[Lotus]

Originally Posted by RedskinRat

I found this article interesting for a couple of reasons, mainly the simple fact that a judge made such a horrendously inept decision regarding the attack.

I'm confident that smarter people on this forum can explain why Judge Martin came to the decision he did:

Offended Muslim chokes atheist, and then …

A Muslim judge in Pennsylvania – who scolded a local atheist for offending Islam, called him a doofus and accused him of “using the First Amendment” to madden Muslims – dismissed harassment charges against the Muslim defendant who purportedly choked the atheist during a Halloween parade.
District Judge Mark Martin brought a Quran to court and told the alleged victim, American Atheists’ Pennsylvania State Director Ernest Perce V, “I think you misinterpreted a couple of things. So before you start mocking somebody else’s religion, you might want to find out a little more about it. It kind of makes you look like a doofus.”

Serious comments, please.

How can you say that it was an inept decision? Why do you use the word "attack"? There is no evidence in the article or in the video that Perce was choked outside of Perce's own claim. Without evidence you can't convict someone...because this is America. Now, maybe Perce was in fact choked, but none of us here have evidence to come to that conclusion, and perhaps the judge did not either.