Opinion ID: 3045072
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Origins of the True Threats Doctrine

Text: The true threats doctrine took shape in Watts v. United States. See 394 U.S. at 705–08, 89 S. Ct. at 1399–1402. In Watts, the Supreme Court reversed the conviction of a man charged with knowingly and willfully threatening the President under 18 U.S.C. § 871(a), based on the following statements: They always holler at us to get an education. And now I have already received my draft classification as 1-A and I have got to report for my physical this Monday coming. I am not going. If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J. They are not going to make me kill my black brothers. Id. at 705–06, 89 S. Ct. at 1400–01 (internal quotation marks omitted). Although the Court acknowledged that true threats were not protected expression, the Court nonetheless held that Watts’s statements were mere “political hyperbole.” Id. at 707–08, 89 S. Ct. at 1401. When taken in context, the Court 6 Case: 11-13295 Date Filed: 11/27/2013 Page: 7 of 25 could not see how Watts’s statements could be interpreted as anything other than “a kind of very crude offensive method of stating a political opposition to the President.” Id. at 708, 89 S. Ct. at 1402 (internal quotation marks omitted). Importantly, the Court reached this conclusion based on the objective characteristics of the speech and the context in which it was delivered—the Court did not speculate as to the speaker’s subjective mental state. See id. For example, the Court looked to where the statement was made: in public during a group political debate. Id. Additionally, the Court looked to the nature of the statement: it was expressly conditional upon Watts’s conscription into the military—an event he vowed would never occur. Id. at 707–08, 89 S. Ct. at 1401–02. Finally, the Court looked to the reaction of those in attendance: listeners as well as the speaker “laughed after the statement was made.” Id. Following Watts, most federal courts of appeals defined true threats according to an objective standard. See Doe v. Pulaski Cnty. Special Sch. Dist., 306 F.3d 616, 622 (8th Cir. 2002) (en banc) (noting that, while some courts applied a reasonable-speaker standard and others a reasonable-listener standard, “[a]ll the courts to have reached the issue . . . consistently adopted an objective test” for true threats). Between Watts in 1969 and Black in 2003, this Court in particular consistently applied an objective, reasonable-person test when distinguishing true threats from protected speech. See United States v. Callahan, 702 F.2d 964, 965 7 Case: 11-13295 Date Filed: 11/27/2013 Page: 8 of 25 (11th Cir. 1983); United States v. Bozeman, 495 F.2d 508, 510 (5th Cir. 1974).2 Under that objective standard, a true threat is a communication that, when taken in context, “would have a reasonable tendency to create apprehension that its originator will act according to its tenor.” United States v. Alaboud, 347 F.3d 1293, 1296–97 (11th Cir. 2003) (internal quotation marks omitted).