3 ms·

He didn't run up to someone in the street. But even so, would you argue for 8 years in prison for screaming at someone?

• einhverfr 13y ago
  The thing is that a true threat, something that is directed and credible, and forces someone to actually protect themselves against it, can be rightly criminalized by the states. In other words, it isn't screaming at someone, it is a true and credible threat, that might be worth punishing relatively harshly. Let me put this another way. Suppose instead of screaming at someone the individual went up to the home of a black family and burned a cross on their sidewalk (so no tresspassing) at 2am, and left a piece of cardboard on their door saying "Watch out. We are coming for you!" That's a pretty classic terroristic threat in US history. It may consist entirely of expressive acts and no real property crime. Certainly that's worthy of significant punishment. Now this case doesn't even come close to that hypothetical and I think the differences are illustrative. It isn't specific. It isn't a threat directed at the target. It isn't disruptive by itself. So if the individual isn't taking any steps to make it happen, I think it really should fall in the category protected by Brandenburg v. Ohio. Indeed, if you read footnote 1 of that case, you will see that the speech at issue here was a lot less likely to cause imminent lawless action, was a lot less terroristic, and was a lot less credible than the speech found protected in that case.