A feminist who's very upset about the Hobby Lobby decision (as well she should be) angrily writes in a DU post, "Justice Alito wrote this decision and I hope he rots in Hell." Now, "Hell" is a concept from Christian mythology, part of which is that you can't go to Hell until you're dead. On that basis, she's prosecuted for threatening Alito's life. Her defense is that she's not even religious and she meant no such thing, it was just a metaphor. The jury, however, has several fundamentalist Christians who take such statements literally. (Or perhaps she wrote that "someone should remove him from the Court" and the issue is whether this was a call for assassination or for impeachment.)

The issue is how the jury should be instructed. DUers criticizing this decision, to be consistent, would have to say that the jury should be told that the nonreligious, nonviolent defendant's personal, subjective intent was immaterial. All that matters is how a hypothetical abstract reasonable person would interpret the post. Thus, each juror makes that decision based on his or her own view of what's a reasonable interpretation. That DUer may be headed to prison.

Under this SCOTUS decision, however, the defendant will be permitted to testify to explain what she intended by the post. Furthermore, the jurors will be instructed that, regardless of what their fundie or gun-nut neighbors would think, they should acquit her unless they find that this particular defendant subjectively intended her post to be a death threat. I think that's a more reasonable standard.

could just as easily mean she hopes his arteries are clogged from years of cheeseburgers and he has a coronary.

It's not a threat.

to save time, just shoot you. And use what they gathered from social networks as valid exculpatory proof, no doubt.

Others have to believe you when you claim that you felt threatened and had a right to stand-your-ground. (No proof needed.)
Others have to believe you when you claim that you are so super-religious that you can't sell cake to homosexuals. (No proof needed.)
Others have to believe you when you claim that you never mentioned to really kill that woman for complaining about sexism in videogames. (No proof needed.)

his waistband' excuse for murdering people.

was being made against the SCOTUS the vote would have been the other way.

Also, Clarence Thomas was one of the dissenters, along with Alito.

From your link:

Certainly makes my own brain hurt to agree with those two. But this ruling is ridiculous.

I guess the old adage of "Never say never" is true. But the ruling, yes, is ridiculous. No one posting threats online, or anywhere else, is doing so with good intentions.

And he wasn't just echoing something Scalia had already said?? Strange days to be sure.

Those are based on heavily on intent.

This ruling apparently makes that insufficient. What, exactly, a jury is supposed to use *beyond* their own reasonable assessment doesn't compute for me.

I'm not a fan of fluid legal terms that leave convincing and interpretation up to showboat antics, intimidation, and fear based lawyers and prosecutors.

We are in an age where everything we write is archived, and everything we say over the phone (until 12:01 on Monday) was recorded.

People are being convicted based on rap lyrics. The 7-2 decision was correct and Slate is wrong here.

The two dissenters were Alito and Thomas, two borderline fascists.

if we can infer beyond a reasonable doubt that he meant to threaten someone, or was recklessly threatening, so can a jury

Juries are regularly required to mak determinations of intent in both civil and criminal cases. The difference between manslaughter and murder is just one such incidence.

Their ruling did not even remotely fit the circumstances of the case. The fellow's intent was clear.

I do think that there could easily be cases where one person could seek to abuse the system, by claiming that they were frightened by non-threatening speech. But it sure as heck wasn't in this case.

"Half the country" doesn't, actually, writes things like "There's one way to love you but a thousand ways to kill you." Not even when they're really angry.

That wasn't some random internet troll comment. It wasn't even violent rap lyrics. That was very specifically written in reference to his wife.

http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/twitter-harassment-rape-death-threat-report/

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/10/sexism_in_the_skeptic_community_i_spoke_out_then_came_the_rape_threats.html


http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/01/when-misogynist-trolls-make-journalism-miserable-for-women/282862/

You can pretend it's a minor issue, but that's easier to say if it's not you getting bombarded with them. Sure most of them are idiot trolls who wouldn't ever try to make good on a threat, but how does someone determine which are bluster and which aren't?

A similar event happened to an acquaintance of mine recently. As far as I know she wasn't threatened, but after an article on how she competed men's gymnastics and was the recent mother of twins, the comments were so ugly that my friends couldn't finish reading them talking about how she was obviously transgender and that her kids were implanted, or an ugly lesbian or she faked the kids, or she should have her kids taken away because she continued to train while pregnant under doctor's supervision.

Alternatively look at how online conservatives refer to Rachel Maddow as Rachel Mancow or how some posters here used to refer to Ann Coulter as Mann Coulter.

People are ugly when they don't have to take responsibility for their actions. Once DU administration began to ban idiots who called Ann Coulter a man, that stupidity stopped for the most part.

The issue was how the jury should be instructed. The Court held that the jury should be told to consider what this particular defendant intended by the statements, and to convict only if this particular defendant intended these particular statements to be threats. If he intended only venting, he's not guilty, extreme bad taste not being a crime.

The actual jury wasn't given a proper instruction. Therefore, its guilty verdict is vacated. Nothing in the article suggests, however, that SCOTUS thinks threatening people is OK. What will presumably happen is that the prosecutor will have the option of a retrial, in which the jury will be given correct instructions. If, as some posters here seem confident, his subjective intent to threaten the woman is clear from what he wrote, then the new jury, told to evaluate his subjective intent, will again convict him.

With appropriate jury instructions.

if the court wanted to change the standard for intent from being a "reasonable person's" interpretation to a determination of the actual accused's intent, they should have waited for a case where there that different standard likely would produce a different outcome.

that is, the should have waited for a case, say, where the accused wrote something that sounds to a reasonable person like a threat, but the accused happened to be someone who routinely went around saying provocative things, maybe he had some form of tourette's or something, so if you knew the accused and that medical condition, you would know that it wasn't meant as a real threat.

*that's* that case you make this kind of decision on.

not a case where it's likely that the have a retrial and reach the same conclusion.

the supreme court is littered with cases that never got a hearing because they didn't make good test cases.

In order to deprive someone of their liberty, a culpable state of mind is required (they intended to carry out an act that constituted a crime). The instruction to the jury focused on how the threats were perceived - not on his state of mind (which is virtually always an element of any crime which carries a potential punishment of incarceration).

SCOTUS got this one right.