Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-138_43j7.pdf
Page Number: 27

10 

COUNTERMAN v. COLORADO 

SOTOMAYOR, J., concurring
Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

intent to commit an act of unlawful violence.”  Id., at 359 
(emphasis added).  However, “[t]he speaker need not actu-
ally intend to carry out the threat,” as true threats also in-
clude intimidation alone.  Id., at 359–360.  And “[i]ntimida-
tion in the constitutionally proscribable sense of the word 
is a type of true threat, where a speaker directs a threat to
a person or group of persons with the intent of placing the
victim in fear of bodily harm or death.”  Id., at 360 (empha-
sis added).

To the extent the Virginia statute covered intentionally 
threatening cross burning, it was thus tailored to cover only
true threats.  Critically, however, the statute also provided 
that “ ‘[a]ny such burning of a cross shall be prima facie ev-
idence  of  an  intent  to  intimidate.’ ”    Id.,  at  348.  In  other 
words, the all-important intent requirement could be satis-
fied by the mere conduct itself.

Consistent with the majority’s definition of true threats,
both the plurality and Justice Scalia agreed that the lack of
a sufficient intent requirement meant that a conviction un-
der the statute could not stand.  Id., at 367, 379.  For the 
plurality, the intent requirement was “the very reason why
a State may ban cross burning” because it “distinguish[ed]”
between  the  constitutionally  unprotected  true  threat  of 
burning a cross with intent to intimidate and “cross burning
[as] a statement of ideology.”  Id., at 365–366.4  For Justice 
Scalia, the “plurality [was] correct in all of this.”  Id., at 372 
(opinion concurring in part, concurring in judgment in part, 
—————— 

4 The lead dissent asserts that the Black plurality’s decision was based 
on how the statute “ ‘ignore[d] all of the contextual factors that are nec-
essary to decide whether a particular cross burning’ was covered by the 
statute.”  Post, at 9 (opinion of BARRETT, J.) (quoting 538 U. S., at 367 
(plurality opinion)).  But some context is missing from this reading itself.
The full sentence is “all of the contextual factors that are necessary to 
decide whether a particular cross burning is intended to intimidate.”  Id., 
at 367 (emphasis added).  The plurality was thus concerned with context 
to the extent it was relevant to the mens rea requirement needed to ren-
der the statute constitutional.  Id., at 365–366.