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Criminal Law Keyed to Lee
Elonis v. United States
Citation:
135 S.Ct. 2001 (2015)Facts
Elonis was an active user of Facebook. After his wife left him, he changed his Facebook name to “Tone Dougie” and began to post rap lyrics. It included graphically violent language and imagery. He included disclaimers that the lyrics were fictional with no resemblance to real persons. He posted that his writing was therapeutic for him.
However, these posts frequently included crude, degrading, and violent material about his soon to be ex-wife, including an illustrated diagram of her home and stating that it would be easy to fire a mortar launcher at her house. He was also fired from his job after posting a picture of himself holding a knife against a co-worker’s throat. He posted several more violent lyrics mentioning others.
A grand jury indicted Elonis for making threats to injure patrons and employees of the park he was previously employed at, police officers, his estranged wife, a kindergarten class, and an FBI agent, all in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 875(c). Elonis requested a jury instruction that “the government must prove that he intended to communicate a threat.” The District Court denied that request, instead instructing the jury that the government needs to prove only that a reasonable person would regard petitioner’s communications as threats. He was convicted of four of the five counts.
Elonis appealed, arguing that the jury should have been required to find that he intended his posts to be threats. The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgement.
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