http://thinkprogress.org/justice/20...-courts-ruling-favor-terrible-internet-troll/
SYG as we saw in several Florida cases, not to mention quite a few police killings, rested on the PERCEPTION OF THE ONE WHO CLAIMED TO BE THREATENED.
The Court reasoned that upholding Elonis’ conviction would have broad implications, potentially criminalizing innocent behavior. “Negligence is not sufficient to support a conviction,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority Court opinion. The statute does not specify the mental state one must have for threatening speech to be criminal, the opinion states, and solely relying on an individual’s perception of harmful intent isn’t enough to constitute a threat.
“Elonis’s conviction, however, was premised solely on how his posts would be understood by a reasonable person,” Roberts wrote, and “whether a ‘reasonable person’ regards the communication as a threat — regardless of what the defendant thinks — ‘reduces culpability on the all-important element of the crime to negligence’…What [Elonis - the one accused of being threatening] thinks does matter.”
Well shit - get Zimmerman back to court. Get Darren Wilson back to court! The cop who shot Tamir Rice! The man who shot the girl on his porch!
Or maybe, this woman should have just shot him, instead. The bar seems to be lower for shooting vs. taking them to jail.
SYG as we saw in several Florida cases, not to mention quite a few police killings, rested on the PERCEPTION OF THE ONE WHO CLAIMED TO BE THREATENED.
The Court reasoned that upholding Elonis’ conviction would have broad implications, potentially criminalizing innocent behavior. “Negligence is not sufficient to support a conviction,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority Court opinion. The statute does not specify the mental state one must have for threatening speech to be criminal, the opinion states, and solely relying on an individual’s perception of harmful intent isn’t enough to constitute a threat.
“Elonis’s conviction, however, was premised solely on how his posts would be understood by a reasonable person,” Roberts wrote, and “whether a ‘reasonable person’ regards the communication as a threat — regardless of what the defendant thinks — ‘reduces culpability on the all-important element of the crime to negligence’…What [Elonis - the one accused of being threatening] thinks does matter.”
Well shit - get Zimmerman back to court. Get Darren Wilson back to court! The cop who shot Tamir Rice! The man who shot the girl on his porch!
Or maybe, this woman should have just shot him, instead. The bar seems to be lower for shooting vs. taking them to jail.
