People across the country from “appellate judges to Facebook users” now are in a “state of uncertainty” over the nature on online threats and how serious they should be taken, following Monday’s ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court that overturned a defendant’s conviction for making threats online after he posted rap lyrics that referenced violence.
That’s according to Justice Clarence Thomas, to sole dissenter in the case involving a Pennsylvania man who described his violence-referencing posts as therapeutic, not true threats.
The case involves Anthony Elonis, whose posts had been monitored by the FBI. The ruling affects the standard through which rap lyrics and messages are assessed.
Elonis often posted violent language but he also claimed online his statements were merely asserting his First Amendment rights. Before the case got to court, he allegedly threatened his wife, a school class and several law enforcement officers, all of whom were subjects of rap-style words.
The jury that convicted him had been told that they should decide based on whether a reasonable person would see a threat, but the defendant demanded that there needed to be evidence of his state of mind, of a “true threat,” and the Supremes agreed.
There are those who are glad for the ruling.
Officials with the Rutherford Institute are fighting on behalf of a Marine who was taken into custody and held for several days in a mental institution over his online postings before a judge ruled there was no case against him and Brandon Raub needed to be released immediately.
The organization had argued to the high court that the First Amendment protects even inflammatory statements that may give offense or cause concern to others unless the statements were a credible threat.
He, like Elonis, had posted online “lines from song lyrics, political messages and virtual card games.”
“Whether it’s a Marine arrested for criticizing the government on Facebook or an ex-husband jailed for expressing his frustrations through rap lyrics on Facebook, the end result is the same – the criminalization of free speech,” said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute.
“While social media and the Internet have become critical forums for individuals to freely share information and express their ideas, they have unfortunately also become tools for the government to monitor, control and punish the populace for behavior and speech that may be controversial but are far from criminal.”
Elonis had been convicted on four counts but appealed, arguing that the government should have been required to prove that he intended to threaten the alleged victims, not simply that the victims could reasonably have believed the words were “true threats.”
The Institute had said, “(i)n order to protect the First Amendment rights of speakers, courts must ensure that they are criminalizing more than just the unrealized and unrealizable fears of particularly sensitive listeners.”
In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts said, “At trial, Elonis testified that his posts emulated the rap lyrics of the well-known performer Eminem, some of which involve fantasies about killing his ex-wife. App. 225. In Elonis’s view, he had posted ‘nothing … that hasn’t been said already.’ Id., at 205. The government presented as witnesses Elonis’s wife and co-workers, all of whom said they felt afraid and viewed Elonis’s posts as serious threats.”
But Thomas said court now had thrown “everyone from appellate judges to everyday Facebook users into a state of uncertainty.”
He explained the majority opinion overturned the decisions in nine of the federal court circuits.
“The court casts aside the approach used in nine circuits and leaves nothing in its place,” he wrote. “Lower courts are thus left to guess at the appropriate mental state… All they know after today’s decision is that a requirement of general intent will not do.”
He continued, “Although I am sympathetic to my colleagues’ policy concerns about the risks associated with threat prosecutions, the answer to such fears is not to discard our traditional approach to state-of-mind requirements in criminal law.”
He explained since the law criminalizes speech, “the First Amendment requires that the term ‘threat’ be limited to a narrow class of historically unprotected communications called ‘true threats.’ To qualify as a true threat, a communication must be a serious expression of an intention to commit unlawful physical violence, not merely ‘political hyperbole;’ ‘vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks’; or ‘vituperative, abusive and inexact’ statements.’”
He said, “It also cannot be determined solely by the reaction of the recipient, but must instead be ‘determined by the interpretation of a reasonable recipient familiar with the context of the community.
“The only dispute in this case is about the state of mind necessary to convict Elonis for making those posts. On its face, [the law] does not demand any particular mental state.”
WND has reported extensively on the Raub situation, which is similar, but not identical.
He was cuffed and stuffed into a mental hospital for a week over “controversial song lyrics” and political views he posted on his own Facebook. His detention came after state and federal prosecutors found there were no grounds for criminal charges for his actions, and after a week behind locked doors, a judge found there was no reason to confine him and he was released.
He subsequently sued, but the district and now appellate courts have found that the mental health screener on whose recommendation Raub was confined has immunity.
The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Raub’s request that his lawsuit be reinstated, “We hold that [the mental health screener] is entitled to qualified immunity on the ground that the unlawfulness (if any) of his conduct was not clearly established at the time he recommended Raub’s seizure.”
What about that free speech in America? Read “Shut Up America!: The End of Free Speech” by Brad O’Leary and find out what’s happening.
Days after Raub was detained by police, the Secret Service and FBI, Circuit Court Judge Allan Sharrett “ordered Raub’s immediate release, stating that the government’s case was ‘so devoid of any factual allegations that it could not be reasonably expected to give rise to a case or controversy.’”
The case claimed the mental health screener, Michael Campbell, who advised police, failed to exercise reasonable professional judgment in interviewing and in wrongly determining Raub was mentally ill and dangerous, thereby violating Raub’s rights under the 4th Amendment.
The appellate court noted Raub never threatened violence, and he was detained on orders from Campbell after only an interview between Campbell and officers who had talked with Raub.
from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2015/06/01/supremes-toss-mans-conviction-for-facebook-threats/
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