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Court opinion:
<del>Adam and Steve</del><ins>Richard and Michael</ins>become romantically involved in year 1991, and exchange rings in year 1992. However, they live in Nevada, which neither permits in-state same-sex marriages nor recognizes out-of-state same-sex marriages. In year 2008, California legalizes same-sex marriage, and the two men get married there. But Nevada does not recognize the marriage until the federal supreme court forces it to do so in year 2015.In year 2020, Michael files for divorce. However, there is a snag. For purposes of determining what property is community property gained during the marriage and subject to division in the divorce, when did the marriage begin—1992 (when the men would have married if Nevada had permitted it), 2008 (when the parties entered into a marriage that was recognized in California but not in Nevada), or 2015 (when Nevada started recognizing their marriage)?
The state supreme court finds that (1) the federal supreme court's decision does require Nevada to retroactively recognize the 2008 California marriage, but (2) Nevada's courts are not authorized to create out of thin air a 1992 common-law marriage for these same-sex romantic partners when Nevada's legislature has explicitly refused to recognize common-law marriages even for opposite-sex romantic partners since 1943.
Court opinion:
A person is pulled over for driving an unregistered car. He immediately starts shouting (among other things) "I'll fuck you up" at the two police officers, repeatedly tries to get out of the car while the officers tell him to stay in the car and physically hold his car door shut, and eventually successfully exits the car, fights with the officers, and has to be restrained. He is acquitted of assault, but is convicted of making terroristic threats.
The defendant argues that the conviction is not supported by the evidence. He points to a case where a person arrested for public drunkenness told police officers he was going to kill them, but his conviction for making terroristic threats was vacated because, in his "obviously inebriated" status and "agitated and angry state of mind", he merely "expressed transitory anger rather than a settled purpose to carry out the threat or to terrorize the other person".
The trial judge rejects the defendant's argument. In this case, defendant actively engaged in a fistfight with the officers, showing that he indeed was willing to carry out his threats to harm them. The trial judge imposes a total sentence of four years (with the possibility of parole after two years) for the two threats. The appeals panel affirms.
ISO 1496-1:2013 (Series 1 Freight Containers—Specification and Testing): 200 dollars (160 Swiss francs)
Master Grade Ex-S Gundam/S Gundam plastic model kit: 160 dollars
Three weeks of food at home: 170 dollars
60 minutes with a jade-like beauty: 160 dollars (240 Australian dollars)
The market (ﷺ) has determined that these vastly different items have roughly equivalent values. Isn't money wonderful?
This creeps me out. The idea that he doesn't get in trouble at all for attacking people (which he did), but he does get in trouble for "terroristic threats" (I would not consider threats against a specific person to be "terroristic"), and the guilt is proven by the fact that he did attack people (even though he was acquitted of this).
Is this simply that the criteria for "assault" are strict and he didn't quite meet all the criteria? Because what this looks like to me is an ad-hoc "we think he should get a little bit of jail time but not a lot, so let's just convict him of something that carries a smaller penalty than assault." and abusing the law to get that outcome. Because in what world do you prioritize punishing words over actions?
This reminds me of this story where a streamer was harassing somebody in public, and the person he was harassing drew a firearm and shot him (non-lethally).
The person who took the shot was found not guilty of "malicious wounding," but he was found guilty of unlawfully discharging a firearm in public.
In other words, the jury found that it was legal for the bullet he shot to hit the guy that he shot, but it was not legal for him to shoot the bullet in the first place.
Presumably, this means that the law expects you to teleport the bullet from your gun into your target without firing it or otherwise having it occupy the intervening space.
I suspect that if you look, the law is full of all sorts of cases like this.
I think a better inference is that (1) the jury found the wounding justified but the method of wounding unjustified, so (2) in a situation where a self-defense justification is dubious, the law expects you to use a knife or your fists rather than endangering others by firing a gun (or maybe to just reveal the gun, but not actually fire it until the self-defense justification becomes less dubious).
Relevant laws:
Aggravated malicious wounding
Discharging firearms or missiles within or at building or dwelling house
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