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12 

COUNTERMAN v. COLORADO 

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

B 
In  defining  true  threats  as  “statements  where  the 
speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an 
intent  to  commit  an  act  of  unlawful  violence,” id.,  at  359, 
the Court in Black echoed the traditional understanding of
threats.  Historically, threat crimes covered the same kind 
of subjectively threatening speech Black invoked. 

In reviewing this history, it is also vital to keep in mind 
the  nature  of  the  inquiry.  Removing  speech  from  normal 
First Amendment scrutiny is a major shift in the balance of 
expression and public interest that our Constitution gener-
ally  strikes.    The  inquiry  is  therefore  whether  there  is  a 
“long-settled tradition” of prohibiting inadvertently threat-
ening speech.  Stevens, 559 U. S., at 469.  None of the other 
opinions, however, identify a historical case that expressly 
raised  the  question  whether  a  subjective  mens  rea  is  re-
quired and held that it is not.  That is a remarkable thing 
when  one  considers  that  the  sample  size  consists  of  deci-
sions from both sides of the Atlantic across centuries. 

There was a long tradition of crimes for threatening an-
other person in order to extort them.  See, e.g., 1796 N. J. 
Laws  §57,  p.  108.  Colorado  and  the  United  States  admit 
that this core category of threat crimes required intent. 

Even beyond that, a subjective mens rea remained a key 
component  of  threat  offenses.  An  18th-century  English 
statute made it a capital offense to “knowingly send any let-
ter  . . .  threatening  to  kill  or  murder  any  of  his  Majesty’s
subject or subjects” or to threaten arson.  27 Geo. II, c. 15, 
in 21 Eng. Stat. at Large 184 (1754).  A leading treatise ex-
plained that the statute was “levelled against such whose 
intention it was [to] obtain their object by creating terror in 

—————— 
of  indifference  to  the  Amendment?”    United  States  v.  Heineman,  767 
F. 3d 970, 980 (CA10 2014).  The obvious answer, from Black’s reasoning 
to its holding, is that such a mens rea requirement was necessary for the 
statute to target true threats.