Strange little man

[Gob]

As the Royal Marines marched past the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday, Elaine Deane spotted a familiar face on her TV screen.
It was her ex-husband Paul McFarlane - and he was up to his old tricks. Contrary to the medals and regimental beret he was wearing, he never served in the Royal Marines. He was kicked out after a couple of weeks in basic training. Yet the 54-year-old former lorry driver persists in masquerading as a war hero who saw action in the Falklands.

‘I was livid to see him parading in that uniform and medals he hasn’t earned,’ said Miss Deane, 49, who kicked him out of their home near Chester after discovering his lies. ‘He’s been going on marches for years but when I found out the truth I contacted every organisation in a 30-mile radius. He’s obviously got around that by going to London. ‘I don’t know why he does it but I think it makes him feel important.’


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z16WnmLzpC

Idiot.

[loCAtek]

That's a crime in the states... at the very least an ass beating!

[Crackpot]

On;y if you do it for financial gain.

[Lord Jim]

On;y if you do it for financial gain.

That's still an unsettled question, CP:

In 2006, during George W. Bush's presidency, the Stolen Valor Act (SVA) became law. Section (b) of the law -- codified here -- criminalizes falsely claiming that one has been awarded any one of a number of U.S. military medals. The false claim at issue can be oral or written -- anything from boasting in a bar, to bragging on the Internet.

For most medals, the sentence is up to six months of jail time. But false claims that one has received a Congressional Medal of Honor, or certain other medals rewarding extraordinary valor, may be penalized with up to a full year of jail time. Fines can also be imposed by the court.

To run afoul of the SVA, it is not necessary to actually wear a forged medal, or to use one's false claim about having been awarded a medal to get some concrete benefit (such as money or a job). Nor is it necessary to have damaged any particular person in any way as a result of one's false claim. Simply making the false claim is itself a crime. Accordingly, some argue that the statute runs afoul of the First Amendment by punishing pure speech.

Notably, if a person does falsely claim to have a medal in order to procure a concrete benefit, then longstanding garden-variety civil and criminal fraud statutes will apply. Such statutes are triggered by knowingly false claims that are material (that is, significant in the given context), as long as the speaker intends that the listener will rely upon the claim to his detriment, and as long as damages ensue.

But the SVA does away with any requirement of reliance, materiality, or damages -- focusing solely on the speech itself.

Two Challenges to the SVA Raise A Real Possibility of Supreme Court Review

The SVA has recently been the subject of two federal court challenges.

On July 16, a Denver-based U.S. District Court judge struck down the SVA as unconstitutional. Federal prosecutors there are appealing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

Then, in August, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit voted 2-1 to strike down the Act as unconstitutional. However, the Justice Department has requested rehearing of that decision by an en banc panel of the Circuit.

Particularly if the Tenth and Ninth Circuits end up disagreeing with each other, it is possible that the Supreme Court will take an interest in the case.

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hilden/20101122.html

Personally I have some problems with criminalizing the mere verbal claim....

But I have no problem with making it a crime to show up in a uniform and medals for the purpose of passing yourself off as a war hero, financial gain or not.

[Gob]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8454715.stm

While it is not an offence to own medals which have not been awarded to you, it is illegal under section 197 of the Army Act 1955 to use these to pretend to be a member of the armed forces. (This act will be superseded by the Armed Forces Act 2006 in November.)

The act makes wearing any military decoration, badge, wound stripe or emblem without authority a criminal offence. It is also illegal to wear a replica "as to be calculated to deceive", and to falsely represent yourself as someone entitled to wear any such award.

[Lord Jim]

That sounds like a fair and sensible law to me.

[loCAtek]

The SEALs particularly take offense to that. It can be just bar talk, but if they hear about it, you'll receive a very personal visit to correct your behavior.