By Brendan Raleigh
Round Table Editor

Pennsylvania Judge Mark Martin recently dismissed a case filed by Ernest Perce, an atheist activist who was attacked by a Muslim, Talaag Elbayomy, in reaction to Perce’s portrayal of a zombified Muhammad in a local Halloween parade. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania sued Elbayomy for harassment, claiming that Elbayomy attempted to choke Perce and remove his beard in order to identify him.

Martin threw the case out under the pretense that there was not enough evidence to substantiate either the victim or the alleged attacker’s claims.

Though Elbayomy denied any physical contact during the trial, he told police that he had attempted to grab the activist’s beard and sign on the night of the incident. Perce also presented a video showing Elbayomy emerging from the crowd and confronting him, though this was ruled inconclusive and subsequently removed from the court.

While, admittedly, the video is too dark and unfocused to see what really happened, the fact that Elbayomy contradicted his own account of what happened should have been fully indicative of his guilt. His admitted actions fit Pennsylvania’s legal definition of harassment perfectly, and Martin should have called him on it.

What is truly concerning is Martin’s justification for his decision. Rather than offering an explanation as to why the case was being thrown out, he proceeded to criticize Perce relentlessly for abusing his constitutional rights, claiming that he was acting “way outside [his] bounds of First Amendment rights.”

As anyone with the vaguest understanding of the Bill of Rights can attest, Perce was acting fully within his constitutional rights; the fact that Martin never explained how dressing as a zombie-prophet was not protected by the First Amendment is evidence of that. The closest thing to a justification was Martin’s baseless assertion that “our forefathers intended that we use the First Amendment so that we can speak our mind, not to piss off other people and other cultures.”

This is, of course, untrue. The Founding Fathers meant to cover all types of speech, but “offensive” speech in particular. They weren’t worried about the government arresting people for telling their neighbors how nice their hats were; they were concerned with protecting controversial or inflammatory speech which the  government or its citizens might seek to repress. The fact that Martin believes the First Amendment only covers universally acceptable speech renders it essentially meaningless.

If Martin’s interpretation of the First Amendment is accurate, then anything anyone says could be justification for an assault, so long as the attacker claims that it’s offensive to his or her culture. Anyone with a quick temper would be able to legally attack anyone who happened to “piss [him] off.”

The true reasoning behind Martin’s decision has been the subject of much discussion on the internet and in the media. Martin’s religion is often the focus of these debates, though the truth about his beliefs varies depending on the source. During the trial, he told Perce he is a Muslim; however, in an interview with the Associated Press, he said he is a Christian.

The religion of the presiding judge shouldn’t matter in any case, but Martin’s incessant rambling about how offensive Perce’s actions were to Muslims made it part of the case. He seemed to use the fact that Muslims were particularly touchy about their prophet as his reasoning for throwing the case out, leading some to believe that he merely dropped it because he felt Elbayomy’s outburst was justified.

Martin later, in an interview with CNN, used his military service of 27 years to prove that, if anyone should be biased towards Islam, he should. This proves nothing, as there are over 3,000 Muslims on active duty in the U.S. military.

I do trust Martin’s claim that he is Christian; regardless, I think the decision truly stemmed from the his military experiences.

Transgressions against Islam, such as the recent accidental Koran burning in Afghanistan, have been shown to endanger the lives of U.S. troops. Having had to deal with insurgents for 27 years, I imagine Martin is tired of having to see soldiers die because people like Perce choose to act, as Martin said, like a “doofus” by carelessly offending other cultures. This does not justify his ruling, of course, but it is far more logical than the “he’s a Muslim” argument.

Whether or not Martin’s “I’m a Muslim” admission was a slip of the tongue, a hypothetical situation, or the truth cannot be known, nor can the true motivation behind his decision. Regardless of the reason, the result has summoned over 200 threatening phone calls and emails from citizens enraged by the ruling. Unfortunately for the judge, if his ruling does hold true, that would allow for these 200 people to assault him without any legal ramifications.