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      May 25, 1996
      
     
     
Student Charged in On-Line Threat Against Official

      By PAMELA MENDELS
      
     I n early March, a posting to several environmental and political
     newsgroups called for "open season" on Tim Leslie, a California
     State Senator who was pushing a ballot measure that would ease
     restrictions on the hunting of mountain lions.
     
     "Let us declare open season on state SEN TIM LESLIE, his family,
     everyone he holds near and dear, the Cattlemen's association and
     anyone else who feels that LIONS in California should be killed,"
     the message declared.
     
     It was posted on March 6 to the talk.environment, rec.pets, ca.pol
     and other newsgroups. The posting also stated that "it would be
     great" to see the Senator "hunted down and skinned and mounted for
     our viewing pleasure" and asked that readers "pray for his death."
     
     Leslie and California prosecutors say that the posting was a
     criminal threat.
     
     Free speech advocates say it was political commentary.
     
     And the 19-year-old El Paso, Tex. college student who served 13
     days in jail recently on charges related to the message says he's
     not the person who posted the note.
     
     [INLINE] The student, Jose E. Saavedra, a music education major at
     the University of Texas at El Paso, was arrested and jailed on May
     8 on charges stemming from the incident. He was released from jail
     earlier this week on personal recognizance. Saavedra said in a
     phone interview on Friday that he did not send the message and that
     he believed he may have been the victim of mistaken identity.
     
     "I didn't put up the posting to begin with," he said. "They are
     telling me it was sent from my computer, and I don't let anyone in
     my computer at all."
     
     Saavedra declined to elaborate on details of the case without first
     speaking to his lawyer, who was out of town on Friday and
     unavailable to either his client or a reporter.
     
     Albert C. Locher, Assistant Chief Deputy District Attorney for the
     Sacramento County, Calif., District Attorney's Office, which is
     seeking Saavedra's extradition in the case, said that court rules
     prevented him from revealing details of the evidence linking
     Saavedra to the posting. But, he said, he believed that "the
     evidence we've received from a variety of sources, including the
     FBI, are sufficient to establish that he was the one who posted the
     message."
     
     Saavedra was arrested in Texas in connection with the two charges
     he faces in California: making terrorist threats and threatening
     elected officials. The maximum penalty would be three years in
     prison, Locher said.
     
     Leslie found out about the posting after a supporter faxed him a
     copy. He reacted with alarm, in part because the Internet reaches
     so many people, his press secretary, Roger A. Wildermuth, said
     Friday.
     
     [INLINE] "What if someone like the Unabomber found out about this
     posting and decided to take action?" Wildermuth said. "That was our
     big concern."
     
     Leslie reported the posting to California law enforcement
     officials, who were equally unamused.
     
     "There are a lot of ways to express political disagreement with
     Senator Leslie short of threatening the personal safety of the
     Senator and his family and calling on a national audience to hunt
     him for sport," Locher said.
     
     He said the message poster "might incite someone else to do it or
     hope to intimidate Senator Leslie.''
     
     "In either circumstance," Locher said, "the state and the law have
     a legitimate interest in protecting the democratic process as
     embodied in the state legislature."
     
     But Margaret C. Crosby, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties
     Union Foundation of Northern California, said that the message,
     while strident, was the legitimate voicing of a political viewpoint
     and therefore deserving of First Amendment protection.
     
     "The ACLU believes that this is an unconstitutional prosecution for
     political expression," Crosby said. "There is a critical
     Constitutional distinction between harsh political rhetoric and a
     true threat. A true threat involves a gravity of purpose and a
     likelihood of execution, which simply were not present in the
     cyberspace message."
     
     Crosby said she believed that the violent language of the message
     was meant as a kind of parody of the hunting measure that Leslie
     endorses.
     
     "This language about hunting, skinning and mounting is clearly
     political rhetoric," she said. "It is his way of criticizing the
     proposed bounty hunting of mountain lions."
     
     The ACLU does not currently represent Saavedra, but Crosby said
     that the group was interested in the case and would like to offer
     Saavedra assistance.
     
     Legislation allowing the hunting of mountain lions was introduced
     after several attacks by the animals on California hikers in the
     last two years, including a case in which a woman was killed.
     
   
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