Yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati upheld the conviction of a divorced Tennessee dad with the unlikely name of Franklin Delano Jeffries II who, in the midst of a custody battle, decided to post a YouTube video of himself singing a song with the sweet title “Daughter’s Love.”
The problem was that only a small portion of the song was actually about daughters and love; the rest was about Mr. Jeffries’ apparent desire to kill the judge overseeing the custody hearings, and possibly others.
As the appeals court judge put it:
The song contains sweet passages about relationships between fathers and daughters and the importance of spending time together. The rest boils into an assortment of the banal (complaints about his ex-wife), the ranting (gripes about lawyers and the legal system) and the menacing (threats to kill the judge if he doesn’t “do the right thing” at an upcoming custody hearing). Jeffries set the words to music and created a video of himself performing the song on a guitar painted with an American flag on it. The style is part country, part rap, sometimes on key, and surely therapeutic.
Here are the song’s opening verses:
I’ve had enough of this abuse from you.
It has been goin’ on for 13 years.
I have been to war and killed a man.
I don’t care if I go to jail for 2,000 years.
’Cause this is my daughter we’re talkin’ about,
And when I come to court this better be the last time.
I’m not kidding at all, I’m making this video public
’Cause if I have to kill a judge or a lawyer or a woman I don’t care.
One of Jeffries’ lawyers told the Wall Street Journal that this was all a misunderstood attempt at humor and that his client “never dreamed this message would get back to the judge,” a fact seemingly belied by that whole “I’m not kidding at all” line and the bit that followed about making the video public.
He followed this threat with a brief tribute to his daughter:
I love you; daughters are the beautiful things in my life.
It keeps me going and keeps me alive everyday.
And then it was back to threats (I’ve put the direct threats in bold):
I’m not kidding, judge, you better listen to me.
I killed a man downrange in war.
I have nothing against you, but I’m tellin’ you this better be the last court date. …
So I promise you, judge, I will kill a man.
This time better be the last time I end up in court …
And this s___ needs to stop because you’re gonna lose your job.
And I guarantee you, if you don’t stop, I’ll kill you.
’Cause I am gonna make a point either way you look at it somebody’s gotta pay,
And I’m telling you right now live on the Internet.
So put me in jail and make a big scene. …
So I’m gonna f___ somebody up, and I’m going back to war in my head.
So July the 14th is the last time I’m goin’ to court.
Believe that. Believe that, or I’ll come after you after court. Believe that.
I love my daughter.
Nobody’s going take her away from me.
’Cause I got four years left to make her into an adult.
I got four years left until she’s eighteen.
So stop this s___ because I’m getting tired of you,
And I don’t care if everybody sees this Internet site
Because it is the truth and it’s war. …
If fathers don’t have rights or women don’t have their rights or equal visitation,
Get their ass out of office.
’Cause you don’t deserve to be a judge and you don’t deserve to live.
You don’t deserve to live in my book.
And you’re gonna get some crazy guy like me after your ass.
And I hope I encourage other dads to go out there and put bombs in their goddamn cars.
Blow ’em up …
BOOM!
There went your f___in’ car. I can shoot you. I can kill you. I can
f___ you. Be my friend. Do something right. Serve my daughter.
Well, prosecutors took him up on that offer to “put [him] in jail,” and a jury agreed; Jeffries was sentenced to 18 months for his threats. And now the conviction has been upheld in Circuit Court.
You can read rest of the lyrics and the judge’s opinion here. (It’s in pdf form.)
Aarg I don’t know how the Great War poets were on womens’ suffrage. Mostly I’ve read their poems, which are great on what a great stupid war we’ve got, nice if it never happens again and rather light on men should always be granted equal custody and there should be a flat tax.
I think the right-wingers just have a 150-year-old grudge on Walt Whitman.
…You know, I kind of have to back them up on that one. FUCK Walt Whitman.
(clutches Milton closely to breast)
Oi, that’s another one. Milton can scan!
It’s because art is for liberal pussies.
Well, I hope this gives the mother and daughter some peace. I wouldn’t be surprised if they feared what he might do next.
If it were me, I’d be using those eighteen months to disappear. God knows what he’ll be like when he gets out.
apparently he was already out on parole and was re-imprisoned in april of this year for violating terms (failed a drug test) so i’m not actually sure how much time in jail he has left
he actually only had 8 months after his sentence because he got 10 months time-served
@kristinmh
“And this prince among men was not automatically given full custody? MISANDRY!”
Being a mother, one would think you’d understand completely. Imagine a corporate entity, which is all the state is, takes your child from you tommorow and they forbid you to see your child. You never get to hear the first laughter, Kiss a skinned knee better and have the child look at you with the gratitude of the universe and throw their arms around you and tell how much they love you. You never get to teach them all the things they crave to know. They’ll be no helping them with their first steps, no laughter, no watching them sleep, no telling them mommy will make it better and she does.
Imagine if after over a decade of simply trying to see your child while your income is taken to pay for the child, which you never saw grow up, this corporate entity is still denying you contact. Would you be rational? Or would you be frustrated, angry, even furious? If a corporate entity stole your child would you make threats to kill, or even to actually kill to get that child back? If it happened to you what would the papers say? “Hysterical woman threatens judge.” Wouldn’t everyone side with the corporate entity and say, “lock her up.”
Wouldn’t you be at your wits end after over a decade of trying to see your child and being forbidden to? What would you be willing to do to get your child back? Would you be calm and rational as the years slip away? Would you simply accept the decision of the corporate entity that you can see your child when they’re eighteen? Wouldn’t you make the same threats? Wouldn’t everyone here be just as angry, frustrated and irrational as this man?
Jeffries had visitation rights. Try again.
@Pear_Tree, what others have said – this doesn’t really seem to fall under free speech protections since it’s a threat, against an elected official no less. Not that I blame you for the confusion considering how many threats have been made against the current U.S. president without, apparently, much recourse *coughtednugentcough*
Owly’s back, and he’s not repeating stuff for the hundreth time for a change? What gives? o.o Maybe it’s the kittehs.
so owlslave i guess you didnt bother to actually read what happened before you went off on your usual indignant tirade
no, this is all stock owlslave, custody just hasnt come up in a while. notice how nothing he says is actually responsive to what happened in this case.
I, for one, woulld be willing to obey the law, pay child support payments, put money away for her school fund, attend every supervised visitation, and build a relationship with her.
Jeffries wasn’t willing to do any of the above. If he’d loved his daughters more than his own ego, he would still have visitation rights.
@ugh
he actually had unsupervised visitation. owlslave as usual is talking out of his ass.
@NWO, so this is interesting:
It has nothing to do with this particular case, of course, because he could and did see his daughter; but it’s interesting. Do you think this hypothetical situation would be more bearable if this hypothetical man wasn’t required to pay child support to keep his kids fed and clothed and secure?
no, this is all stock owlslave, custody just hasnt come up in a while.
I am disappoint. 🙁 I thought maybe he’d gone on holiday and had some sort of vision that gave him some sort of new, though still messed up, insight.
Like maybe he got lost in a desert and saw a heat-induced vision of a camel in heat (and wearing in a miniskirt) that spoke to him, and convinced him to mix things up a bit.
Haha wow.
Can you imagine being that guy’s lawyer? Every hearing would be essentially, “Yes, my client is a complete dumbass. Yes, video evidence of the crime in question was posted to doxens of Facebook page. However, I must appeal this decision anyways.”
*dozens of Facebook pages
nwoslave. No, I wouldn’t make death threats if I were in that situation.
Real story: Karen (fake name) was a dancer in Las Vegas. One day she met a really rich man who wined and dined her and asked her to marry him. She married him and they had two children, a boy and a girl. One winter the family went on vacation in the Caribbean. They traveled via husband’s private jet. One day, Karen went shopping and when she got back to the vacation home, her husband and her children were gone. All of her things were gone, including her passport. By the time she got back to the states, her husband had filed for and been granted a divorce and full custody of the children. She wasn’t even allowed visitation, they said she was unfit. She appealed the decision. The notice of appeal never made it to the Supreme Court (the trial court is supposed to send it to them). She filed multiple motions with the court and never was able to get a hearing. Her husband had millions of dollars to spend on lawyers and bribes. She had to talk lawyers into representing her for free until she could get some money from her ex.
See, what happened is this: Rich dude didn’t have his own money. His grandmother set up a trust fund that skipped him and gave everything to whatever children he had, with him being able to dip into it. But he didn’t have kids and didn’t want a wife who might make his getting loads of money difficult. So he found himself a penniless, friendless baby-maker and when the time was right he abandoned her. He bribed the judge, the cops, the department of family services and basically anyone who should have been looking out for the kids. Rich dude died after about 5 years and his 2nd wife got custody of the children. Even though she had been in a serious accident with the children in the car – the kids had to go to the hospital and were treated for injuries – while she had been drinking and doing drugs.
Karen fought for years through the legal system to get her kids back. The original judge retired at some point and a new judge got involved. The new judge ordered on three occasions that Karen get to see her children. Step-mom would not produce the children. The children were afraid of Karen because they had been told she was abusive and that’s why they never saw her. Finally, the judge ordered that the children be forcibly removed from step-mother and threatened incarceration for step-mom if she refused. The kids had to go into a sort of rehab program for the first couple of weeks to work with them so they would go with their mother.
Karen never threatened to kill anyone. Not her ex-husband, not the step-mom, not the judge or the cops or the social workers.
*FTR, I’m a long-time lurker here but I don’t recall if I’ve ever posted before. Maybe once or twice. Sorry for the long story right out of the gate. A friend and colleague of mine was Karen’s attorney.
See NWO, Tamara’s story is about something that actually happened.
Also, thanks to freitag for the avatar idea. *crosses fingers*
And yes, Tamara, I realize that wasn’t the point of your story. I don’t mean to derail. Death threats aren’t warranted no matter how fucked up the situation is.
Yeah, I’d be so at my wits end I’d.. I’d… I’d write a shitty song threatening to kill people and post it on the interwebz! Yeah! That’ll do it! /sarcasm
I changed my mind about three times from the title of this blog to the end. First I thought, good more online harassment being cracked down on, then I thought, no… that song better be pretty bad, turn back the clock and would we have locked up Johnny Cash?
Then I realized this is an ongoing trial and the lyrics go on and on with threats, so it’s a bit different. It’s also not just dissent like, “You’re a [BEEP] and a [HONK].”
This is fire in a crowded movie theater.
Also of course, I have to mention, had he threatened ME, or an ordinary citizen, not only would officials not care, but also there would be many people talking about LOL suit, or whatever. Wait, then again, there are different laws set up for threatening officials right?
Ok, sorry, I need another cup o java.
Of course whenever something comes up like this people mistake threats for free speech.
Also slander is not free speech, but it has to actually meet the legal criteria before there’s a case, it’s not just a matter of ‘being mean is against the law’.
Owly –
While the question, as has already been pointed out, is irrelevant to this case, I think what I would to get my daughter back is not do something so ridiculously stupid and irresponsible that I’m far more likely to not get my daughter back.
This isn’t a movie, you witless turd.
Anybody else crack up at EEB’s post? It’s way back, but funny.
Also did NWO say something like “would you actually kill to get a child back?”
(just felt like scanning NWO this morning.)
I refer NWO to Pervocracy’s comment about what he would do for his daughter. Succinct answer.
But no, listen. If bad guys had my kids and were threatening their lives, ok I would kill, but what you’re suggesting is pure narcissism that does not put the children first *at all* Mr. Slave. Killing for something like this would be pure ego, and how would that effect my boys? They would never want that! You have to let go. Sure put up a legal fight, but “let go” meaning … don’t kill haha. That’s major selfishness. Also, let’s say he’s just sooooo right, and this is such a social justice issue of paramount proportions and this man is being robbed, etc… and the kids fully understood. Ok, then you go to jail. Nose off/spite face.
It’s just stupid any way you turn it.