Opinion ID: 197526
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Requisite Intent

Text: 8 Although Whiffen makes several claims on appeal, all of them turn on the question of whether the threats made by Whiffen constitute threats to the person of another. In order to resolve this question, we must determine the intent necessary for conviction under section 875. 9 The centerpiece of Whiffen's appeal is the claim that 18 U.S.C. § 875(c) is a specific intent crime. In other words, in order to obtain a conviction, the government must prove that the defendant intended his communication to be received as a threat. In support of this view, Whiffen cites United States v. Twine, 853 F.2d 676 (9th Cir.1988). In Twine, the Ninth Circuit concluded that the showing of an intent to threaten, required by § 875(c) ... is a showing of specific intent. Id. at 680. 10 Other circuits, however, disagree with Twine. 1 In United States v. DeAndino, 958 F.2d 146 (6th Cir.1992), for example, the Sixth Circuit concluded that  § 875(c) does not require specific intent in regard to the threat element of the offense, but only general intent. Id. at 150. Under a general intent standard, whether a communication is a true threat is determined objectively from all the surrounding facts and circumstances, rather than from the defendant's subjective purpose. A general intent standard has also been adopted by three other circuits. See United States v. Myers, 104 F.3d 76, 81 (5th Cir.1997), United States v. Himelwright, 42 F.3d 777, 782-83 (3d Cir.1994), United States v. Darby, 37 F.3d 1059, 1063-66 (4th Cir.1994), cert. denied, 514 U.S. 1097, 115 S.Ct. 1826, 131 L.Ed.2d 747 (1995). The test espoused in these cases is stated in Darby: 11 [T]o establish a violation of section 875(c), the government must establish that the defendant intended to transmit the interstate communication and that the communication contained a true threat. Whether a communication in fact contains a true threat is determined by the interpretation of a reasonable recipient familiar with the context of the communication. The government does not have to prove that the defendant subjectively intended for this recipient to understand the communication as a threat. 12 Darby, 37 F.3d at 1066. Our sister circuits have also considered what constitutes a true threat under other federal threat statutes. See United States v. Fulmer, 108 F.3d 1486, 1491 (1st Cir.1997) (collecting cases). 13 Although the intent requirement of section 875(c) has not previously been decided by this court, we recently had occasion to determine the requisite intent under a different threat statute, 18 U.S.C. § 115(a)(1)(B), which criminalizes threats directed at federal agents. 14 In determining what constitutes a true threat, the Fulmer panel found the governing standard to be whether [the defendant] should have reasonably foreseen that the statement he uttered would be taken as a threat by those to whom it is made. Fulmer, 108 F.3d at 1491. This test takes into consideration the context in which the remark was made and avoids the risk that an otherwise innocuous statement might become a threat if directed at an unusually sensitive listener. This approach also protects listeners from statements that are reasonably interpreted as threats, even if the speaker lacks the subjective, specific intent to threaten, or, as would be more common, the government is unable to prove such specific intent which, by its nature, is difficult to demonstrate. 15 For these reasons, we believe that the logic of Fulmer, which considered 18 U.S.C. § 115(a)(1)(B), applies with full force to 18 U.S.C. § 875, and we adopt the same standard for the latter statute. In doing so, we are also aligning ourselves with the majority view of our sister circuits, as discussed supra. Having established that section 875(c) requires only a general intent, we are able to engage each of Whiffen's specific claims.