Court Opinion

ID: 9690135
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:54:58.65903+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:53.748111
License: Public Domain

VANDE WALLE, Justice,
concurring in the result.
With some trepidation I concur in the result reached by Justice Levine for the majority. The cases relied upon in the majority opinion for the conclusion that the letters at issue were not threats but, rather, “constitutionally protected speech” made “in the midst of what may be other protected political expression,” involve factual situations far different from that involved in this case. As an example, in Watts v. United States, 394 U.S. 705, 89 S.Ct. 1399, 22 L.Ed.2d 664 (1969), the statement alleged to constitute a threat, against the President of the United States, in violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 871(a), was made during a public rally on the Washington Monument grounds. The statute made it a violation to knowingly or willfully deposit “for conveyance in the mail or for a delivery from a post office or by any letter carrier any letter, paper, writing, print, missive, or document containing any threat to take the life of or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States” or to “knowingly and willfully otherwise” make any such threat against the President. It is difficult for me to compare that situation — in which the President of the United States, who undoubtedly receives literally hundreds if not thousands of unfavorable comments each year, who most probably was unaware that this particular comment was made, and who is protected by trained security people — with an unsophisticated part-time county official to whom the law provides no particular security protection. Nor, for that matter, does the record in Watts reflect that the President testified that he was threatened by the remark, whereas in this instance there is testimony that at least some of the county commissioners did feel threatened by the letters. Had the facts in Watts been that a letter was directed to the President indicating that the defendant wanted “to get in my sights ... L.B.J.” the outcome of that case might have been entirely different, because it was a statement made directly *807to the President and not in the context of a political demonstration. Here, the letters were mailed directly to the county commissioners and were not a part of a political demonstration.
In United States v. Barcley, 452 F.2d 930, 933-934 (8th Cir.1971), the letter containing the alleged threat was characterized by the Court as “the kind of letter a court appointed attorney might expect to receive from a dissatisfied client writing from within prison walls.” And, as the Court noted, “neither Barcley’s attorney nor Sam Sechser testified that he experienced fear upon reading the letter.”
Elected full-time public officials may well be “fair game” for derogatory comments which may or may not contain express or implied threats under the theory advanced by the majority opinion. But I am not so convinced that the same rationale necessarily applies with the same force to part-time elected officials whose position is more one of donation than it is one of remuneration. With the increasing numbers of legal actions against such officials and the advent of personal liability and increasing costs of liability insurance, we may well find ourselves with few qualified people willing to assume such positions if we permit them to be threatened with impunity under the guise of “political debate” and protection of the First Amendment. Although I agree that Section 12.1-12-06(2)(b), N.D. C.C., should be construed to permit “political debate” with all of the innuendos that term now seems to encompass, I am nevertheless uncomfortable applying the decisions relied upon in the majority opinion to the facts of this case. The principles announced by those decisions were fashioned for the facts of those cases and the facts before us are substantially different.
In the instant case, however, I agree that the “Constructive Notice and Demand” is simply gibberish which carried no threat of a crime. Whether the recipients of the letters so construed the language may be open to question. Against the background of the events occurring in our midst only a few years ago at Medina and the publicity given groups such as the Posse Comitatus which employ similar rhetoric, it is not surprising the recipients of the letters testified they felt threatened. There can be little doubt that the defendants intended to influence the actions of the county commissioners. However, the defendants were charged with violating subsection 2 of Section 12.1-12-06, N.D.C.C., which makes it a crime to influence another’s official action as a public servant by threatening to commit a crime or to do anything unlawful; by accusing anyone of a crime; or by exposing a secret or publicizing an asserted fact, whether true or false, tending to subject any person, living or deceased, to hatred, contempt, or ridicule, or to impair another’s credit or business repute. Subsection 1 of Section 12.1-12-06, N.D.C.C., makes it a crime to threaten harm to another with intent to influence his official action as a public servant in a pending or prospective judicial or administrative proceeding held before him, or with intent to influence him to violate his duty as a public servant. Had the defendants been charged with a violation of subsection 1, the fact that they felt threatened by the letters might be more significant.1
If the charge in this case were under subsection 1 of Section 12.1-12-06 rather than under subsection 2, I might not agree that the question of a threat should be taken from the jury as a matter of law. Therefore, although I concur in the result in this instance, I do not agree with all of the highly technical distinctions the majority opinion attempts to draw. I disavow the majority opinion insofar as it might appear to establish a precedent that issues involv*808ing whether or not certain statements constitute threats will ordinarily be taken from the jury to be decided by the courts and insofar as it might be construed to permit persons to threaten public officials with impunity in the name of “political debate” and the First Amendment.
ERICKSTAD, C.J., concurs.

. But in United States v. Barcley, 452 F.2d 930, 34 (8th Cir.1971), one of the judges dissented from the holding that the issue of whether or not the letter constituted a threat should be taken from the jury. However, in so doing he noted that it "would seem of marginal significance whether the addressee and the prosecuting attorney were or were not in fact put in fear." Rather, the judge believed "[t]he question should be its effect upon an ordinary reasonable man in the position of the recipient, not whether he in fact happens to be chicken- or lionhearted."