Man Accused of Groping Woman on Flight Said Trump 'Says It's OK'

Summary of Legal Issue

            The FBI has arrested a man by the name of Bruce Alexander for allegedly groping a woman on a Southwest Airlines flight bound for Albuquerque from Houston. Halfway through the flight the woman sitting in front of Bruce claimed that she felt him reaching forward to touch her body around the rib cage area along with her breasts as well. This happened a couple times until she turned around and shouted at the man to stop. The flight attendants moved her seat and had radioed what had happened to ground control. When the plane landed he was taken into custody by the FBI. Once he had been apprehended, he started claiming that the President of the United States, Donald Trump, says it is ok. This claim comes from the access Hollywood tape where Trump notoriously said you can “just grab them by the pussy”. Trump has dismissed this tape as “locker room banter” whatever that seems to mean. Now even though Trump has dismissed these remarks, in this case they were enough to get someone to actually commit abusive sexual contact based on his words alone. Unlike Trump who is able to weasel himself out of sexual assault allegations, Bruce will probably be facing a 250,000 dollar fine along with two years in jail time.

Legal Questions Raised

            In this case the matter in question is whether Trump is actually inciting crime and criminal acts through his speeches, redirect, and overall public presence. Multiple stories have surfaced since his running for election where the accused have quoted Trump or stated that Trump was their motivation for the act. Trump is not aware that his words have a huge negative impact on the people of the country he is ultimately in charge of. He is reckless in putting forward negative redirect that inspires radical believers to commit actions that we as a society have deemed immoral. Trump should face consequences for events like this if he is indeed the motivation for things like assault, sexual assault, and sexual harassment etc. even if Trump is not or cannot be convicted of things like incitement to violence or other negative acts there should still be public discourse around the fact that he is personally have a negative impact on our country and its citizens through his words and actions.

Relevant Doctrine/ Precedent

            Incitement is proven through the Brandenburg test which comes from Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969). It can be proven with a two-part test that states the speech is “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action” and the speech is “likely to incite or produce such action”. This case of Trump inciting imminent lawless action is obviously not able to be proven since the act and quote are very far apart from one another. However, his words do seem likely to produce such action based on his track record. He is on record for continuously encouraging violence like when he stated he would pay for people’s legal fees for engaging in violence with protestors saying exactly to “knock the crap out of them, would you?”. So again, this event may not seem to cover to grounds for incitement, but perhaps one day he will meet both criteria for inciting imminent lawless action where he is personally putting the people he is supposed to be protecting in harm’s way.

Conclusion

            Looking back to Bruce Alexander the man on the flight accused of sexual assault, it may seem that he is the simply the next radical whom is willing to follow Trump word for word. What is perhaps a little more unhinging is that he will surely not be the last. Trump’s words have been causing turmoil across the public’s eye for quite a while. However, until he can be proven in court for saying things that get other people in trouble, he is likely to keep committing immoral actions without repercussions. In the end, at least Bruce was apprehended and everything within the story seemed to play out as it should have, when looking at it through the code of law. Hopefully the upcoming midterms can be able to make some positive contributions to situations like these.