Tagged: circuit split

Supreme Court Reverses Conviction in Facebook-Threats Case

In a follow up to our previous post, the Supreme Court has now decided Elonis v. United States, reversing the conviction based on threats the defendant posted on Facebook against his ex-wife and others.  The Court held it was error for the lower court to instruct the jurors that the defendant could be convicted if the posts would be considered by a reasonable person to be threatening, characterizing that standard as one of traditional civil negligence.  The Court did not address the First Amendment issues concerning the criminalization of Facebook posts.

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