Norman Leboon was sentenced Thursday to 24 more months of jail, plus three years’ supervised release. His crime? Threatening Congressman Eric Cantor. What makes the case slightly relevant for this blog is the nature of the threat—a Youtube video. Unfortunately his account’s been terminated, so the video in question is no longer available on Youtube (although if you dig around you can find clips of him).
Now, Leboon’s a little crazy. Take his threats against Cantor:
You are a liar, you’re a Lucifer, you’re a pig, a greedy f—— pig, you’re an abomination, you receive my bullets in your office, remember they will be placed in your heads. You and your children are Lucifer’s abominations.
But should this be punishable? Recall Watts. Guy who’s been drafted speaks out at an anti-draft rally: “I am not going. If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L. B. J.” The Supreme Court overturned Watts’ conviction for threatening the President without even a hearing, noting the conditional nature of Watts’ threat and the reaction of his listeners (laughter, as opposed to, say, storming the White House).
The facts of Leboon’s case aren’t so different from Watts’. Both were part of a political debate; both involved speakers far removed from their supposed targets; and both, in my opinion, merited an amused response.
The distance between speaker and target is a common aspect of online threats. Combine that with the Internet’s tendency to bring out the worst in people and you run into a whole mess of First Amendment problems. Should courts be stepping in to protect individuals from vague online threats?
Of course, some cases allow for easier bridging of threatener-threatened distance than others. One recalls Brandenburg’s imminence test—if a coworker posts on your Facebook wall “I’m going to stab you at your desk tomorrow,” that’s different than that same coworker posting “I’m going to stab President Obama at his desk tomorrow.” (As long as you don’t work in the Oval Office.)
Leboon did plead guilty, so his particular case isn’t as interesting as it could have been. But online threats aren’t going away any time soon, and without a clear framework to work from, it’s hard to say where courts will go on the issue. Hopefully the Supreme Court will have something to say soon. (Ha!)