Opinion ID: 1196196
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: First Amendment Protections for Threats

Text: Having construed threat under section 18-8-706, we now turn to the question of whether the statute infringes upon communications that are protected by the First Amendment. After reviewing a substantial body of caselaw addressing the types of threats that are and are not protected by the First Amendment, we conclude that although the statute infringes on protected communications, it does not substantially burden protected speech. The Supreme Court has made clear that some threats are communications without First Amendment protections. In cases involving threats against the President, the Supreme Court has acknowledged that true threats are not protected by the First Amendment. See Watts, 394 U.S. at 707-08, 89 S.Ct. 1399 (1969)(overturning conviction under statute prohibiting threats against the President but upholding the statute on its face). The Court has explained that threats of violence fall outside First Amendment guarantees in order to protect individuals from the fear of violence, from the disruption that fear engenders, and from the possibility that the threatened violence will occur. See R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 388, 112 S.Ct. 2538, 120 L.Ed.2d 305 (1992). In Madsen v. Women's Health Center, Inc., 512 U.S. 753, 773, 114 S.Ct. 2516, 129 L.Ed.2d 593 (1994), the Court noted that, Clearly, threats to patients or their families, however communicated, are proscribable under the First Amendment. Similarly, we have recognized that some threats are not protected by the First Amendment. In Baer, for example, we upheld Colorado's harassment-by-stalking statute against an overbreadth challenge, finding that credible threats do not have First Amendment protections. [6] 973 P.2d at 1231-32. In Janousek, we held that a person has no constitutionally protected right to make threats of violence to a public servant. 871 P.2d at 1193. [7] The category of unprotected threats, however, cannot conveniently be defined as threats to commit immediate bodily harm or threats of violence, because some unprotected threats do not meet these definitions. Extortionate threats, for example, often involve threats that are neither threats to commit violence nor threats to commit actions that are per se illegal. [8] Even so, extortion statutes that prohibit a wide range of such threats are routinely upheld as constitutional, often without explanation of what characteristics distinguish these threats from protected speech. See, e.g., United States v. Hutson, 843 F.2d 1232, 1235 (9th Cir.1988) (Because the statute in the present case is limited to extortionate threats, it does not regulate speech relating to social or political conflict, where threats to engage in behavior that may be unlawful may nevertheless be part of the marketplace of ideas.); United States v. Quinn, 514 F.2d 1250, 1268 (5th Cir.1975) (It may categorically be stated that extortionate speech has no more constitutional protection than that uttered by a robber while ordering his victim to hand over the money, which is no protection at all.). While some threats have no First Amendment protections, other threats are protected speech. In Aguilar v. People, we recognized that constitutionally protected speech may be threatening. 886 P.2d 725, 728 (Colo.1994). The mere advocacy of force or violence does not remove speech from the protections of the First Amendment. Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447-49, 89 S.Ct. 1827, 23 L.Ed.2d 430 (1969) (finding that advocating violence as moral propriety or moral necessity `is not the same as preparing a group for violent action and steeling it to such action') (quoting Noto v. United States, 367 U.S. 290, 297-98, 81 S.Ct. 1517, 6 L.Ed.2d 836 (1961)). Threats of violence that are not true threats, but which are political hyperbole, are protected speech. Watts, 394 U.S. at 706-08, 89 S.Ct. 1399 (finding that statement, If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J., was protected political hyperbole). Thus, even threats of violence or force may be protected speech. Just as some threats of violence may be protected communications, threats to commit minor crimes or insubstantial harm also may be protected speech in some contexts. See Whimbush, 869 P.2d at 1249-50 (citing State v. Robertson, 293 Or. 402, 649 P.2d 569, 580-81 (1982)). [9] The concern in these cases is that in some instances where a statute purports to reach only threats to commit illegal activities, the statute still encompasses a substantial amount of protected speech. The Robertson court, for example, reasoned that some threats to commit minor or insubstantial crimes may be legitimate speech, especially in political contexts. See 649 P.2d at 583-84. Thus, as we stated in Whimbush, a statute does not escape potential overbreadth solely because it is limited to threats involving unlawful conduct, because such threats may be protected speech. 869 P.2d at 1249-50 (citing Robertson, 649 P.2d at 587). Along with some threats to commit violence or to commit minor crimes, other types of threats may have constitutional protection even if the threat has a coercive effect on other people. Threats of social ostracism in the context of an economic boycott are protected. See NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886, 910, 102 S.Ct. 3409, 73 L.Ed.2d 1215 (1982) (Speech does not lose its protected character ... simply because it may embarrass others or coerce them into action.). Expressions made with the intent to exert a coercive influence over others are not necessarily outside the protections of the First Amendment. See Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe, 402 U.S. 415, 419, 91 S.Ct. 1575, 29 L.Ed.2d 1 (1971) (finding that offensive and coercive speech may be protected). In Whimbush, we invalidated an extortion statute that prohibited a wide variety of threats, including some forms of protected speech. [10] See 869 P.2d at 1248. The extortion statute defined threats so broadly that it encompassed a substantial amount of protected speech, such as threats to engage in legal collective action in support of group demands. See id. Based on our review of the general principles of the caselaw addressing First Amendment protections for threats, we conclude that the term threat under section 18-8-706, as we have construed it, extends to protected speech. Threat means an expression of intent to commit harm or injury to another's person, property, or rights through the commission of an unlawful act. This definition includes various threats not entitled to First Amendment protection, such as threats to kill a person and threats to retaliate forcibly against governmental witnesses. However, this definition of threat also encompasses threats that have First Amendment protection, such as threats to block an intersection as part of a political protest or to obstruct the entrance to a storefront as part of a boycott. Thus, standing alone, the term threat, as we define it under section 18-8-706, extends to protected speech as well as unprotected communications. We note that the ambiguous nature of a term like threat, which involves both protected and unprotected communications, presents a special difficulty for a legislature. It is apparent from our review of the law concerning First Amendment protections for threats that some threats are protected and some are not, but it is not evident how to define precisely the differences between the two categories. As a result of this ambiguity, any attempt to compose a statute prohibiting unprotected speech will almost necessarily encompass protected speech. It is difficult, perhaps even impossible, to construct a statute that applies to a maximum amount of the unprotected elements of speech from a category that contains both protected and unprotected communications, without also infringing on protected speech as well. Cf. Whimbush, 869 P.2d at 1250 (If the General Assembly chooses to reenact the criminal extortion statute, it must make many policy choices to define the scope of the statute and the nature of the conduct to be prohibited.); see also Kent Greenawalt, Speech, Crime, & the Uses of Language 91 (1989) (Finding the appropriate language to reach just [proscribable] threats is no easy task.). This difficulty highlights the need to test a statute's overbreadth by determining whether a substantial amount of protected speech is burdened by the statute. Requiring a legislature to construct a statute so that a significant amount of unprotected speech but no protected speech is covered by the statute places an unreasonable and unnecessary burden on the legislature.