Source: http://cyb3rcrim3.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-blog-harassment-restraining-order.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 04:40:43+00:00

Document:
[o]n appeal from the district court's grant of a harassment restraining order (HRO) in favor of respondent Paula Polinsky, appellant Charles Bolton argues that (1) the record is insufficient to support the grant of the HRO, (2) the HRO's prospective limits and requirements for his online activity act as a prior restraint on his First Amendment freedom of speech, (3) the HRO is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad, and (4) the HRO is excessive in length.
Polinsky and Bolton first met in 2006 and began a romantic relationship, which lasted until 2009. The parties had a volatile relationship, with each claiming verbal and physical abuse by the other party. Police reports were made in California and Minnesota, and both parties were prosecuted based on various incidents at different times.
Polinsky broke off the relationship in 2009, and Bolton became upset and angry, sending her profane emails after the breakup. She obtained a two-year HRO against him. Bolton was convicted of violating that order after a 2011 incident in which he approached Polinsky in his vehicle when she was exiting her workplace parking lot. On appeal, this court upheld that conviction. See State v. Bolton, No. A11–2262, 2012 WL 4052539 (Minn. App. Sept. 17, 2012), review denied (Minn. Nov. 27, 2012).
In 2012, after the 2009 HRO had expired, the district court granted a second HRO, which was based on Bolton's conviction for violating the first HRO. In its order on the second HRO, however, the district court concluded that Bolton's act of `following’ Polinsky on Twitter did not amount to contact with her within the parameters of the previous HRO.
Polinsky also produced evidence that, using the blog's Twitter account, Bolton had sent her a Twitter `@mention’ a total of eight times. An expert witness testified that the `@mentions’ would result in notifications on her phone and that the primary purpose of sending an `@mention’ on Twitter `is to get somebody's attention ... to send them a notification and let them know about [a] tweet.’ At some point, Polinsky blocked Bolton from her Twitter account.
Bolton testified that he had tweeted about Polinsky to get public support for a lawsuit he had filed against the city attorney and the state seeking to vacate his conviction of violating the second HRO. He testified that, in tweeting links from his blog referring to Polinsky, he was relying on the district court's 2012 order, which determined that his act of “following” Polinsky on Twitter was not contact that formed the basis for the HRO.
When Polinsky and her fiancé were staying at a hotel for their destination wedding in 2015, a package was delivered to their hotel room. The package, which was delivered a few days before the wedding, contained photocopies of the blog and a copy of a 2008 police report referring to charges of fifth-degree domestic assault against Polinsky. The copy contained Polinsky's name, but had Bolton's name redacted. Polinsky became very upset when the package was received.
Bolton denied that he had sent the package. He noted that the address on the package misspelled the name of the hotel, consistent with Polinsky's previous misspelling of that name when he had been there previously with her. He testified that he initiated an inquiry with the post office to determine the origin of the package, which was not successful, and that he believed that Polinsky had sent the package to herself.
district court issued an HRO for a period of 20 years, concluding that Polinsky had proved by a preponderance of the evidence that Bolton had engaged in acts of harassment within the meaning of Minnesota Statutes section 609.748 (2014). The district court found that the contents of the blog, by itself, amounted to protected expression under the First Amendment, but that the contents of the blog also shed light on Bolton's other actions, s`me of which were acts of harassment. Specifically, the district court found that Bolton's `@mentions’ of Polinsky on Twitter, as well as his sending the package to the hotel, constituted harassing acts. In so doing, the district court found that Bolton's denial that he had sent the package was not credible. Therefore, the district court found that Bolton had committed repeated acts of harassment, which had a distinct, adverse, and substantial effect on Polinsky's security and sense of privacy.
On appeal, Bolton challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support the HRO, as well as the district court's future prohibition on his communicating public information about Polinsky and mentioning her anonymously.
Bolton raises several challenges to the district court's HRO. First, he argues that the district court abused its discretion by issuing an HRO because his conduct did not meet the statutory definition of harassment. Second, he raises several challenges to the district court's imposition of the HRO going forward. He argues that the HRO as applied to his prospective blog postings or other communications amounts to a prior restraint on his First Amendment rights and is vague and overbroad. Finally, he argues that the district court abused its discretion by ordering a 20–year HRO. We consider these arguments in turn.
Id., subd. 1(a)(1). In order to prove that harassment occurred, the statute requires both (1) objectively unreasonable intent or conduct on the part of the harasser and (2) an objectively reasonable belief on the part of the person subject to harassment. Dunham v. Roer, 708 N.W.2d 552, 567 (Minn. App. 2006), review denied (Minn. Mar. 28, 2006).
This court reviews the district court's grant of an HRO for an abuse of discretion. Kush v. Mathison, 683 N.W.2d 841, 843 (Minn. App. 2004), review denied (Minn. Sept. 29, 2004). A district court abuses its discretion if it makes findings that are unsupported by the evidence or improperly applies the law. State v. Underdahl, 767 N.W.2d 677, 684 (Minn. 2009). We review the district court's findings for clear error and defer to its findings regarding witness credibility, Kush, 683 N.W.2d at 843–44, but we review de novo its legal conclusion that the facts found satisfy the elements of harassment. Peterson v. Johnson, 755 N.W.2d 758, 761 (Minn. App. 2008).
The district court found that Bolton had committed repeated acts of harassment, based on his sending the package to Polinsky at the hotel and on his `@mentions’ of her on Twitter. Bolton contends that the HRO is not supported by sufficient evidence because the district court's finding that he sent the package is clearly erroneous and because his `@mentions’ on Twitter do not constitute contact for purposes of the harassment statute. We examine each argument in turn.
Bolton first argues that Polinsky failed to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that he sent the package to the hotel. He argues that the mere fact that the materials in the package were printed from his public website and that the package was mailed from a post office that he had visited did not establish that he sent the package. He maintains that he introduced a substantial amount of evidence supporting his position, including that there was no evidence that he knew where the Polinskys were; that the address on the package contained misspellings previously used by Polinsky; and that he attempted to trace the package through the post office, suggesting that he was not the sender.
But the district court pointed to evidence in support of its finding that Bolton sent the package, including that he had the ability to locate the wedding site and date via the Internet; that he had previously used Polinsky's own website to access her photograph, which he had incorporated into his blog website; and that the contents of the package included a police report in which Bolton's name, but not Polinsky's, had been blacked out. And the fact that Bolton initiated an attempt to trace the package through the postal service is not determinative of whether he was the person who sent the package. The district court also found that when testifying, Bolton clearly showed continuing anger towards Polinsky, including references to sexual behaviors during their good years that bore little relationship to the matters at issue. `Credibility determinations are the province of the trier of fact.’ Peterson, 755 N.W.2d at 763. The district court's finding that it was more credible that Bolton sent the package than that Polinsky or another person sent it is not clearly erroneous.
the district court's finding that his `@mentions’ of Polinsky on Twitter constituted harassment are unsupported by the evidence. He argues that, in the 2012 restraining order, the district court had determined that his act of `following’ Polinsky on Twitter was a notification sent by Twitter, not Bolton, and did not amount to harassment. He points out that he did not send Polinsky a direct message on Twitter, which is a more direct form of communication.
But the 2012 order related only to `following’ a person on Twitter, not initiating an `@mention’ of that person on Twitter. One commentator has indicated that the use of `@mentions’ on Twitter, as well as `tagging’ on Facebook, may constitute communication within the context of harassment. See Nancy Leong & Joanne Morando, Communication in Cyberspace, 94 N.C. L. Rev. 105, 120, 123–24 (2015). `[B]y tagging the target of a message, the speaker has taken affirmative steps to ensure that the target receives the message.’ Id. at 123–24. The district court found that the use of the `@mentions’ was deliberate contact with Polinsky that was unwanted and had a substantial adverse effect on her security. We agree with this reasoning and conclude that Bolton's Twitter `@mentions’ of Polinsky satisfy the statutory definition of harassment. See Minn. Stat. § 649.748, subd. 1(a)(1).
Bolton also argues that even if Twitter `@mentions’ may generally constitute harassment, Polinsky only submitted evidence that she received one “@mention” before she blocked Bolton from her Twitter account. Therefore, he argues, she failed to provide evidence of the `repeated incidents of intrusive or unwanted acts’ required under the HRO statute. See id. But because we have concluded that the district court did not clearly err by finding that Bolton sent the package to the hotel, which qualifies as one incident of harassment, Bolton's single `@mention’ of Polinsky on Twitter, which she received, combined with the package incident, means that he engaged in repeated incidents as required under the statute.3 The evidence sufficiently supports the district court's issuance of an HRO.
The court then went on to address another issue, i.e., whether applying the HRO prospectively would “operate as a prior restraint on Bolton’s First Amendment rights.” Polinsky v. Bolton, supra. This Wikipedia entry explains the relationship between prior restraint and the First Amendment.
Bolton also. . . . challenges the scope of the prospective HRO ordered by the district court. He argues that the HRO operates as a prior restraint on his First Amendment right of free speech because it prohibits him from communicating public information about Polinsky and commenting about her anonymously.
The United States and Minnesota Constitutions guarantee the right to freedom of speech. U.S. Const. amend. I; Minn. Const. art. I, § 3. A primary purpose of the First Amendment is `to prevent previous restraints upon publication.’ Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, 283 U.S. 697, 713 (1931). Because prior restraints, including some judicial or administrative orders, forbid certain communications before they occur, they are generally viewed unfavorably under the First Amendment. Rew v. Bergstrom, 845 N.W.2d 764, 776 (Minn. 2014).
When addressing Bolton's arguments, we are mindful that for purposes of First Amendment considerations, online speech stands on the same footing as any other form of speech. Reno v. Am.Civil Liberties Union, 521 U.S. 844, 870 (1997). But `the First Amendment does not guarantee the right to communicate one's views at all times and places or in any manner that may be desired.’ Heffron v. Int'l Soc'y forKrishna Consciousness, Inc., 452 U.S. 640, 647, 101 S. Ct. 2559, 2564(1981). For instance, we have held that an order for protection proscribing communication with a person is not a prior restraint because it does not prohibit a person from expressing ideas in general, but rather prohibits the expression of those ideas to the specific person protected by the order. Rew, 845 N.W.2d at 777. We may apply a similar interpretation to orders under the HRO statute. See Anderson v. Lake, 536 N.W.2d 909, 911 (Minn. App. 1995) (stating that caselaw relating to the Minnesota Domestic Abuse Act may be recognized in interpreting the Minnesota HRO statute).
Bolton also argues that the district court's order implicated his First Amendment right to speak anonymously. An author generally has the freedom to decide whether to disclose her or her true identity. McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm'n,514 U.S. 334, 341, 115 S. Ct. 1511, 1516 (1985). But `[t]he right to speak, whether anonymously or otherwise, is not unlimited ... and the degree of scrutiny varies depending on the circumstances and the type of speech at issue.’ In re Anonymous Online Speakers, 661 F.3d 1168, 1173 (9th Cir. 2011). The right to speak anonymously is most strongly implicated when a speaker engages in political speech. Id.; see, e.g., McIntyre, 514 U.S. at 357, 115 S. Ct. at 1524 (holding that a state's statutory prohibition against anonymous campaign literature violated the First Amendment). In addition, the Supreme Court has articulated that in general, First Amendment protection is most vigorous for speech dealing with public issues, rather than speech relating to matters of private concern. Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 443, 452, 131 S. Ct. 1207, 1215–16 (2011).
Bolton argues that the speech on his blog relates to matters of public concern, such as his criticism of the court system. We recognize that Bolton has a First Amendment right to comment on matters that relate to public issues and that his blog may be an appropriate forum for exercising that right. But the HRO does not prohibit this discussion. Rather, it narrowly prohibits blog postings that identify Polinsky's current contact information, which does not implicate political speech or matters of public concern. See id.; see also In re Anonymous Online Speakers, 661 F.3d at 1173.
In addition, the district court carefully crafted its order, which was narrowly tailored to protect the state's interest in protecting Polinsky from additional harassment by Bolton, who had been previously convicted of violating another HRO with respect to her. See Rew, 845 N.W.2d at 781 (concluding that terms and conditions of extended OFP were no broader than necessary when record showed that actor had repeatedly violated OFPs and previous OFP established that actor had committed abuse against the victim). Thus, the order appropriately required, among other provisions, that Bolton use his real identity when posting about her. See id. Bolton's use of his real name in future blog postings will allow Polinsky to locate him and identify him as the potential source of any additional harassing conduct. Under these circumstances, the terms of the HRO did not unconstitutionally chill Bolton's First Amendment right to speak anonymously.
the district court abused its discretion by issuing the HRO for a 20–year period. By statute, the district court may order the relief granted in the HRO `for a period of up to 50 years’ on a finding that the petitioner has been granted two or more previous restraining orders against the same respondent. Minn. Stat. § 609.748, subd. 5(b)(3).
Bolton does not dispute that Polinsky had two previous HROs granted against him. But he argues that in the previous order determining that he had violated the 2012 HRO, the district court found that his conduct of “following” Polinsky on Twitter did not amount to a violation. He maintains the district court “essentially misled” him into thinking that his conduct on Twitter was lawful and, as a result, he should not have a 20–year HRO issued against him.
The district court here, however, did not base its HRO findings on Bolton's `following’ Polinsky on Twitter, but rather on his conduct of making “@mentions” of her on Twitter, which directly contacted her on her phone. The district court found that Bolton's reference to the 2012 order was inapposite, because the `@mention’ process was different, according to expert testimony. The district court also found that Bolton's conduct of sending the package to Polinsky was another act that supported issuance of the order. Under these circumstances, as permitted by statute after two previous HROs, the district court did not abuse its discretion by issuing the HRO to extend for a 20–year period.

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