Court Opinion

ID: 9469878
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:51:06.184255+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:36.529477
License: Public Domain

HENLEY, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the court’s decision, but am impelled to write on the matter of proof of a threat.
An indispensable ingredient in a prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 876 is proof that a letter written by. the accused conveys a threat of injury. United States v. Lincoln, 589 F.2d 379, 381 (8th Cir. 1979); United States v. Barcley, 452 F.2d 930, 933 (8th Cir. 1971). In determining whether the requisite threat exists this court and other courts of appeal have tended to frame the inquiry in terms of the defendant’s intent and have looked principally to the language of the letter and the facts immediately surrounding the use of that particular language rather than the totality of circumstances. E.g., United States v. Lincoln, supra; United States v. Chatman, 584 F.2d 1358 (4th Cir. 1978). This approach, however, does not squarely address the question what is a *1242threat. The focus in deciding whether the language and its necessary implications constitute a threat should be the effect on an ordinary, reasonable recipient who is familiar with the total context in which the letter was written. See United States v. Maisonet, 484 F.2d 1356, 1358 (4th Cir. 1973), cert. denied, 415 U.S. 933, 94 S.Ct. 1447, 39 L.Ed.2d 491 (1974); United States v. Barcley, 452 F.2d at 934 (Aldrich, J., dissenting); United States v. Prochaska, 222 F.2d 1, 2 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 350 U.S. 836, 76 S.Ct. 73, 100 L.Ed.2d 746 (1955). Certainly, “[a]I1 ... the circumstances known to the recipient [should] be considered.” 452 F.2d at 934 (dissenting opinion) (emphasis added). Under this standard, a statement contained in a communication would be criminal only if it instilled in a reasonable and informed recipient an apprehension of impending bodily harm. See United States v. Maisonet, 484 F.2d at 1358; United States v. Prochaska, 222 F.2d at 2.
While the government must establish the threatening nature of the communication in question, it need not prove that the accused has the capability of successfully carrying out the threat. United States v. Lincoln, 589 F.2d at 381; United States v. Chatman, 584 F.2d at 1361. Nevertheless, I am not convinced that the accused’s ability or inability to accomplish the threatened action is always irrelevant in prosecutions under section 876. Capability of carrying out the threat may, in instances, be part of the aggregate of circumstances that the jury should be required to consider in determining whether the language used amounted to a threat. Indeed, excluding this matter from jury consideration, especially in situations in which it appears that the threatened action is either inherently impossible or is not capable of being accomplished at any time short of the distant future, may foreclose a proper resolution of the nature of the language by not allowing the jury to gauge accurately whether a recipient who knew that there was only a remote possibility of harm reasonably feared bodily injury. The defendant, in my view, is entitled to have the jury determine whether a threat was made by reading and considering the language used in the totality of circumstances, including the impossibility or unlikelihood of performance, particularly as the facts were known to the recipient.
As to the case at hand, I am satisfied that the jury instructions as a whole adequately covered the essential principles. Although the defense objected to certain instructions at trial, it did not object to the instruction defining a threat as “a statement expressing an intention to inflict bodily injury upon someone.” Moreover, defense counsel did not specifically request or submit an instruction expanding on this definition. Finally, I note that although appellant Martin was serving a life sentence, he apparently would have become eligible for parole consideration in summer, 1981. This circumstance clearly minimized or rendered moot any issue that might have been suggested concerning Martin’s ability to carry out within a reasonable length of time the threats contained in his letters. Thus, I have no difficulty in concurring in the result reached by the court.