The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out the stalking conviction of a Colorado man who sent a barrage of unwanted messages to a female musician in a case involving constitutional free speech protections, ruling that prosecutors had not shown he understood the "threatening nature" of his words.
Firstly, it is not an acquittal, it is certiorari and it vacates and remands, meaning that it sets precedent for lower courts as to what a legal standard is, removes the existing judgement of the lower court, and sends it back to the lower court to decide on the new standard. So this isn’t automatically the end of the case, and doesn’t necessarily mean eventual acquittal for the appellant, it just means he gets another go under a slightly different legal standard (while setting the precedent for future cases).
Counterman was convicted on the basis that his communications met this law: “[r]epeatedly . . . make[ ] any form of communication with another person” in “a manner that would cause a reasonable person to suffer serious emotional distress and does cause that person . . . to suffer serious emotional distress”, and the prosecution argued it doesn’t matter if he didn’t know that it would be threatening.
The new test is: “The State must prove in true-threats cases that the defendant had some subjective understanding of his statements’ threatening nature, but the First Amendment requires no more demanding a showing than recklessness”.
So it will likely go back to court in Colorado, and this time the prosecutors will have to prove he was reckless as to whether or not his conduct was threatening (even if that was not the intent), but he could still be convicted if they show it does. Remember he said things like: “Die. Don’t need you”, and implied he had seen her in public, continued this conduct after being blocked four times, and according to the Reuters article, had previous convictions. So to get acquitted, the court / jury would need to consider all that (plus any evidence about his mental health etc… presented) and decide there is reasonable doubt he was reckless about the possibility his conduct might be threatening.
The US Supreme Court have made some shocking partisan judgements, but this one is not along partisan lines, and is being made out to be more unreasonable than it actually is.
I think the Reuters article possibly distorts this a bit.
Actual decision.
Firstly, it is not an acquittal, it is certiorari and it vacates and remands, meaning that it sets precedent for lower courts as to what a legal standard is, removes the existing judgement of the lower court, and sends it back to the lower court to decide on the new standard. So this isn’t automatically the end of the case, and doesn’t necessarily mean eventual acquittal for the appellant, it just means he gets another go under a slightly different legal standard (while setting the precedent for future cases).
Counterman was convicted on the basis that his communications met this law: “[r]epeatedly . . . make[ ] any form of communication with another person” in “a manner that would cause a reasonable person to suffer serious emotional distress and does cause that person . . . to suffer serious emotional distress”, and the prosecution argued it doesn’t matter if he didn’t know that it would be threatening.
The new test is: “The State must prove in true-threats cases that the defendant had some subjective understanding of his statements’ threatening nature, but the First Amendment requires no more demanding a showing than recklessness”.
So it will likely go back to court in Colorado, and this time the prosecutors will have to prove he was reckless as to whether or not his conduct was threatening (even if that was not the intent), but he could still be convicted if they show it does. Remember he said things like: “Die. Don’t need you”, and implied he had seen her in public, continued this conduct after being blocked four times, and according to the Reuters article, had previous convictions. So to get acquitted, the court / jury would need to consider all that (plus any evidence about his mental health etc… presented) and decide there is reasonable doubt he was reckless about the possibility his conduct might be threatening.
The US Supreme Court have made some shocking partisan judgements, but this one is not along partisan lines, and is being made out to be more unreasonable than it actually is.