Opinion ID: 1435629
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Gazzola

Text: One of the more incriminating pieces of evidence against Gazzola was her participation in the demonstration at the home of Robert Harper. The government showed a video at trial, in which Gazzola can be heard threatening to burn down Harper's house and warning him that the police cannot protect him. Under the Watts framework, this act, viewed in context with Gazzola's other conduct, constitutes a true threat and is sufficient to remove her protest activity from First Amendment protection. [11] We find it hard to see how threatening to burn down someone's house is political hyperbole such that it might be protected by the First Amendment in the first place. However, even assuming that it has some underlying political value, viewed in the totality of the circumstances, this constituted a true threat. When this protest took place, Robert Harper and his family had been a target of the campaign for a few weeks. Robert Harper was keenly aware of what was happening, and what had happened, to others who had been targeted during the campaign to close Huntingdon, including the physical assault on Brian Cass. He lived in fear that something similar would happen to his family, and from the record, his fear of the protestors acting on their threats was reasonable. Gazzola could reasonably foresee that Harper would interpret her words as a serious expression of intent to harm Robert Harper and his family. Even assuming Gazzola had not made these threats at the Harper demonstration, the record establishes that Gazzola, like Kjonaas, was instrumental in the planning and execution of SHAC's illegal activities. She repeatedly employed illegal tactics as one of the strategies used to further SHAC's overall goal of closing Huntingdon.