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Elonis v. United States of America

Case Details 101:

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Quick Facts

* Anthony Douglass Elonis's rap name was Tone-Dougie

* Lived in Fleetwood, Pennsylvania

* Elonis's ex-wife moved 30 miles away from Fleetwood to avoid physical confrontation with him

Elonis's Side

*After he lost his wife, kids, and job Anthony Douglas Elonis went onto social media to write posts that were interpreted as threats.

*This all began when he was fired from his job and wrote "Y’all think it’s too dark and foggy to secure your facility from a man as mad as me? You see, even without a paycheck, I’m still the main attraction.".

*He went on to continue writing these posts but now turned the focus on his soon to be ex wife. Elonis posted an adaptation to a satirical sketch him and his wife used to watched called "It's Illegal to Say 'I Want to Kill the President.'". Instead he substituted the President with his wife. Which ultimately left his wife feeling threatened.

  • "Um, but what’s interesting is that it’s very illegal to say I really, really think someone out there should kill my wife..."

*The state court after seeing this issued a restraining order on Elonis for three years.

*Elonis then went on to write posts that threatened law enforcement officers and elementary schools that would be his third and fourth count of indictment.

  • "I’ve got enough explosives to take care of the State Police and the Sheriff ’s Department.”
  • "Enough elementary schools in a ten mile radius to initiate the most heinous school shooting ever imagined And hell hath no fury like a crazy man in a Kindergarten class"

*Count five happened when he threatened an FBI agent when she came to question him.

  • "Cause little did y’all know, I was strapped wit’ a bomb Why do you think it took me so long to get dressed with no shoes on?I was jus’ waitin’ for y’all to handcuff me and pat me down Touch the detonator in my pocket and we’re all goin’ [BOOM!]"

*Elonis denied that any of these posts were a threat and that he was only a rapper using his freedom of speech to make raps.

*Used social media platform, Facebook, to express his feelings "artistically"

*Wrote in comments that he did not intend to physically harm anyone

*His "art" was taken as a threat against his ex-wife, local police, coworkers, an FBI agent, and an elementary school

*He was an aspiring rap artist expressing his emotions through music

Prosecutor's Perspective

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* Mr. Elonis was posted threats on Facebook to multiple people

* Motion to dismiss the case had been denied

* Mr. Elonis's threats were harmful because it instilled fear in the people/group of people that were mentioned in his "raps"

The Big Question

Does a conviction of threatening another person require proof of the subjective intent to threaten?

Background on Anthony Elonis

8-1 majority vote

The US supreme court concluded that the law requires proof of the defendant's intent to threaten, not negligence or a reasonable listener test.

*Date of birth unable to be found on the internet.

*Married for seven years until his wife left him

and took their kids with her.

*Also lost his job at the amusement park. He lost

his job by posing with someone with a knife at their

throat with the caption "I wish.".

*While he was going through divorce he began

posting on Facebook about his wife.

Prosecutors did not have enough evidence to prove his intent

1st Amendment Schooling

Conclusion

The First Amendment prohibits the following:

  • The making of any law impeding the free exercise religion
  • Abridging the freedom of speech/infringing on the freedom of the press
  • The interfering with the right to peaceably assemble
  • Prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances

However, the First Amendment does prohibit:

  • Speech that would incite actions that would harm others (Schenck v. United States)

Elonis Conviction was overthrown

Changes the way social media and free speech work together

The court revised 18 U.S.C. § 875(c)

did not have mens rea

Changes the way threats through communication are charged or not

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