Elisha Strom has been found not guilty of charges of stalking, the Daily Progress reports. The white supremacist and ex-wife of child pornographer Kevin Strom was arrested in July of 2009 for harassing local undercover police officers, in the form of her blog, where she describes stakeouts of their stakeouts, posts photos of the officers leaving their homes, provides dozens of surveillance photos of the detectives, and relates stories about how she goes about stalking them. It turns out that to be convicted of stalking, state law says that one must be somebody who:
on more than one occasion engages in conduct directed at another person with the intent to place, or when he knows or reasonably should know that the conduct places that other person in reasonable fear of death, criminal sexual assault, or bodily injury to that other person or to that other person’s family or household member…
Since her target could not be shown to be placed in reasonable fear of bodily injury, Judge William Barkley found her not guilty. The judge did agree that her behavior is bizarre, though, and granted the police officer a protective order to keep Strom away from him. Strom informed a reporter that she simply never knew that the officers felt threatened by her actions, but that she intends to carry on anyhow.
Judge Barkley is an excellent argument for electing judges.
1. The intent was overwhelming;
2. the evidence was overwhelming;
3. there was every reason to convict,
4. and only very narrow grounds to polish his ego by finding her not guilty. “Oh what a good boy an I” to the bleeding hearts.
Alas, elected judges are worse. Check out Florida. Virginia needs something that combines elitist selection of nominees, which is the current system, but adds input from the public to keep them in line.
Barkley would never have done this if he had to answer for it. But no Virginia judge has to answer for what he does.
Technical side note: WJ, all the links to the blog 404 on me, yet the content appears to still be there, but only if you first go to the main page of the blog. Might just be a crappy browser issue on my end though.
/series of tubes!
Nah, that was my fault. At some point she changed her blog entry URLs (or, at least, Blogger changed them), and old links broke. I tracked down all of their new URLs and updated the linked. Thanks!
“white supremacist”? I believe you are thinking of her ex-husband.
Oh, go cry me a river Larry. Sure, there was clear intent to document the public activities of a group of individuals where no expectation of privacy exists (walking down the street). The law only addresses intent to cause harm. Seems to me LE just lost a round of “you can’t tape me” lawsuits too…meanwhile, LE has been winning case after case where they’ve eroded privacy expectations of the public – particularly in pursuit of the WoD.
Kinda sucks when the shoe is on the other foot, huh? Waah. Aheh, and now, that you don’t like the result, you suddenly want a results-oriented Judiciary to legislate from the bench, huh?
Nope—she’s a proud white supremacist (or, rather, “white nationalist,” rejecting the term “white supremacist,” writing: “It is not applicable to White Nationalists because WE DON’T WANT TO LIVE ANYWHERE NEAR NON-WHITES, let alone rule over them.”) We had this discussion here last time—re-read that and get back to me if you have any questions. :)
I would think that jail/prison isn’t a great place to live if you don’t want to live near non-whites.
I have repeatedly stated I am not a “white supremacist” and I have never belonged to any so-called white supremacist, white nationalist, white separatist, white pride, neo-nazi, or similar organization — not even my husband’s (at the time much to the irritation of him and other actual racists).
By the SPLC’s own rhetoric about me, I didn’t fit in with those people; I did not (and do not) think like they do.
As for “Angry White Female,” that is not me. That is a woman from California named Kelly Cowan, who long ago distanced herself from race-based politics — a fact the SPLC knows, and has known for years. I would appreciate if you would cease attributing her words to me, but I realize that probably doesn’t suit your agenda.
Elisha Strom
That’s a bunch of hand-waving horseshit. From The Hook:
No doubt you think you’re splitting some kind of white supremacist hairs, but the fact is that you’re a racist, pure and simple, and that you did, by your own admission, belong to a white nationalist organization. Use whatever label you want, run whatever websites you want, I don’t care. The point is that you are a racist, a label that you wear proudly (at least around your fellow racists), and the details beyond there really don’t much matter.