Summary
U. S. Supreme Court ruling overturning the conviction of a Pennsylvania man who posted threats on Facebook to brutally murder his estranged wife and a female FBI agent. In 2010, after his wife left him, and he was fired from his job for sexually harassing a female employee, Anthony Elonis began posting threats to murder his wife on his Facebook page, including a statement that he would not stop until “your body is a mess, soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts.” After Elonis refused an interview with a female FBI agent, he posted about slitting her throat. Following his conviction in 2011 for transmitting threats, Elonis appealed, arguing that his conviction was unconstitutional because it was not proven that he specifically intended to threaten his victims. CJLF joined the Supreme Court review of the case to argue that, while there was no high court precedent on this issue, nine of the eleven federal circuit courts have held that the transmission of threats is a general intent crime, requiring only that a reasonable person would recognize his statements as threats. The Court’s ruling held that the criminal transmission of threats requires a state of mind somewhere above negligence. The Court did not address whether recklessness would be sufficient, either under the statute or the First Amendment. If it is, the law would be largely unchanged, as a practical matter. Because the key issues remain undecided, we count this as a draw.
