HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) ? A Connecticut jury has acquitted a New Jersey blogger of charges he threatened state officials when he urged readers to “take up arms” and suggested that government leaders “obey the Constitution or die.”
Forty-nine-year-old Harold “Hal” Turner, of North Bergen, N.J., was found not guilty Friday of felony inciting injury to people and misdemeanor threatening.
Turner, who represented himself, had argued that no one was hurt and there was no evidence that his words led to any violence. He also had cited his First Amendment right to free speech. The June 2009 posting was in response to legislation on Roman Catholic church finances.
Turner will be returned prison to complete a nearly three-year prison sentence for threatening federal judges in Illinois.
