raid.

When it’s all over, and the FBI is sifting through everything from your Friends list to your Playstation, who do you call? If you’re a hacker or a member of Anonymous, California criminal defense lawyer Jay Leiderman is going to be somewhere on that list. 

Read more: 

http://thecryptosphere.com/2014/08/22/the-sabu-effect-an-interview-with-jay-leiderman/

Ventura's Best Lawyer

Jay Leiderman 

Please visit my homepage 

JayLeiderman.com

5740 Ralston St 300

Ventura, California 93003

805-654-0200