D exchanged email messages with Gonda which expressed a sexual interest in violence against women and girls.
D had posted a number of fictional stories to alt.sex.stories which involved abduction, rape, torture, mutilation, and murder of women and young girls.
One day, D posted a such a story about a young woman who shared a name with one of D's classmates.
D was charged with transmitting any communication containing threats to kidnap or injure another person.
Procedural History:
Trial court found D guilty.
6th Cir COA reversed, D not guilty.
Issues:
Can a person be convicted of a crime that they merely fantasize and write about?
Holding/Rule:
A person cannot usually be convicted of a crime that they merely fantasize and write about.
Reasoning:
D did not make a threat with these emails he sent to Gonda. Threats are tools that are employed when one wishes to have some effect or achieve some goal through intimidation.
A communication objectively indicting a serious expression of an intention to inflict bodily harm cannot constitute a threat unless the communication also is conveyed for the purpose of furthering some goal through the use of intimidation.
Dissent:
The statute does not confine the scope of criminalized communications to those directed to identified individuals and intended to effect some particular change or goal.
A simple, credible declaration of an intention to cause injury to some person, made for any reason, or for no reason whatsoever, may also constitute a threat.
D was a lot sicker than the majority lets on.
Notes:
Gov't did not charge based on the story posted on the newsgroup which used the name of D's classmate, only on basis of emails.
