Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-138_43j7.pdf
Page Number: 14

Cite as:  600 U. S. ____ (2023) 

11 

Opinion of the Court 

certainty that others will take his words as threats.  Ibid. 
(internal  quotation  marks  omitted).    A  greater  gap  sepa-
rates those two from recklessness.  A person acts recklessly,
in the most common formulation, when he “consciously dis-
regard[s] a substantial [and unjustifiable] risk that the con-
duct will cause harm to another.”  Voisine v. United States, 
579 U. S. 686, 691 (2016) (internal quotation marks omit-
ted).  That standard involves insufficient concern with risk, 
rather than awareness of impending harm.  See Borden v. 
United States, 593 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (plurality opinion)
(slip op., at 5).  But still, recklessness is morally culpable 
conduct,  involving  a  “deliberate  decision  to  endanger  an-
other.”  Voisine, 579 U. S., at 694.  In the threats context, it 
means that a speaker is aware “that others could regard his 
statements as” threatening violence and “delivers them an-
yway.”  Elonis,  575  U. S.,  at  746  (ALITO, J., concurring  in 
part and dissenting in part).5 

Among  those  standards,  recklessness  offers  the  right
path forward.  We have so far mostly focused on the consti-
tutional interest in free expression, and on the correlative
need  to  take  into  account  threat  prosecutions’  chilling  ef-
fects.  But the precedent we have relied on has always rec-
ognized—and insisted on “accommodat[ing]”—the “compet-
ing  value[ ]” 
in  regulating  historically  unprotected
expression.  Gertz,  418  U. S.,  at  348.  Here,  as  we  have 
noted,  that  value  lies  in  protecting  against  the  profound 

—————— 

5 Just to complete the mens rea hierarchy, the last level is negligence— 
but that is an objective standard, of the kind we have just rejected.  A 
person acts negligently if he is not but should be aware of a substantial
risk—here, that others will understand his words as threats.  See Bor-
den, 593 U. S., at ___ (plurality opinion) (slip op., at 5).  That makes lia-
bility depend not on what the speaker thinks, but instead on what a rea-
sonable  person  would  think  about  whether  his  statements  are 
threatening in nature.  See Elonis, 575 U. S., at 738 (“Having liability 
turn  on  whether  a  reasonable  person  regards  the  communication  as  a 
threat—regardless  of  what  the  defendant  thinks—reduces  culpability
. . . to negligence” (internal quotation marks omitted)).