The U.S. Supreme Court currently is considering the standard that should be applied to judge whether someone has stepped outside the bounds of the First Amendment and truly threatened others. Kevin Reed, a magistrate judge in Memphis, wrote in the Washington Post today that the justices should apply an objective standard, not a subjective standard, to true threats. If a subjective intent standard is applied, then prosecutors would have to prove that a defendant purposefully intended to threaten a victim, leaving them in the untenable position of trying to prove something that exists only in a defendant's mind, Reed says. "Abusers are keenly aware that victims never really know if their threats are serious or not," the judge concludes. "Ultimately, their objective is to keep victims guessing about whether they are in real danger. The Supreme Court should refuse to protect this manipulative behavior."
Lawyer and Legal Journalist
