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2 assault another person...or threaten to do so he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor with a sentence of up to two years and a fine. He also commented that GS14-401-1.1 is the statute that lists punishments for felonies. GS14-401-3 states that if any misdemeanor offense with punishment less than a general misdemeanor is committed because of race, etc., the offender shall be guilty of a general misdemeanor. If a general misdemeanor offense is committed because of race, etc. , the offender shall be guilty of a Class J felony. It is the law in North Carolina that if you do commit crimes against protected classes and you are convicted you will be punished more severely than if the person you harmed was not in a protected class. If a threat is willfully communicated and made in a manner which would cause a reasonable person to believe that it will be carried out, a crime has been committed. He presented a 1871 case in which it was held that the defendants used language to intimidate the plaintiff. The judge stated that if the language used caused Plaintiff to change his/her course of action then Defendants were in violation of the law. It was important to note that guns and tools were present but were not used to intimidate. The law held that the threat was sufficient to hold the defendants guilty. It was held to be unlawful to speak words that incite an immediate breach of the peace. The proposed Ordinance cause this type of speech to be in violation of the law. It is illegal to perform any act that indirectly or directly results in personal or property damage. The last section of the proposed Ordinance says that no person shall be found to have violated this Ordinance by the content of the speech. It is the act, not the content of the speech, that would cause violation of the Ordinance. There have been statements in the paper that the Ordinance is unconstitutional because it violates the freedom of speech section of the Bill of Rights. Gledhill stated that the "freedom of speech" referred to in the first amendment does not give freedom to disregard the basic rights of others. Speech which is not protected is that which has such slight social value as to not be worthy of protection. "Fighting words" are not protected. If the words are likely to provoke a fight, they are not protected. It is the words themselves that are being regulated because they themselves provoke the fight. The Court has commented that with certain words the goal is not to communicate an idea; it is meant to intimidate the person. Gledhill mentioned another case in which the city of St. Paul made unlawful particular words that insult or provoke violence on the basis of race or color. They decided that the placing of symbols was a violation of civil rights. An Ordinance was passed which made it unlawful to place certain symbols on property within the city limits. A court of law decided that this Ordinance was not legal. Orange County staff has studied and researched this issue so that the proposed Ordinance will meet constitutional criteria. Justice Scalia has clearly defined what would or would not pass the constitutionality test. This Ordinance addresses not what is said, but rather whether or not "fighting words" are directed at a person from a protected class. In a recent NC Court of Appeals case involving Dr. Kaplan, an OB-GYN physician who was performing abortions, the defendants were alleged to have carried out activities designed to prevent him from performing abortions, including threats to his life. An injunction was issued which ordered the defendants to cease all