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Elonis v. U.S.: The Facts of the Case

Anthony Elonis was convicted of transmitting threats over the social media website,

Facebook. The threats were made towards his coworkers, his wife, the police, and a FBI agent in

the form of rap lyrics. After Eloniss wife of seven years left him and took along their two

children, Elonis took to Facebook to post rap lyrics under the name Tone Dougie. These lyrics

contained threats to the aforementioned parties. Eloniss soon-to-be ex-wife was granted a

protective order from Elonis because she feared for her safety after seeing the Facebook posts. In

addition, Elonis was fired from his job after posting a threat to his coworker on the Tone

Dougie Facebook page. Eloniss former boss alerted the FBI and they subsequently began

monitoring Eloniss Facebook posts. Elonis was questioned by the FBI following a post in which

he threatened a kindergarten classroom. Following the visit, Elonis made a post threatening the

FBI agent with a bomb and was then arrested. Elonis was convicted on four of five counts of

transmitting threats.

Elonis contended that the jury should have been required to find that his posts were

intended to be threats. The court convicted Elonis on the basis that a statement is a true threat

wherein a reasonable person would interpret the statement as such. The federal statute does not

indicate that the statement needs to be made in the mental state in which the statement is

intended to be a threat.

Elonis v. U.S.: The Ruling and Rationale

The Supreme Court of the United States overturned the conviction. The belief of

SCOTUS is that, despite the statute not specifying that the statement needs to have been made in

the mental state in which the statement is meant to be a threat, does not mean that the omission

means it should not be taken into account. The opinion of the Supreme Court is that Elonis
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needed to have intended the posts to be a threat for Elonis to be guilty of communicating true

threats. As a result, Eloniss conviction should be overturned because it was made on the

premise that a reasonable person would understand Eloniss posts as threats. Eloniss negligence

in posting statements that would be regarded as threats is not enough to warrant criminal

wrongdoing. The mental state of intending the threat is required.

Elonis v. U.S.: My Views on its Free Speech Significance

Elonis v. U.S. can have a very significant impact on threatening speech on social media. I

side with the ruling of the Supreme Court as I believe that one must intend the statement to be a

threat in order for it to be true. However, this ruling can greatly protect threatening speech as

this case set a precedent for future cases. Future threatening speech on social media can be

defended by claiming no intent to threaten. This defense could lead to more threatening speech

on social media and leave people, such as Eloniss wife, to feel unsafe. This case further proves

that it is difficult to regulate speech on social media, which is how it should be because of first

amendment protection. Despite the consequences of this ruling, I believe it is the right decision

because it continues to assure free speech protection. As mentioned in class, unpopular speech

needs more protection than popular speech.

REFERENCES

Elonis v. United States, 575 U.S. (2015).