IANAL, but can read, and I think many people here are totally missing what this ruling actually says and doesn’t say. It says the standard that Colorado used in this man’s trial was too loose and would theoretically allow for conviction of protected speech. They did not say the speech in this case was definitely protected. They did not say it wasn’t threatening. It’s quite possible that if Colorado now chooses to retry the case that a jury would still decide he was guilty under the stricter standard too, but they have to retry him with a trial and jury working under that stricter standard, so that the overly loose law can’t be used to theoretically restrict protected speech under the first ammendment in the future. The supreme court just corrected the standard Colorado was using and kicked it back to them, they did not exonerate the guy unless Colorado chooses not to try him again. The headlines are all being written to be extra inflammatory and misleading.
Just to take it to an extreme and make it extra simple, let’s say we pass a law that says, you are guilty of murder if you are anywhere vaguely near where someone was killed. A guy is caught on video clearly murdering someone. They take him to court and tell the jury in their official jury instructions, if this man was vaguely near where the murder occurred he is guilty. They of course find him guilty. Supreme court steps in and says, wait, sure he’s probably guilty, but the standard you had the jury judging him by was ridiculous, that can’t be the standard for a murder conviction, and would probably result on infringement of multiple constitutional rights if you keep using that standard. Do a new trial with a better standard.
Among Counterman’s communications to Whalen were messages that read: “Was that you in the white Jeep?” and “You’re not being good for human relations. Die. Don’t need you.” Others used expletives. . . .
. . . . Whalen has described the messages from Counterman, which came to her over a two-year span beginning in 2014, as life-threatening and life-altering. She never responded to Counterman during this time and blocked his Facebook account at least four times, prompting him to continue messaging her from other platforms or through new Facebook accounts he created. . . .
“In a world rife with misunderstandings and miscommunications, people would be chilled from speaking altogether if they could be jailed for failing to predict how their words would be received. The First Amendment provides essential breathing room for public debate by requiring the government to demonstrate that the defendant acted intentionally or recklessly,” Hauss said.
Well, it’s good that we have safeguards for those who sit on their phone wrong and thereby unintentionally create block-evading accounts on multiple platforms. Guy really went to jail and it was all two solid years of misunderstandings. /s
I’m hearing harassment officially can’t be prosecuted, if we’re turning a blind eye to that degree. A lot of people are going to be emboldened by this, like they already took the law seriously anyway.
Like, yeah, a friend of mine nearly or actually got run off the road several times because the perpetrator wanted to date his gf, but maybe the would-be murderer was just a really bad driver. It was a notoriously dangerous road for both of them to be on ¯\_ (ツ) _/¯
The saddest part of this is I’m more shocked the CO police did something about it. Over here, they refused even a restraining order until we could show them a physical crime, which…you know, would kinda be too late.
Holy shit. Supreme Court just declared open season on women.
No, they declared Colorado’s law is bad. This was a decision written by a liberal woman, joined by the other two liberal justices and four of the conservative ones. They do not have it out for women.
They essentially said that the messages he sent were covered under the first amendment. Have you read the messages he sent?
They didn’t say that at all. They said the standard Colorado is using to convict people is too loose, and could theoretically be used to restrict constitutionally protected speech. They were not ruling on merits on if this speech is protected or not. It probably isn’t. Now the case has been sent back to Colorado, not closed. Colorado can retry him, and it’s quite likely they would win even under the stricter standard. But they can’t try him under a loose standard that could allow for protected speech to be criminalized. This has very little to do with the actual case, and a lot to do with the law that Colorado was using. Most articles written about this are lacking in information and misleading at best, you could find better information on the ruling on scotusblog or the ruling itself.
Among Counterman’s communications to Whalen were messages that read: “Was that you in the white Jeep?” and “You’re not being good for human relations. Die. Don’t need you.” Others used expletives.
Counterman, citing mental illness and delusions, argued that his messages were not intended to be threatening and were thus protected speech.
Not the guy you responded to but god damn… I can’t see that message being interpreted as anything BUT a threat. All I gotta do is declare insanity I guess.
If you read it, it becomes clear that the issue is that Colorado wrote a stalking law that is in conflict with the first amendment. Something that can easily be corrected going forward, if it hasn’t been corrected already.
So he was convicted in Colorado, but the proof for that conviction was not good enough for a federal court.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, in a dissent to the ruling joined by fellow conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote that the decision “unjustifiably grants true threats preferential treatment.”
…What the fuck? Am I taking crazy pills? In what fucking world do Thomas and Barrett advocate for a sane and rational approach to anything?
