Opinion ID: 3045072
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Virginia v. Black and True Threats

Text: Despite this history and precedent, Martinez contends Black altered the Watts framework for true threats and tacitly overruled our case law defining true threats according to an objective standard. However, four circuits to address the issue have declined to adopt Martinez’s reading of that decision. See United States v. Elonis, 730 F.3d 321, 332 (3d Cir. 2013) (“[W]e find that Black does not alter our precedent.”); United States v. Nicklas, 713 F.3d 435, 440 (8th Cir. 2013) (joining the majority of circuits which have held that, in the wake of Black, § 875(c) does not require the Government to prove a defendant specifically intended his or her statements to be threatening); United States v. Jeffries, 692 F.3d 473, 479 (6th Cir. 2012); United States v. White, 670 F.3d 498, 508 (4th Cir. 2012) (“A careful reading of the requirements of § 875(c), together with the definition from Black, does not, in our opinion, lead to the conclusion that Black introduced a 2 In Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1209 (11th Cir. 1981) (en banc), this Court adopted as binding precedent all decisions of the former Fifth Circuit handed down prior to the close of business on September 30, 1981. 8 Case: 11-13295 Date Filed: 11/27/2013 Page: 9 of 25 specific-intent-to-threaten requirement into § 875(c) and thus overruled our circuit’s jurisprudence, as well as the jurisprudence of most other circuits, which find § 875(c) to be a general intent crime and therefore require application of an objective test in determining whether a true threat was transmitted.”). But see United States v. Cassel, 408 F.3d 622, 633 (9th Cir. 2005) (holding that Black requires a subjective-intent analysis). We agree with the Sixth Circuit that Black did not work a “sea change,” tacitly overruling decades of case law by importing a requirement of subjective intent into all threat-prohibiting statutes. Jeffries, 692 F.3d at 479; see also Elonis, 730 F.3d at 332 (“Black does not clearly overturn the objective test the majority of circuits applied to § 875(c).”). In Black, the Supreme Court addressed a state statute making it a crime to burn a cross with the “intent of intimidating any person or group.” See 538 U.S. at 347–48, 123 S. Ct. at 1541 (internal quotation marks omitted). Although the Court divided in its rationale, a majority of the Court reaffirmed the basic holding of Watts and other cases that true threats are not protected under the First Amendment. See id. at 358–60, 123 S. Ct. at 1547–48. The Court defined true threats as “those statements where 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.” Id. at 359, 123 S. Ct. at 1548. According to a 9 Case: 11-13295 Date Filed: 11/27/2013 Page: 10 of 25 plurality of the Court, because the statute made the act of cross burning prima facie evidence of intent to intimidate, it effectively rendered cross burning a strict-liability offense. See id. at 365, 123 S. Ct. at 1550–51 (plurality opinion). And, without any mens rea requirement, the statute covered more than just true threats and “create[d] an unacceptable risk of the suppression of ideas.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Contrary to Martinez’s argument, Black did not import a subjective-intent analysis into the true threats doctrine. Rather, Black was primarily a case about the overbreadth of a specific statute—not whether all threats are determined by a subjective or objective analysis in the abstract. See Jeffries, 692 F.3d at 479–80 (observing that Black “says nothing about imposing a subjective standard on other threat-prohibiting statutes, and indeed had no occasion to do so: the Virginia law itself required subjective ‘intent.’ The problem in Black thus did not turn on subjective versus objective standards for construing threats. It turned on overbreadth—that the statute lacked any standard at all”). When interpreting a statute like § 875(c), which articulates no explicit mens rea requirement and is therefore treated as a general-intent crime, see United States v. Duran, 596 F.3d 1283, 1292 (11th Cir. 2010), Black leaves our analysis and objective standard unaltered. 10 Case: 11-13295 Date Filed: 11/27/2013 Page: 11 of 25 Black’s definition of true threats is fully consistent with a general-intent standard examining only the objective characteristics of the speech act. See White, 670 F.3d at 509. General-intent crimes require only that the defendant actually intend to perform the prohibited act; she need not subjectively intend the precise purpose or results of the crime. Id. at 508; see also Carter v. United States, 530 U.S. 255, 268, 120 S. Ct. 2159, 2168 (2000). Similarly, Black defined true threats as those statements a speaker means to communicate—i.e., knowingly communicate—that contain a serious expression of violent intent. See Black, 538 U.S. at 359, 123 S. Ct. at 1548 (majority opinion). However, the speaker need not subjectively intend her statement to be a threat, in much the same way she need not subjectively intend to violate the law or “actually intend to carry out the threat.”3 See id. The Supreme Court’s definition of intimidation buttresses our interpretation of true threats. Black defined “intimidation” as a “type of true threat” directed with the intent—i.e., the specific, subjective intent—to place listeners in fear of bodily harm or death. See id. at 360, 123 S. Ct. at 1548. By defining intimidation to 3 Moreover, objective standards are not unusual in the free-speech context. See, e.g., White, 670 F.3d at 511; see also FEC v. Wis. Right to Life, Inc., 551 U.S. 449, 468–69, 127 S. Ct. 2652, 2666 (2007) (refusing to base First Amendment doctrine on a speaker’s subjective motivation); NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886, 927–29, 102 S. Ct. 3409, 3433 (1982) (analyzing the objective circumstances surrounding the speech to determine how it “might have been understood” by listeners); Norwell v. City of Cincinnati, 414 U.S. 14, 16, 94 S. Ct. 187, 188 (1973) (holding that a speaker’s subjective motivation was not relevant to whether his speech qualified as “abusive language or fighting words”). 11 Case: 11-13295 Date Filed: 11/27/2013 Page: 12 of 25 include a subjective-intent analysis, Black indicated that the general class of true threats does not require such an inquiry into the speaker’s subjective mental state. After all, intimidation is but one type of true threat—a true threat delivered with a particular, subjectively held intent. See id. (suggesting speech qualifies as intimidation when it is “intended to create a pervasive fear in victims that they are a target of violence” (emphasis added)). But explicitly requiring subjective intent for one discrete type of true threat makes little sense if the Court intended all true threats to require such intent. Finally, we find the Third Circuit’s recent opinion in Elonis persuasive. In rejecting the same reading of Black that Martinez urges on us, the Third Circuit clearly and precisely explained why that decision did not alter the well-established understanding of the true threats doctrine. See Elonis, 730 F.3d at 327–32. Particularly noteworthy is the Third Circuit’s insight that “[l]imiting the definition of true threats to only those statements where the speaker subjectively intended to threaten would fail to protect individuals from the fear of violence and the disruption that fear engenders, because it would protect speech that a reasonable speaker would understand to be threatening.” Id. at 330 (internal quotation marks omitted). Accordingly, we hold that Black does not require a subjective-intent analysis for all true threats. Id. at 332 (“Black does not say that the true threats exception 12 Case: 11-13295 Date Filed: 11/27/2013 Page: 13 of 25 requires a subjective intent to threaten”). Knowingly transmitting the threat makes the act criminal—not the specific intent to carry it out or the specific intent to cause fear in another. United States v. Fuller, 387 F.3d 643, 646 (7th Cir. 2004) (citing United States v. Kelner, 534 F.2d 1020, 1025 (2d Cir. 1976)). Therefore, when the Government shows that “a reasonable person would perceive the threat as real,” a true threat may be punished and “any concern about the risk of unduly chilling protected speech has been answered.” Jeffries, 692 F.3d at 478.