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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   29556 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 13, 2023

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re the hockey incident that was discussed here a few weeks ago, the player involved has been arrested for manslaughter. they haven't released his name yet, but there's no one else it could realistically be. just yesterday he was getting a standing ovation; life comes at you fast sometimes.

from a legal perspective, it looks like they'll argue for gross negligence, since your skates should never be that high intentionally, and he wasn't violently blind-side hip checked. it's unfortunate that the races of the players involved is turning online discussion about it into a shitshow.

Regardless of what happens in the legal case, that BBC article is a prime example of how the propaganda machine rolls. "A man has been arrested..." Literally no other references to this man. You can't make this stuff up.

They aren't saying who it is because the police haven't actually released the name. We can make assumptions about who it is based on what is actually known, but journalistic practices are generally against making such assumptions.

Alternative explanation: The media faces potential liablity for naming suspects before formal charges are filed.

So what's WaPo's excuse?

The excuse is that their Tweets and website expose them to potential liability in the UK. Because that is what happened to Bloomberg in the UK case mentioned in the links. They were found liable for an article posted on their website.

Note also that, while the WaPo does not identify the person arrested in their article on their website, they do say, nudge, nudge; wink, wink:

Matt Petgrave, 31, who plays for Sheffield, was the other player involved in the grisly incident that reverberated around the hockey community and led to moments of silence in the NHL.

Obviously, they are trying to comply with the letter of UK law.

Let's be honest; that's total bullshit from hyper-risk-averse lawyers. Like, could there some day be a case somewhere that plausibly opens up some degree of legal liability? Possibly. This thing was on television. The guy had his name written on the back of his jersey, for the express purpose of identifying him. Their closest example of actual legal liability was one where they said he was charged, but he was not actually charged. Clearly, they're reporting an arrest and have confidence that an arrest was actually made. I cannot fathom how someone would construct any legal liability for them saying his name.

The article you link even goes on to say that news outlets actually do print names all the time, even though there is some scant vapor of possibly liability in an edge case somewhere. Sagan knows they wouldn't wrap themselves in the most hyper-risk-averse legal position if they thought it would promote their preferred politics. Would you make a prediction? After the police announce it officially, do you predict that they'll post a second article naming him or go back and alter this article? Or do you think they'll just wait and sit on it?

People who know more about UK law than you or I disagree with you

Edit >Clearly, they're reporting an arrest and have confidence that an arrest was actually made.

That's irrelevant. The law in the UK apparently draws the line at the point that charges are filed, not at the point of arrest.

There are literally no details in that article about the case in question or how wide-ranging the opinion in question is. Key language that could give an indication: "a person under criminal investigation has a reasonable expectation of privacy". This was on TV. His name was written on the back of his jersey so as to identify him publicly. He had received a standing ovation publicly, a public acknowledgement that everyone knows him. Many other articles named him at the time of the incident. You're going to need a hell of a lot more specifics than a broadly-worded summary article to say that this guy somehow has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the matter.

EDIT: You know enough about law, generally, to know better than to reason this poorly from such non-specific articles with glaringly obvious, gigantic gaps in their language.

Yes, this sort of thing is a little bit silly, but it is not really that unusual or unprecedented when UK journalism and UK law collide. I recall a decade ago, there was controversy about the use of injunctions and super-injunctions by the UK courts as essentially a tool to gag the press regarding the private lives of celebrities. To some extent these restrictions were a bad joke - everyone knew who they were about, because these injunctions did not restrict the ability of private citizens to talk on social media - and they did not apply at all to international media. And yet, the threat of being dragged into court and get rinsed for vast sums of money was very serious.

You seem to be arguing that the fact that his name was written on the back of his jersey is relevant. It might be, but you have no evidence of that, right? Because the first sentence of the article states a bright-line rule: " the Supreme Court ruled that a person under criminal investigation has a reasonable expectation of privacy prior to charge"

More importantly, the point is not that, under UK law, the publication of his name would DEFINITELY expose the BBC to liability. I am not familiar enough with the relevant case law. Rather, the point is that FEAR OF LIABLITY IS THE MOST LIKELY EXPLANATION OF THE FAILURE TO REVEAL HIS NAME. I have cited two sources from UK lawyers advising media outlets that revealing the name of a suspect before charges have been brought is a bad idea. Yet, you are convinced that the "real" reason is something else.

Let's test your "bright-line rule" with a hypo. Cameras are rolling, everyone is watching. Every station is broadcasting the most anticipated event of the century, live. Some guy[EDIT: Scratch that. Not "some guy". A guy who is known publicly. Like, say, a guy who was introduced at the event. Like, "We welcome Mr. So-and-So, our honored guest! Please identify yourself for the cameras and say a few words, Mr. So-and-So."] shows up, right in front of all the cameras, and commits a crime. While he's being arrested on live TV, he looks directly at the cameras and yells, "MY NAME IS SO-AND-SO, AND I'M BEING ARRESTED FOR [CRIME]."

Does this person have a reasonable expectation of privacy in his arrest until formal charges are filed? Let's further suppose that this person is either otherwise disliked or associated with folks who are otherwise disliked by the media. Do you think they all refrain from posting his name in the article about the hullabaloo on their website, their twitter accounts, etc.? You think all their lawyers will tell them that they have to refrain from doing so because of legal risk?

Because the first sentence of the article states a bright-line rule: " the Supreme Court ruled that a person under criminal investigation has a reasonable expectation of privacy prior to charge"

That is, at least one. Like, the particular one who was in the particular case, perhaps. That guy might have had a reasonable expectation of privacy with completely different circumstances. It does not say that "any" person has a reasonable expectation of privacy in their arrest regardless of the circumstances. I mean, the word "reasonable" is right in the phrase, which should be a pretty good tip off to a crack lawyer such as yourself that it's not a bright-line rule. It's a reasonableness rule.

FEAR OF LIABLITY

As I said: "total bullshit from hyper-risk-averse lawyers". Here's the thing about how people use lawyers, though. When they want to do something, they say, "Your job is to figure out how we can do this with minimum risk." When they don't want to do something, they say, "Your job is to come up with any possible risk of doing this, no matter how small or unlikely, so that we can say that we didn't do it due to legal risk."

I mean, the word "reasonable" is right in the phrase

Again, I am not familiar with the nuances of UK law in this area, and as I said, there might not be a bright-line rule. But the term "reasonable" tells us nothing about that question. The Fourth Amendment forbids only "unreasonable" searches and seizures, yet Fourth Amendment jurisprudence is filled with bright-line rules and has been for decades.

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Propaganda machine? What’s the angle supposed to be?

The force said detectives arrested the suspect on Tuesday, adding that he remained in custody.

They're not saying who it is that was arrested because he's black

In the UK it's standard to not release names of people who are arrested unless they get charged. There is no racial angle here.

It was on TV. The guy had his name on the back of his jersey for the express purpose of identifying himself. His name is so publicly known that the OP mentioned him getting a standing ovation, presumably as an indicator of the fact that everyone knows. Like, I get that with just Joe Schmoe nobody arrestee, there are fine reasons to be cautious, but let's be honest. It's not like any news outlet on either side of the pond was waiting for formal charges to run with stories about Trump and Trump-adjacents being arrested.

It is of course, very silly that the press is pretending not to know who was arrested. Very silly and very typical for UK journalists.

OP mentioned him getting a standing ovation

Oddly, that article (link again) never actually says who was arrested. If you read through word-by-word, all you can say is:

  • Petgrave's skate slit the throat of Adam Johnson.
  • Johnson suffered a fatal injury to his neck.
  • A man has now been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter over Johnson's death

Who could that man possibly be?? Any conclusion you could reach would just be wild speculation and couldn't be attributed to the Sun in any way, shape, or form.

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