Talk:Threatening the president of the United States

This review is transcluded from Talk:Threatening the President of the United States/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 18:50, 18 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

This is not a full review. This is just a comment. Others may review this article.

Consider quoting the text of the law. Very detailed information is given about things related to the law but the law is not described well. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 18:50, 18 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

Do you recommend quoting it in the reference template itself, or in the body of the article? Tisane (talk) 23:23, 18 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

It depends how long the law is. If short, consider showing it. How about a brainstorming idea? Have a sub-article with the entire text of the law? Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 15:55, 19 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

The particular statute, 18 U.S.C. § 871, is just a few paragraphs. Can you demonstrate, please, what that subpage should look like, and how we should link to it from the article? Actually, isn't that the sort of thing that would go on Wikisource or something? But I don't think it's very common that Wikimedia projects put statute texts; I think they rely on Cornell and such sites for that. We don't have a Wikilaw site or anything. Tisane (talk) 19:44, 19 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

MoS issues

• Lead too short – The lead is only one paragraph long. For an article of this length (about 19K characters), it should be around two full paragraphs or three brief paragraphs.
•  Y Dablink @ United States v. Johnson which needs to be fixed

Prose issues

•  YIn the first paragraph of the "Incidents" section, you first mention Roosevelt, and then you go right to Wilson. I don't know if it's a typo, or if you meant to mention that Roosevelt was threatened also, but that paragraph doesn't make much sense as how it's written. Please clarify that bit.

•  YI replaced instances of "on the other hand" (which is WP:WEASELish and very colloquial) with "conversely". If there is a better word that you wish to use that would fit better in the context, feel free to tweak further.

•  YIn the "History" section, I tried to make that list of justifications a little more consistent and removing the parallelisms in there by trying to use "to ...". However, there's one "justification" in which I cannot make out very well, which is are rightly denounced as a crime against the people as sovereign power. It doesn't exactly make sense to be listed as a justification in a grammatical sense. Can that be tweaked a little?

• "Interpretation" section:
  •  YYou may wish to put those several paragraphs regarding Watts v. United States in its own subsection as I think it may help readers know that the next several paragraphs are going to deal with that court case.
  •  YLast sentence, second paragraph: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held ... to carry them into execution. → Sentence is a little long and drawn out. Splitting it into two sentences will make it a little easier to digest.
  •  YAt a public rally, a member of the group suggested that the young people present should get more education before expressing their views. → What group?
  •  YCourts have held that ... result of mistake, duress or coercion. → It's a bit wordy and also a sentence fragment (at least I couldn't find the predicate after reading it several times); this needs to be tweaked.
  •  YConversely, the mailing of letters depicting the President's head impaled on a stake and dripping blood and containing the words "kill Reagan" was considered a serious threat. → Does the stake contain the words "kill Reagan" or is it the President's head. Grammatically, that's not clear.
  •  YIn the third-to-last paragraph, you start with listing what are threats (as being conditional), and then you go straight to Nor does a broad statement ... and start showing counterexamples. That really throws me off (and probably other readers), and it looks like there is something missing there.

•  YLast sentence, second paragraph in the "Psychiatric matters" section: Conversely, a defendant's threats of harm, written in his anger management workbook, threatening to kill the President upon the defendant's release from the penitentiary, were ruled to have fallen within the dangerous patient exception to psychotherapist-patient privilege. → How it's set up grammatically, it doesn't make sense. Are you suggesting that any of these three conditions in that sense fall under doctor-patient privilege? If so, then add an and before threatening to kill ... and remove the comma after penitentiary (I didn't want to copyedit this one myself because I'm not 100% sure that's what you meant.)

Referencing issues

•  Y Not a terribly big issue, but is there a reason why you have six straight inline citations about halfway through the "Interpretation" section? That is a tad excessive, and the citations should be split up (i.e. to after commas as opposed to lumping them all at the end of the sentence) or outright removed while keeping the most reliable sources.
• The quote from James L. Browning, Jr. regarding Groucho Marx's "threat" needs to be cited.

Image issues

•  Y File:Michael Ramirez cartoon allegedly threatening President Bush.gif is not in low-resolution. The image may not meet WP:NFCC#3a (minimal usage). My recommendation would be to reduce the size of the image in half, which would be to 300px – the largest default size for thumbnails.

Other things to remember

Whatever is in this section won't count against the GAN but will serve as reminders for future article improvement as well as style-related protips.

•  Y Don't forget to put in alt text in the one image given. See that guideline for more details.
• Review the MoS guidelines on logical quotations, dashes, and ellipses. When I go in-depth on the review, I'll try to correct any of these errors that I see.

Conclusions

Still reviewing, but consider it on hold pending the above improvements. I've still yet to comb over the prose in more detail for any style/grammar problems, and I still need to check the sources. –MuZemike 00:29, 31 March 2010 (UTC)Reply

I want to make clear that anything under the "Other things to remember" section is just extra stuff and not really part of the GA review. –MuZemike 08:01, 31 March 2010 (UTC)Reply

  Fixed Cartoon size.

  Fixed Alt text.

  Fixed Dab of U.S. v. Johnson.

I always have trouble with leads, because it seems as though every piece of information that could go in the lead could also justifiably go into a section of the article. So, the lead either takes away from the sections (by the moving of information there), or it becomes redundant with them, in my mind. Not sure what to do about that.

As for the six references, that was to show how there was support from many different circuits on that issue. I wonder if there is another way to do it without losing information? The circuits made pretty similar rulings so the comma suggestion might be difficult. I could expand it to be a whole paragraph with each sentence having its own citation, I suppose, but that would almost be like saying the same thing six different ways. Tisane (talk) 20:30, 31 March 2010 (UTC)Reply

As far as those consecutive references are concerned, that's fine, then. For the lead, try and take various parts from each section and use it there. The big part with the lead is that it briefly summarizes as much of the article as possible. Hopefully that helps. –MuZemike 23:15, 31 March 2010 (UTC)Reply

Review is now completed, and the GAN is now on hold pending the improvements suggested above. Let me know if you have any other questions, and if I made any mistakes, don't be afraid to point them out and correct them. Also note the additional issues I have noted in all the above sections. –MuZemike 23:15, 31 March 2010 (UTC)Reply

•   Fixed Lead length. It seemed appropriate to move the penalty information there, since that is pretty important to the subject matter.
•   Fixed Wilson/Roosevelt prose issue. I attempted to clarify by noting that the Roosevelt threat was in a later era.
• Hmm, conversely sounds more formal, but I'm not sure it's the right word; see wikt:conversely. That seems more like a word you would use in this sense: "What kind of behavior should you expect from the government and, conversely, what kind of behavior should the government expect from you?" But whatever; a lot of people use it in the sense you're talking about, much as people use "encyclopedic" in a way that differs from its dictionary definition.
•   Fixed List of justifications.
•   Fixed Put Watts in its own section.
•   Fixed Broke up long sentence about the 7th Circuit ruling.
•   Fixed Explained that it was the "assembled group" at a public rally of the Dubois club.
•   Fixed Broke up that long sentence, "Courts have held that..." There was an extraneous "if" which has been removed.
•   Fixed Clarified the sentence about Reagan's bleeding head.
•   Fixed Got rid of the "Nor does a..." language.
•   Fixed I attempted to clarify the sentence about the anger management book.

Tisane (talk) 06:20, 4 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

The lead wasn't exactly what I had in mind. What you have now is a second paragraph that is not only droning on, but also is overdetailed and can be off-putting to readers. I would put the Penalties section back into the article body (that was fine as it is), and then instead for your second paragraph in the lead, have the following:

• A brief sentence about the history of the law; the reference to the Treason Act 1351 would be good to use in my view.
• One or two sentences about incidents (perhaps one or two Presidents as mentioned in the article body).
• A sentence or two describing some interpretations of Section 871 as laid out in the article.
• A sentence describing potential psychiatric matters (as laid out in the final section of the article body).

The thing with leads is that it should accurately summarize what is in the rest of the article. I think if you reconstruct that second paragraph with what I outlined above, that would certainly be on the right track.

With that said, everything else in the GAN is good except the lead which I just explained. –MuZemike 14:48, 4 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

  Lead revised Tisane (talk) 02:28, 7 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

I still don't think you're understanding. The lead should reiterate what is already in the article's body. That is, the content that is in the lead should also be in the article's body. That being said, the lead is good now as it summarizes the article. However, you should put the stuff that you just removed in the article's body back where they were and but keep the lead as-it-is right now. –MuZemike 02:35, 7 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

That is, put all that stuff from the "Frequency" section and below back in there, and I think we'll be good to go. –MuZemike 02:38, 7 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

Never mind, I see what you did. I was looking for "Penalties" below when I saw "Penalty".   Passed. –MuZemike 19:29, 7 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

Donald Trump must have the most lenient secret severive ever. Imagine how many threats he receives, yet no one has been arrested or killed by secret service. --2605:A000:1E02:C0F7:2473:A7E2:2F1B:92EA (talk) 06:28, 23 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

• http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/man-is-arrested-for-threatening-to-assassinate-obama-on-the-internet-do-you-agree-that-he-should-b/question-237141/

Tisane (talk) 12:53, 6 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

• First: That the person uttered words alleged to be the threat against the President;
• Second: That the person understood and meant the words he used as a true threat; and
• Third: That the person uttered the words knowingly and willfully.

Tisane ^talk/_stalk 07:38, 5 August 2010 (UTC)Reply

The Penalties section contradicts itself, in the second sentance it claims: "The offense is punishable by five to ten years in prison", but in the last entance it claims: "The maximum penalty for threatening a United States judge or a Federal law enforcement officer is 10 years imprisonment — double the maximum penalty for threatening the President" 82.24.244.35 (talk) 00:38, 13 April 2014 (UTC)Reply

@MuZemike: I want to get your imput on this: the article says this crime is a class D felony which is more than 5 but less than 10 years, but the source says it is punishable by not more than 5 years and I looked at this table and is says "less than 5 years" in the Class E felony row of this table. Another editor sent me this news article and this news article says its a Class D felony, which is more than 5 but less than 10 years, which is a higher class of felonies (Class D). I am confused as to which one is correct because they show conflicting info; is it Class D or E? Can I get some imput please? I want to make sure this is accurate. If not, I'm going to have to find a way to balance it. Sam.gov (talk) 05:43, 17 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

Is it class E or class D?

This is why I put the contradict tag. WhisperToMe (talk) 20:08, 18 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

@WhisperToMe: That is what I'm trying to figure out myself as well. Sam.gov (talk) 00:37, 23 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

@Sam.gov:I believe it is clearly a class E felony. http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2011-title18/html/USCODE-2011-title18-partI-chap41-sec871.htm Punishment: "...shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both." https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3559 Matching it up to a felony class: "(5) less than five years but more than one year, as a Class E felony;" Mcsteez (talk) 22:50, 5 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

@Mcsteez: I believe the same thing you do, so I'm going to change content in the article to reflect this. Sam.gov (talk) 16:28, 7 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

@WhisperToMe: I believe we found out what class felony this crime is. See Mcsteez's reply ^^. Sam.gov (talk) 17:17, 7 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

@Sam.gov: Here's how you can tell. If it were a class E felony, then the maximum term of supervised release would be one year. See 18 U.S.C. § 3583(b)(3). But if you look at news articles, you'll see that people are getting sentenced to 3-year terms of supervised release for this offense. See for example, Assassination_threats_against_Barack_Obama#2008: "Blanchard was sentenced to one year and one day in prison for making the threats. He was also fined $3,000 and ordered to be under supervised release for three years following his prison term." Or see this case, this case, etc. All these defendants are getting sentenced to 3-year terms of supervised release.

"Except as otherwise provided, the authorized terms of supervised release are— (1) for a Class A or Class B felony, not more than five years; (2) for a Class C or Class D felony, not more than three years; and (3) for a Class E felony, or for a misdemeanor (other than a petty offense), not more than one year."

Here's another way you can tell. See 15 U.S.C. § 3559(a). If it were a class E felony, people couldn't be getting sentenced to 5-year prison sentences for this offense. But they are sometimes getting sentenced to 5-year prison terms. See for example this case or even Rogers v. United States. "An offense that is not specifically classified by a letter grade in the section defining it, is classified if the maximum term of imprisonment authorized is— . . . (4) less than ten years but five or more years, as a Class D felony; (5) less than five years but more than one year, as a Class E felony;" Col. Quon (talk) 20:50, 28 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

@Col. Quon: I think I do see your point regarding 3-year supervised release terms bring representative of a Class D felony and occasional sentences in which the defendant receives that actual 5-year Max. I think I might change the article so it would simply say that it is a federal crime punishable by up to five years imprisonment and up to 3 years supervised release, to avoid possible future confusion. Sam.gov (talk) 23:27, 28 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

Note: Col. Quon is a WP:Sock, and has been blocked as such. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:50, 3 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

@Flyer22 Reborn: I wasn't aware that this editor was a sock-puppet, thanks for letting us know. Sam.gov (talk) 16:35, 3 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

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Does the law also concern the ［［president-elect］］? If so, the article may be updated with recent information. Pieceofmetalwork (talk) 17:01, 12 November 2016 (UTC)Reply

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