Seven judges of the nine justices of the United States Supreme Court have put freedom of expression before harassment (archives).
ATS
The United States Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday in favor of freedom of expression in an online harassment case. The case concerns dumps of threatening messages sent by a fan to a country singer.
By a majority of seven out of nine magistrates, the high court ruled that a cyberstalker could not be prosecuted and convicted if he was unaware of the impact of his messages on their recipient.
“Real threats of violence are not protected by the First Amendment to the constitution,” which guarantees freedom of speech and “are punishable crimes,” Magistrate Elena Kagan said on behalf of the majority. But the accused must “have some understanding of the threatening nature of his statements,” she adds.
Prosecutors do not have to prove that the accused “intended” to be threatening, but simply that he “knowingly ignored the risk that his communications could be perceived as threats of violence”, specifies the court, in asking the courts to reopen the case.
“Die, I don’t need you”
Between 2014 and 2016, a Colorado resident sent thousands of Facebook messages to singer Coles Whalen. “Die, I don’t need you” or “fuck you forever,” he wrote to her, opening new accounts each time she blocked him.
According to the lawyers of the musician, these messages “oscillated between the bizarre, the senseless, the aggressive and the threatening” and “their hostility had only increased over time”. The young woman had begun to take fright and to cancel concerts. “I was terrified of being followed and attacked. I had no choice but to put my career on hold.”
In 2016, she decided to file a complaint. The accused, who had already been prosecuted for harassment, had been arrested. After being sentenced to four and a half years in prison, he appealed, citing the First Amendment.
His lawyers had claimed that their client suffered from a mental illness and thought that the singer “corresponded with him through other sites. He did not understand that he was threatening and did not intend to be.
Associations of journalists or defense of civil rights, such as the powerful ACLU, had sided with him, fearing a risk of “unfounded prosecutions” or “censorship” if the courts were content to assess the feelings of the recipients of the messages.
ATS
2023-06-28 00:11:31
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