In Counterman v. Colorado, 143 S.Ct. 2106, 2113–14, 600 U.S. 66 (U.S. 2023), the U.S. Supreme Court discussed the “true threat” exception to First Amendment free speech protection – specifically, the mental state that the state must demonstrate that the defendant had.
The Court summarized the black-letter law as follows:
From 1791 to the present,” the First Amendment has “permitted restrictions **2114 upon the content of speech in a few limited areas.” United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. 460, 468, 130 S.Ct. 1577, 176 L.Ed.2d 435 (2010). These “historic and traditional categories” are “long familiar to the bar” and perhaps, too, the general public. Ibid. One is incitement—statements “directed [at] producing imminent lawless action,” and likely to do so. Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447, 89 S.Ct. 1827, 23 L.Ed.2d 430 (1969) (per curiam). Another is defamation—false statements of fact harming another’s reputation. See Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 340, 342, 94 S.Ct. 2997, 41 L.Ed.2d 789 (1974). Still a third is obscenity—valueless material “appeal[ing] to the prurient interest” and describing “sexual conduct” in “a patently offensive way.” Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 24, 93 S.Ct. 2607, 37 L.Ed.2d 419 (1973). This Court has “often described [those] historically unprotected categories of speech as being of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is *74 clearly outweighed by the social interest” in their proscription. Stevens, 559 U.S. at 470, 130 S.Ct. 1577 (internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis deleted).
“True threats” of violence is another historically unprotected category of communications. Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343, 359, 123 S.Ct. 1536, 155 L.Ed.2d 535 (2003); see United States v. Alvarez, 567 U.S. 709, 717–718, 132 S.Ct. 2537, 183 L.Ed.2d 574 (2012) (plurality opinion). The “true” in that term distinguishes what is at issue from jests, “hyperbole,” or other statements that when taken in context do not convey a real possibility that violence will follow (say, “I am going to kill you for showing up late”). Watts v. United States, 394 U.S. 705, 708, 89 S.Ct. 1399, 22 L.Ed.2d 664 (1969) (per curiam). True threats are “serious expression[s]” conveying that a speaker means to “commit an act of unlawful violence.” Black, 538 U.S. at 359, 123 S.Ct. 1536. Whether the speaker is aware of, and intends to convey, the threatening aspect of the message is not part of what makes a statement a threat, as this Court recently explained. See Elonis v. United States, 575 U.S. 723, 733, 135 S.Ct. 2001, 192 L.Ed.2d 1 (2015). The existence of a threat depends not on “the mental state of the author,” but on “what the statement conveys” to the person on the other end. Ibid. When the statement is understood as a true threat, all the harms that have long made threats unprotected naturally follow. True threats subject individuals to “fear of violence” and to the many kinds of “disruption that fear engenders.”
Turning to the question before it, the court held that the First Amendment requires proof that the defendant had some subjective understanding of the threatening nature of their statements, but that a mental state of recklessness is sufficient.