STF NA MÍDIA

200,000 of them were electronic
signatures gathered by
Change.org in less than a
week.
“It’s a new era of activism,”
she said.
Online organizing drew Anderia
Bishop, 37, of Atlanta,
to the case last week. She
learned about Mr. Davis t-
hrough an e-mail from ColorOfChange.org,
a black political
organization.
The fact that there was very
little physical evidence and
no DNA and a case built largely
on witnesses who changed
their story got her attention.
“I thought, literally, it could
be me, and that’s something
a lot of people who are casually
watching this case
think,” she said. “There are
just too many questions.”
But public pressure and intense
media attention can cut
both ways, said Stephen Bright,
president of the Southern
Center for human rights and
a longtime capital defense
lawyer.
“It certainly heightens the
attention a case gets, but there
also can be some defensiveness,”
he said. “There has
historically been that worry
that people from out of state
will come in and not understand
what really happened.”
The difference, he said, is
that in today’s informationrich
age, people around the
world actually do know most
of the facts in the case.
“It tells the State of Georgia
that the whole world is watching,”
he said.
Blogger Is Acquitted of Threats to Officials
JUSTIÇA NO EXTERIOR •
THE NEW YORK TIMES (US) • NEW YORK • 16/9/2011
HARTFORD — A blogger
was acquitted on Friday of
charges that he had threatened
Connecticut officials
when he urged readers to
“take up arms” and suggested
that government leaders “obey
the Constitution or die.”
After deliberating less than
three hours, a Hartford jury
found the blogger, Harold
Turner, of North Bergen,
N.J., not guilty of felony inciting
injury to people and
misdemeanor threatening.
Mr. Turner, who will be returned
to prison to complete
a nearly three-year sentence
in a separate case for threatening
judges in Illinois, hugged
family members after the
verdict was announced.
“I am very pleased,” he said,
as he was led away by correction
officers.
Mr. Turner, who is known as
Hal and who has also hosted
politically charged webcasts
and radio talk shows, represented
himself and argued
that no one had been hurt and
that there was no evidence
that his words had led to any
violence. He also cited his
First amendment right to
free speech.
Mr. Turner wrote a blog post
in June 2009 in response to
state legislation, withdrawn
three months earlier, that
would have given lay people
of Roman Catholic churches
more control over parish finances.
Mr. Turner, 49, believed
the legislation flew in
the face of the Constitutional
doctrine of separation of
church and state.
He suggested that Catholics
“take up arms and put down
this tyranny by force,” said
government leaders should
“obey the Constitution or
die” and said he would post
officials’ home addresses. He
also wrote that if authorities
tried to stop his cause, “I
suspect we have enough bullets
to put them down too.”
Two state officials testified
that they had received unrelated
threats before because of
their jobs, but they said Mr.
Turner’s comments went
above and beyond those previous
remarks.
During his closing argument,
Mr. Turner said, “Ladies and
gentlemen, this case is a
fraud.”
“I said some nasty things
about politicians, and they’re
trying to use the power of the
state to throw me in jail,” he
said. “These are the kinds of
things we heard about in the
former Soviet Union.”
But the prosecutor, Thomas
Garcia, said that Mr. Turner’s
targets had testified that
they were truly concerned
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