The Court and Online Threats

[Commentary] If you post violent thoughts about someone on Facebook, does it matter what you intended to convey when you wrote the words? In a 8-1 decision, the Supreme Court said yes. If the government wants to criminally prosecute someone for his or her words, the court ruled, it must do more than show that a reasonable person would have interpreted those words as threats. “Wrongdoing must be conscious to be criminal,” Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. wrote for a seven-member majority. In the age of the Internet, when anyone can post anything for the world to see, it was an important affirmation of the need to protect speech, and to require the government to meet a stricter legal standard when trying to punish people for their words alone.