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Supreme Court Overturns Conviction For Man Who Posted 'Threatening' Messages On Facebook
schwit1 sends news that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled 7-2 in favor of Anthony Elonis, a man who wrote a series of angry messages on Facebook. The posts included quotes from rap lyrics containing "violent imagery," and were directed at Elonis's wife, his co-workers, law enforcement, and a kindergarten class. Elonis was charged and convicted under a federal statute that outlaws "any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another." The jury in his case was told the standard for judging such a threat was whether a "reasonable person" would interpret it as such. According to the Court's ruling (PDF), that standard was not enough to convict him. They call it "a standard feature of civil liability in tort law inconsistent with the conventional criminal conduct requirement of 'awareness of some wrongdoing.'" The case is notable for being the first Supreme Court ruling about free speech on social media, but the ruling itself was quite narrow.
Ignorance of the law is an excuse?
No. Lack of intent is an excuse, and is part of the law for which ignorance is not an excuse.
It is trickier than that. The normal legal term is "mens rea", a Latin term for "guilty mind", which is more commonly called "intent". There is a spectrum within the law for things that require intent to be considered criminal all the way through strict liability that do not care about intent.
Many laws, especially older criminal laws, either directly or indirectly address intent. Some laws require the prosecutors show bad intent. Others will modify penalties based on intent. Still others do not take intent into account. Sadly many new laws have been written that should have considered intent, but do not.
For example, selling alcohol to minors has strict liability. It doesn't matter what your intent was. It doesn't matter if you didn't know the law. If cops are doing a sting on the store and someone sells alcohol to a minor, they are liable.
Sadly criminal law is all over the map when it comes to rules about intent. Sometimes two seemingly identical situations can result in one case being dismissed for lack of showing intent, the other can have no intent considered. One currently popular example is officers saying "I feared for my safety and the safety of others", which seems to be the magic incantation to get out of major crimes including murder, where on the other hand "the girl told me she was 18 and even showed me her driver's license with the age" will see no mercy as statutory rape generally has strict liability rules.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
It wasn't about being "offensive." It was about being threatening.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
To be fair, in the vast majority of cases, this is exactly what happens... cop engages brain, realizes that the situation either either something dumb, mistaken, or impossible to prosecute (and is otherwise not a crime), says as much to the complainant, and moves on. Or, in the case of what may be a crime but turns out to not be, same-same, with maybe a stern talking-to of the 'offender' that maybe he should not be so dumb in the future, or at least don't make the activity appear so damned suspicious. ...and then there's the small minority of police officers who are either overeager newbies, had a really bad day, decides he doesn't like the guy, didn't get laid the night before, a closet sociopath, or suchlike.
About the same sample size as humanity at large, really, but with one subtle-yet-important distinction: force.
Having studied the problems with law enforcement for years I can say confidently that in most departments what you've said is true. The real problem is that when that one guy really screws up the reflexive response from everybody in his department (and the DA's office) is to circle the wagons and protect the idiot cop. I've talked about it here before but look up the case of David Bisard in Indianapolis as a fine example where there are no gray areas. He got drunk on duty and ran over a motorcyclist who was stopped at a stop light, killing the cyclist and gravely injuring two others. The FOP paid for his defense and 19 cops who showed up acted as if they couldn't tell that a guy who would later test at .20% BAC (you read that correctly) had been drinking.
That's the real problem.
Do you have ESP?