Opinion ID: 2672489
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: As-Applied First Amendment Challenge

Text: Under § 2261A(2)(A), a defendant must first have the intent to kill, injure, harass, or place [a victim] under surveillance with intent to kill, injure, harass, or intimidate, or cause substantial emotional distress. Second, the defendant must engage in a course of conduct that actually causes substantial emotional distress . . . or places [the victim] in reasonable fear of . . . death . . . or serious bodily injury . . . . 18 U.S.C. § 2261A(2)(A). Sayer argues that because his course of conduct involved speech, or online communications, it cannot be proscribed in accord with the First Amendment. This argument is meritless. [I]t has never been deemed an abridgement of freedom of speech or press to make a course of conduct illegal merely because the conduct was in part initiated, evidenced, or carried out by means of language, either spoken, written, or printed. Giboney v. -15- Empire Storage & Ice Co., 336 U.S. 490, 502 (1949). For example, in Giboney the Court held that enjoining otherwise lawful picketing activities did not violate the First Amendment where the sole purpose of that picketing was to force a company to enter an unlawful agreement restraining trade in violation of a state criminal statute. Id. at 501-02. Speech integral to criminal conduct is now recognized as a long-established category of unprotected speech. Stevens, 559 U.S. at 471. Sayer's online communications fall in this category. Sayer does not claim that his acts of creating false online advertisements and accounts in Jane Doe's name or impersonating Jane Doe on the internet constitute legal conduct. In fact, he has admitted that his conduct, which deceptively enticed men to Jane Doe's home, put Jane Doe in danger and at risk of physical harm. To the extent his course of conduct targeting Jane Doe involved speech at all, his speech is not protected. Here, as in Giboney, it served only to implement Sayer's criminal purpose. See United States v. Rowlee, 899 F.2d 1275, 1278 (2d Cir. 1990) (applying Giboney exception to a conspiracy charge because the act of conspiracy does not implicate protected speech); United States v. Varani, 435 F.2d 758, 762 (6th Cir. 1970) (explaining that, as in the crimes of perjury, bribery, extortion and threats, and conspiracy, speech is not protected by the First Amendment when it is the very vehicle of the crime itself). -16- The Eighth Circuit rejected a similar First Amendment challenge to § 2261A(2)(A) in United States v. Petrovic, 701 F.3d 849 (8th Cir. 2012). There, the defendant had created a website with links to images of his ex-wife in the nude or engaging in sex acts with him. Id. at 853. The defendant also sent sexually explicit pictures of his ex-wife to her work, her boss, and her relatives. Id. The court held that these communications, which resulted in the defendant's § 2261A(2)(A) conviction, were integral to criminal conduct and unprotected under Giboney, as they carried out the defendant's extortionate threats to harass and humiliate his ex-wife if she terminated their sexual relationship. Id. at 855. As in Petrovic, Sayer points to no lawful purpose of the communications at issue here that would take them outside the Giboney exception.7 Cf. United States v. Clemens, 738 F.3d 1, 1213 (1st Cir. 2013) (rejecting as-applied challenge to criminal threat statute, 18 U.S.C. § 875(c), where jury could reasonably conclude that defendant's speech received no First Amendment protection). Nor can we surmise any on this record. Rather, his conduct lured potentially dangerous men to Jane Doe's doorstep, men 7 Sayer's citation of United States v. Cassidy, 814 F. Supp. 2d 574 (D. Md. 2011), does not assist him as the case is easily distinguishable on its facts and the pertinent law. Cassidy involved the application of § 2261A(2) to online commentary criticizing a public figure who led a Buddhist sect. Id. at 583, 586. -17- whom Jane Doe was not free to ignore. As a result, § 2261A(2)(A) has been constitutionally applied to Sayer.8