Opinion ID: 2770429
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Can Exhortations Constitute Threats?

Text: Mr. Wheeler contends that the evidence is insufficient to support his conviction under § 875(c) because his posts did not state his own intention to harm anyone—whether directly or through a party subject to his control; instead, the posts merely call upon Mr. Wheeler’s non-existent “religious followers” to take violent action. Mr. Wheeler relies chiefly on two cases: United States v. White, 670 F.3d 498 (4th Cir. 2012), and United States v. Bagdasarian, 652 F.3d 1113 (9th Cir. 2011). In White, the leader of a white supremacist organization was convicted under § 875(c) based on posts urging others to kill a Canadian civil rights attorney. 670 F.3d at 506. The Fourth Circuit held that the evidence was insufficient to support Mr. White’s conviction because neither of the defendant’s posts expressed the defendant’s own intent to kill the attorney. Id. at 513. The intent to threaten. - 13 - court explained that the posts could have constituted threats if the defendant “had some control over those other persons” of “if [the defendant’s] violent commands in the past had predictably been carried out,” but found no evidence of that context. Id. Similarly, in Bagdasarian, the defendant was convicted based on two posts to an online financial discussion board shortly before Barack Obama’s election, one which stated “shoot the nig country fkd for another 4 years.” 652 F.3d at 1115. The Ninth Circuit found “no explicit or implicit threat on the part of Bagdasarian that he himself [would] kill or injure Obama,” id. at 1119, but instead just an “imperative that some unknown third party should take violent action.” Id. at 1122. Relying on White and Bagdasarian, Mr. Wheeler urges this court to adopt a bright-line rule: exhortations to unspecified others to commit violence cannot amount to true threats. We reject that position as inconsistent with this court’s established precedent. We have consistently held that statements amount to true threats when a reasonable person would interpret the statements to be threats—a “fact-intensive” inquiry. Nielander, 582 F.3d at 1167. Especially where, as here, a reasonable person might believe the individuals ordered to take violent action are subject to the will of the threatening party, such exhortations may amount to true threats. Other courts have reached similar conclusions. In United States v. Turner,