Case Categories: True Threats

• Boyle v. Landry (1971)

  Boyle v. Landry (1971) reversed injunctions against enforcement statutes and ordinances prohibiting intimidation, despite a First Amendment plea by African-...

• Elonis v. United States (2015)

  Elonis v. United States (2015) reversed a conviction of a man convicted of making threats via Facebook posts. True threats are not protected by the First...

• Hunter v. Bryant (1991)

  "True threats" are not protected by the First Amendment. Hunter v. Bryant (1991) upheld the warrantless arrest of a man who made a supposed threat against the...

• Kansas v. Boettger and Kansas v. Johnson (2020)

  The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a Kansas State Supreme Court ruling that invalidated a statute criminalizing threats made with reckless...

• Lavine v. Blaine School District (9th Cir.) (2001)

  Lavine v. Blaine School District (9th Cir. 2001) said a school's decision to emergency expel a student who submitted a violent-themed poem did not violate the...

• Perez v. Florida (2017)

  In Perez v. Florida (2017), the Supreme Court declined to look at the First Amendment issues in the the conviction of a man who drunkenly stated he could blow...

• Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette, Inc. v. American Coalition of Life Activists (9th Cir.) (2002)

  Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette, Inc. v. American Coalition of Life Activists (2002) determined that anti-abortion speech was not protected by the...

• Virginia v. Black (2003)

  Virginia v. Black (2003) upheld a statute making it illegal to burn a cross in public to intimidate others. Cross burning was a true threat unprotected by the...

• Watts v. United States (1969)

  Watts v. United States (1969) determined that the First Amendment does not protect true threats but that a threat made against President Johnson was political...