SCOTUS ruling in Facebook threats case “neither the most speech-protective nor the most sensitive to the dangers of true threats.” For statements to be considered true threats, unprotected by the First Amendment, the person making them must have some understanding the statements could be construed as threatening, the Supreme Court held yesterday. The case—Counterman v. Colorado—involves a defendant convicted of stalking after sending a bevy of Facebook messages to someone identified as C.W.
In a 7-2 ruling issued yesterday, the Court vacated the conviction and remanded the case back to the lower court. The court’s three liberal justices were joined by Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, John Roberts, and Samuel Alito.
“True threats of violence are outside the bounds of First Amendment protection and punishable as crimes,” noted Justice Elena Kagan in the majority’s opinion:
Today we consider a criminal conviction for communications falling within that historically unprotected category. The question presented is whether the First Amendment still requires proof that the defendant had some subjective understanding of the threatening nature of his statements. We hold that it does, but that a mental state of recklessness is sufficient. The State must show that the defendant consciously disregarded a substantial risk that his communications would be viewed as threatening violence. The State need not prove any more demanding form of subjective intent to threaten another.
In this case, Billy Counterman sent C.W.—a singer and musician who lived in his community—hundreds of Facebook messages between 2014 and 2016. “Some of his messages were utterly prosaic (‘Good morning sweetheart’; ‘I am going to the store would you like anything?’)—except that they were coming from a total stranger,” notes Kagan. “Others suggested that Counterman might be surveilling C. W.,” and some expressed anger at her.
“Fuck off permanently,” said one message. Another read: “You’re not being good for
human relations. Die.”
Understandably, the messages frightened C.W., who worried that Counterman was following her and might hurt her. She contacted local police, who charged him under a Colorado stalking statute that prohibits “repeatedly . . . make[ing] any form of communication with another person” in “a manner that would cause a reasonable person to suffer serious emotional distress.”
Counterman argued that his messages were not true threats and thus were protected by the First Amendment.
The trial court weighed whether Counterman’s messages were true threats using a “reasonable person” standard: would some hypothetical, objective “reasonable person” find them threatening? It found that they would, meaning the messages were not protected speech. The case was put before a jury, which found Counterman guilty under the stalking statute.
The Colorado Court of Appeals then affirmed this decision, holding that “a speaker’s subjective intent to threaten” is not necessary to convict the speaker for threatening communications. The Colorado Supreme Court declined to review the case.
“Courts are divided about (1) whether the First Amendment requires proof of a defendant’s subjective mindset in true-threats cases, and (2) if so, what mens rea”—that is, level of intent or knowledge—”standard is sufficient,” noted Kagan. Thus, the Supreme Court decided to hear Counterman’s case.
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