Court Opinion

ID: 9661675
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:46:06.199704+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:32.094971
License: Public Domain

KELLER, P.J.,
filed a concurring opinion in which KEASLER, and HERVEY, JJ., joined.
I agree with the Court’s conclusion that the assault statute does not require that the victim perceive the defendant’s conduct for that conduct to constitute a “threat.” The Court’s careful and thorough analysis is more than sufficient to support such a holding, and the conclusion is sufficient to dispose of this case. Having laid the groundwork for the conclusion, the Court gains nothing by stopping just short of making it a holding.
Nevertheless, I find some of the Court’s discussion on this question problematic. The issue before us is whether a victim must perceive conduct in order for that conduct to be a threat. A couple of issues not before us are whether the victim must be subjectively frightened for the act to be a threat, and whether (if fright is required) “threat” is judged subjectively or by a “reasonable person” standard. Some of the examples the Court uses and cases to which the Court cites are pertinent only to the latter questions.
I also do not find the Fatal Attraction example and the threatening-note example to be helpful. In both of those cases, there is a threat to harm the victim by an act in the future. In the present case, there was no threat to act in the future-the threat and the conduct were one and the same.
*352Given the many aspects of the “threat” issue, perhaps it would be better simply to hold, as the Court almost does, that a threat need not be perceived in order to be a threat.