Summary
United States Supreme Court case in which the defendant, Billy Raymond Counterman, was convicted of stalking and was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison for sending thousands of private Facebook messages to a local singer/songwriter ("C.W."). C.W. found the private messages to be "weird" and "creepy" and did not respond to any of them. She blocked Counterman from her Facebook accounts, but he created new accounts and continued to message her. As time went on without response from C.W., Counterman's messages became more angry and alarming, causing C.W. to become extremely fearful and scared. Counterman also alluded to making physical sightings of C.W. in public. Because C.W. was worried that Counterman would show up at her scheduled concerts, she cancelled several shows and obtained a protective order against him. C.W. also discovered that Counterman was on probation for two prior threat convictions. Counterman was arrested and charged with stalking under Colorado Revised Statute 18-3-602(1)(c). Under that statute, the state was required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Counterman "knowingly" followed, approached, contacted, placed under surveillance, or made any form of communication with C.W. in a manner that would cause a reasonable person to suffer severe emotional distress and did cause C.W. to suffer from severe emotional distress. Counterman argued that because he did not subjectively intend to threaten C.W., the statute was unconstitutional as applied to his messages because they were protected under the First Amendment. The Colorado Court of Appeals disagreed and held that his messages were unprotected "true threats."
CJLF joined the case to argue that the "true threats" doctrine does not depend on what the speaker's inner subjective purpose was in making a communication. Rather, evaluating a speaker's mental state under an objective knowing standard is all that is constitutionally required. Stalkers cause significant harm to their victims regardless of whether they subjectively intend to induce fear. A stalker's detachment from reality is the prime reason why an objective standard is necessary to punish those who inflict harm on their victims. CJLF further argued that because the Colorado statute of which Counterman was convicted did not include a "credible threat" element, Counterman's conviction did not depend on his communication being a "true threat." Because Colorado has a substantial interest in protecting stalking victims, the law at issue is a valid content neutral, time, place, or manner regulation, and is constitutional.
The Supreme Court partly agreed with CJLF's first argument. The Court held that a reckless disregard of the threatening nature of the speech was sufficient, rejecting the claim that a specific intent to threaten was required. The Court did not reach the "manner" argument.
