Opinion ID: 221261
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Subjective Intent

Text: Even if shoot the nig or [he] will have a 50 cal in the head soon could reasonably have been perceived by objective observers as threats within the factual context, this alone would not have been enough to convict Bagdasarian under 18 U.S.C. § 879(a)(3). The Government must also show that he made the statements intending that they be taken as a threat. A statement that the speaker does not intend as a threat is afforded constitutional protection and cannot be held criminal. In Black, the Court explained that the State may punish only those threats in which the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals. 538 U.S. at 359, 123 S.Ct. 1536. And in Gordon, we held as a matter of statutory interpretation that Congress construe[d] `knowingly and willfully' [in § 879] as requiring proof of a subjective intent to make a threat,' and thus requires the application of a subjective as well as an objective test. 974 F.2d at 1117 (alterations in original) (quoting 128 Cong. Rec. 21,218 (1982)). We have explained, supra at 1118-21, why neither of Bagdasarian's statements on its face constitutes a true threat unprotected by the First Amendment. Most significantly, one is predictive in nature and the other exhortatory. For the same reasons, the evidence is not sufficient for any reasonable finder of fact to have concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that Bagdasarian intended that his statements be taken as threats. See Jackson, 443 U.S. at 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781. Both under the constitutional requirement established in Black that we must read into § 879, and under the statutory requirement that we found extant in Gordon, the district court's inference of Bagdasarian's intent to threaten is unreasonable taken in context and does not, even when considered in the light most favorable to the prosecution, lie within the permissible range of interpretations of his message board postings. As a matter of law, neither statement may be held to constitute a true threat. As we discussed in the previous section, the prediction that Obama will have a 50 cal in the head soon is not a threat on its face because it does not convey the notion that Bagdasarian himself had plans to fulfill the prediction that Obama would be killed, either now or in the future. Neither does the shoot the nig statement reflect the defendant's intent to threaten that he himself will kill or injure Obama. Rather, shoot the nig expresses the imperative that some unknown third party should take violent action. The statement makes no reference to Bagdasarian himself and so, like the first statement, cannot reasonably be taken to express his intent to shoot Obama. [22] As with our analysis of the objective test, we do not confine our examination of subjective intent to the defendant's statements alone. Relying on United States v. Sutcliffe, 505 F.3d 944 (9th Cir.2007), the Government points to the two facts that we discussed in our analysis of objective understanding as evidence that Bagdasarian intended to make a threat: (1) that he was later found to possess a .50 caliber gun like the one he mentioned in the Obama fk the niggar posting, and (2) that the Election Day email referred to the use of a 50 cal on a nigga car. Neither fact is sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Bagdasarian intended to make a threat when, two weeks before Election Day, he posted the two statements for which he was indicted. In Sutcliffe, we affirmed a conviction under another threat statute, 18 U.S.C. § 875(c), which, in addition to the knowing transmission of an interstate threat, requires specific intent to threaten. 505 F.3d at 952, 960-61; see also United States v. Twine, 853 F.2d 676, 680 (9th Cir.1988). We held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by allowing the Government to present evidence of the defendant's gun possession to demonstrate that he actually intended to threaten violence. Id. at 959. The fact of the defendant's gun possession was not determinative of the defendant's intent, however, but just one among many pieces of evidence relevant to the language and context of the threats that we considered in determining that the defendant had the requisite specific intent to threaten. Most important in Sutcliffe were the first-person and highly specific character of messages such as I will kill you, I'm now armed, and You think seeing [your license plate number posted on my website] is bad ... trust us when we say [it] can get much, much, worse.... [I]f you call this house again..., I will personally send you back to the hell from where you came. Id. at 951-52 (first omission and second alteration in original). Given that Bagdasarian's statements, Re: Obama fk the niggar, he will have a 50 cal in the head soon and shoot the nig fail to express any intent on his part to take any action, the fact that he possessed the weapons is not sufficient to establish that he intended to threaten Obama himself. Similarly, the Election Day emails do little to advance the prosecution's case. They simply provide additional information  weblinks to a video of debris and two junked cars being blown up and to an advertisement for assault rifles available for purchase online  that Bagdasarian may have believed would tend to encourage the email's recipient to take violent action against Obama. But, as we have explained, incitement to kill or injure a presidential candidate does not qualify as an offense under § 879(a)(3). [23] Taking the two message board postings in the context of all of the relevant facts and circumstances, the prosecution failed to present sufficient evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Bagdasarian had the subjective intent to threaten a presidential candidate. For the same reasons that his statements fail to meet the subjective element of § 879, given any reasonable construction of the words in his postings, those statements do not constitute a true threat, and they are therefore protected speech under the First Amendment. See Black, 538 U.S. at 359, 123 S.Ct. 1536. Accordingly, his conviction must be reversed. REVERSED.