Conservative Associate Justice Clarence Thomas voiced opposition to the Supreme Court refusing to hear a First Amendment case from Kansas.
The high court on Monday declined to hear a case involving a Kansas man who told a police officer’s son that his father would be found “in a ditch,” which the Kansas Supreme Court ruled was protected speech under the First Amendment to the Constitution.
“In my view, the Constitution likely permits States to criminalize threats even in the absence of any intent to intimidate,” Thomas wrote in a more than five-page dissent. “It appears to follow that threats of violence made in reckless disregard of causing fear may be prohibited.”
The case, Kansas v. Boettger, asked the Supreme Court to determine if the First Amendment prevents states from criminalizing communicated intents to commit an act of violence in disregard of another being placed in fear.
Timothy Boettger, the subject in the case, became upset one night because authorities were not investigating the killing of his daughter’s dog. Boettger then went to a convenience store that employed the son of a police officer to purchase a cup of coffee but later confronted the officer’s son.
“Boettger told another employee that ‘these people … might find themselves dead in a ditch somewhere,'” a petition submitted to the Supreme Court read. “Boettger approached him with clenched fists and visibly shaking, saying, ‘You’re the man I’m looking for.'”
Boettger was convicted on one count of making a “reckless criminal threat,” though he denied both accusations that he either threatened the officer or the officer’s son. The Kansas Supreme Court later overturned the conviction, asserting that the state’s law to criminalize threats issued in “reckless disregard” was too broad and did not rise to a “true threat” often required in First Amendment cases.
