Threatening the President of the United States
Encyclopedia
Threatening the President of the United States is a class D felony
under United States Code
Title 18, Section 871. It consists of knowingly
and willfully mailing or otherwise making "any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States
". The United States Secret Service
investigates suspected violations of this law and monitors those who have a history of threatening the President. Because the offense consists of pure speech
, the courts have issued rulings attempting to balance the government's interest in protecting the President with free speech rights under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. According to Stalking, Threatening, and Attacking Public Figures, "Hundreds of celebrity howlers threaten the President of the United States every year, sometimes because they disagree with his policies, but more often just because he is the President." The United States Attorneys' Manual
states that the Terrorism and Violent Crime Section has supervisory authority over Section 871 cases.
The prototype for Section 871 was the British Treason Act 1351
, which made it a crime to "compass or imagine" the death of the King. Convictions under 18 U.S.C. § 871 have been sustained for declaring that "President Wilson ought to be killed. It is a wonder some one has not done it already. If I had an opportunity, I would do it myself."; and for declaring that "Wilson is a wooden-headed son of a bitch. I wish Wilson was in hell, and if I had the power I would put him there." In a later era, a conviction was sustained for displaying posters urging passersby to "hang [President] Roosevelt
". There has been some controversy among the federal appellate courts as to how the term "willfully" should be interpreted. Traditional legal interpretations of the term are reflected by Black's Law Dictionary
s definition, which includes descriptions such as "malicious, done with evil intent, or with a bad motive or purpose," but most courts have adopted a more easily-proven standard. For instance, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that a threat was knowingly made if the maker comprehended the meaning of the words uttered by him. It was willingly made, if in addition to comprehending the meaning of his words, the maker voluntarily and intentionally uttered them as a declaration of apparent determination to carry them into execution. According to the U.S. Attorney's Manual, "Of the individuals who come to the Secret Service's attention as creating a possible danger to one of their protectees, approximately 75 percent are mentally ill."
, and the decisions handed down by the courts in these early cases reflected intolerance for any words demonstrating even a vague spirit of disloyalty. There was a relative moratorium
on prosecutions under this statute until the World War II
era. The number increased during the turbulent Vietnam War
era. They have tended to fall when the country has not been directly embroiled in a national crisis situation.
The number of reported threats rose from 2,400 in 1965 to 12,800 in 1969. According to some reports, President George W. Bush
received about 3,000 threats a year, while his successor Barack Obama
received about four times that many. This figure has been disputed by Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan
, who says that Obama receives about as many threats as the previous two Presidents.
According to the U.S. Attorneys' Manual, "Media attention given to certain kinds of criminal activity seems to generate further criminal activity; this is especially true concerning Presidential threats which is well documented by data previously supplied by the United States Secret Service. For example, in the six-month period following the March 30, 1981, attempt on the life of President Reagan
, the average number of threats against protectees of the Secret Service increased by over 150 percent from a similar period during the prior year." For this reason, the agency recommends considering the use of sealed affidavits to keep news of threats from leaking to the press.
".
In a 1971 interview, Groucho Marx
told Flash magazine, "I think the only hope this country has is Nixon
’s assassination." U.S. Attorney James L. Browning, Jr.
opined, "It is one thing to say that 'I (or we) will kill Richard Nixon' when you are the leader of an organization which advocates killing people and overthrowing the Government; it is quite another to utter the words which are attributed to Mr. Marx, an alleged comedian."
In 1996, pastor Rob Schenck
told then President Bill Clinton, "God will hold you to account, Mr. President," referencing a recent veto of a ban on partial-birth abortions. The pastor was detained by Secret Service agents who, according to reports, accused him of threatening the President's life.
In July 2003, the Los Angeles Times
published a Sunday editorial cartoon by conservative Michael Ramirez
that depicted a man pointing a gun at President Bush’s head; it was a takeoff on the 1969 Pulitzer Prize-winning
photo by Eddie Adams
that showed Vietnamese general Nguyễn Ngọc Loan
executing a Viet Cong prisoner at point-blank range. The cartoon prompted a visit from the Secret Service, but no charges were filed. In 2005, a teacher instructed her senior civics and economics class to take photographs to illustrate the rights contained in the United States Bill of Rights
. One student "had taken a photo of George Bush out of a magazine and tacked the picture to a wall with a red thumb tack through his head. Then he made a thumb's-down sign with his own hand next to the President's picture, and he had a photo taken of that, and he pasted it on a poster." A Wal-Mart
photo department employee reported it to police, and the Secret Service investigated.
In 2007, Purdue University
student Vikram Buddhi
was convicted of posting messages to Yahoo Finance criticizing the Iraq War and stating, "Call for the assassination of GW Bush" and "Rape and Kill Laura Bush
." The defense had argued that the defendant never explicitly threatened anyone. He was located despite efforts to disguise where the messages were coming from.
In September 2009 the Secret Service investigated Facebook
polls that asked whether President Barack Obama should be assassinated. Some question has arisen as to how to handle Facebook groups such as "LETS KILL BUSH WITH SHOES" (a reference to the 2008 Muntadhar al-Zaidi shoe incident) which had 484 members as of September 2009; similar issues have arisen on MySpace
. Tweets
have come under Secret Service investigation, including ones that said "ASSASSINATION! America, we survived the Assassinations and Lincoln & Kennedy. We'll surely get over a bullet to Barrack Obama's head," and "The next American with a Clear Shot should drop Obama like a bad habit. 4get Blacks or his claims to b[e] Black. Turn on Barack Obama." The former tweet was marked "#tlot," a reference to "Top Libertarians on Twitter". In 2010, a man was charged for posting a poem entitled "The Sniper" about the President's assassination on a white supremacist website.
In 2010, a Dallas, Texas
man was arrested for allegedly posting to Craigslist
, "People, the time has come for revolution. It is time for Obama to die. I am dedicating my life to the death of Obama and every employee of the federal government. As I promised in a previous post, if the health care reform bill passed I would become a terrorist. Today I become a terrorist." Later in 2010, a 77-year-old white
man named Michael Stephen Bowden, who said that President Obama was not doing enough to help African Americans, was arrested after making murder-suicide
threats against Obama.
Sometimes threats come to government's attention when a private citizen reports them, but other times the threatener himself directly notifies the government that he is planning to kill the President.
, which made it a crime to "compass or imagine" the death of the King. The statute prohibiting threats against the President was enacted by Congress in 1917. The maximum fine it allowed was $1,000. The law was amended in 1994 to increase the maximum fine to $250,000.
Among the justifications that have been given for the statute include arguments that threats against the President have a tendency to stimulate opposition to national policies, however wise, even in the most critical times; to incite the hostile and evil-minded to take the President's life; to add to the expense of the President's safeguarding; to be an affront to all loyal and right-thinking persons; to inflame their minds; to provoke resentment, disorder, and violence; and to disrupt Presidential activity and movement. It has also been argued that such threats are akin to treason and can be rightly denounced as a crime against the people as the sovereign power
. Congressman Edwin Y. Webb noted, "That is one reason why we want this statute – in order to decrease the possibility of actual assault by punishing threats to commit an assault ... A bad man can make a public threat, and put somebody else up to committing a crime against the Chief Executive, and that is where the harm comes. The man who makes the threat is not himself very dangerous, but he is liable to put devilment in the mind of some poor fellow who does try to harm him."
Prisoners are sometimes charged for threatening the President though they lack the ability to personally carry out such a threat. The courts have upheld such convictions, reasoning that actual ability to carry out the threat is not an element of the offense; prisoners are able to make true threats as they could carry out the threat by directing people on the outside to harm the President. Sometimes prisoners make such threats to manipulate the system; e.g., a case arose in which an inmate claiming to be "institutionalized
" threatened the President in order to stay in prison; there was a case in which a state prisoner threatened the President because he wanted to go to a federal institution.
under United States Code
Title 18, Section 871. The offense is punishable by five years in prison
, a $250,000 fine, a $100 special assessment
, and 3 years of supervised release. Internet restrictions such as a prohibition on access to email have been imposed on offenders who made their threats by computer. The U.S. Sentencing Guidelines set a base offense level of 12 for sending threatening communication, but when a threat to the President is involved, a 6-level "official victim" enhancement applies. Moreover, "an upward departure may be warranted due to the potential disruption of the governmental function." Further enhancements can apply if the offender evidenced an intent to carry out the threat (6-level enhancement); made more than two threats (2-level enhancement); caused substantial disruption of public, governmental, or business functions or services (4-level enhancement); or created a substantial risk of inciting others to harm federal officials (2-level enhancement). Since each 6-level increase approximately doubles the Guidelines sentencing range, it is not particularly rare for an offender who threatens the President to receive a sentence at or near the maximum, especially if he has a criminal history and/or does not qualify for a reduction for acceptance of responsibility
. There is a 4-level decrease available for a threat involving a "single instance evidencing little or no deliberation", which would usually apply to spur-of-the-moment verbal threats. The maximum penalty for threatening a United States judge or a Federal law enforcement officer is 10 years imprisonment — double the maximum penalty for threatening the President.
s definition, which includes descriptions such as "malicious, done with evil intent, or with a bad motive or purpose." In U.s. v. Patillo, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that a threat to the President could lead to a verdict of guilty "only if made with the present intention to do injury to the President". Specifically, the court opined that "The word [willfully] often denotes an act which is intentional, or knowing, or voluntary, as distinguished from accidental. But when used in a criminal statute it generally means an act done with a bad purpose...We believe that a 'bad purpose' assumes even more than its usual importance in a criminal prosecution based upon the bare utterance of words."
Most of the other circuits have held that it is not necessary that the threat be intended to be communicated to the President or that it have tendency to influence his action. The legislative history
, which contains debate over a rejected amendment that would have eliminated the words "knowingly and willfully" from the statute, reflects that the word "willfully" was included in order to avoid criminalizing behavior carried out with innocent intent (e.g. mailing to a friend, for informational purposes, a newspaper article containing a threat to the President). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that a threat was knowingly made if the maker comprehended the meaning of the words uttered by him. It was willingly made, if in addition to comprehending the meaning of his words, the maker voluntarily and intentionally uttered them as a declaration of apparent determination to carry them into execution.
public rally on the Washington Monument
grounds, a member of the assembled group suggested that the young people present should get more education before expressing their views. The defendant, an 18-year-old, replied:
According to court testimony, the defendant in speaking made a gesture of sighting down the barrel of a rifle. The audience responded with laughter and applause, which the Court of Appeals would later view as potentially ominous: "[I]t has not been unknown for laughter and applause to have sinister implications for the safety of others. History records that applause and laughter frequently greeted Hitler's predictions of the future of the German Jews. Even earlier, the Roman holidays celebrated in the Colosseum often were punctuated by cheers and laughter when the Emperor gestured 'thumbs down
' on a fallen gladiator."
The boy was arrested and found to be in possession of cannabis
, but a Court of General Sessions Judge suppressed
the cannabis because he found that there had been no probable cause for the Secret Service agents to believe the defendant's words constituted a threat to the President. This did not prevent a federal court from convicting him for threatening the President. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
affirmed his conviction, but the Supreme Court reversed, stating, "We agree with petitioner that his only offense here was 'a kind of very crude offensive method of stating a political opposition to the President.' Taken in context, and regarding the expressly conditional nature of the statement and the reaction of the listeners, we do not see how it could be interpreted otherwise." In a concurring opinion
, William O. Douglas
noted, "The Alien and Sedition Laws constituted one of our sorriest chapters; and I had thought we had done with them forever ... Suppression of speech as an effective police measure is an old, old device, outlawed by our Constitution."
A defendant's statement that if he got the chance he would harm the President is a threat; merely because a threat has been conditional upon the ability of the defendant to carry it out does not render it any less of a threat. It has been ruled that taken together, envelopes containing ambiguous messages, white powder, and cigarette butts that were mailed to the President after the 9/11 anthrax outbreaks conveyed a threatening message. The sending of non-toxic white powder alone to the President has been deemed to be a threat. A broad statement that the President must "see truth" and "uphold Constitution" or else the letter writer will put a bullet in his head count as not expressly conditional as it does not indicate what events or circumstances will prevent the threat from being carried out. However, the statement "if I got hold of President Wilson, I would shoot him" was not an indictable offense because the conditional threat was ambiguous as to whether it was an expression of present or past intent.
The posting of a paper in a public place with a statement that it would be an acceptable sacrifice to God to kill an unjust President was ruled to not be in violation of the statute. The statute does not penalize imagining, wishing, or hoping that the act of killing the President will be committed by someone else. Conversely, the mailing of letters containing the words "kill Reagan" and depicting the President's bleeding head impaled on a stake was considered a serious threat. An oral threat against the President unheard by anyone does not constitute a threat denounced by statute.
Since other statutes make it a crime to assault or to attempt to kill the President, some question has arisen as to whether it is necessary to have a statute banning threats. As the Georgetown Law Journal
notes, "It can be argued that the punishment of an attempt against the life of the President is not sufficient; by the time all the elements of an attempt have come into existence the risk to the President becomes too great. On the other hand, the punishment of conduct short of an attempt runs the risk of violating the established principle that intent alone is not punishable ... While ordinarily mere preparation to commit an offense is not punishable, an exception may perhaps be justified by the seriousness of the consequences of an executed threat on the President's life."
Dilemmas related to patient confidentiality sometimes arise when a mentally ill subject makes a threat against the President. The termination of nurse Linda Portnoy was upheld after she reported such a statement to the Secret Service. The court noted that the patient was restrained and unable to act on his threats, so he wasn't an immediate safety risk. It also considered the patient's psychiatrist, not Portnoy, the appropriate person to assess the gravity of his threats. In a study found that in those who threaten the President, the primary differentiating variable related to lethality was "opportunity and happenstance". Conversely, a defendant's writings in his anger management
workbook threatening to kill the President upon the defendant's release from the penitentiary were ruled to have fallen within the dangerous patient exception to psychotherapist-patient privilege.
Federal law provides that the director of the facility in which a person is hospitalized due to being found incompetent to stand trial or not guilty only by reason of insanity of a Section 871 violation shall prepare annual or semiannual reports concerning the mental condition of the person and containing recommendations about the need for his continued hospitalization; a copy of the reports shall be submitted to the Director of the United States Secret Service to assist it in carrying out its protective duties. The Ninth Circuit ruled that it is constitutional to hold a presidential threatener beyond Section 871's prescribed five year statutory maximum if he is found to be dangerous and mentally ill. It is possible under federal law to hold some presidential threateners indefinitely.
Classes of offenses under United States federal law
The classes of offenses under United States federal law are as follows:References-See also:*Special assessment on convicted persons*Supervised release*Probation and supervised release under United States federal law...
under United States Code
United States Code
The Code of Laws of the United States of America is a compilation and codification of the general and permanent federal laws of the United States...
Title 18, Section 871. It consists of knowingly
Knowingly
In law knowledge is one of the degrees of mens rea that constitute part of a crime. For example, in English law, the offence of knowingly being a passenger in a vehicle taken without consent requires that the procecution prove, not only that the defendant was a passenger in a vehicle and that it...
and willfully mailing or otherwise making "any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
". The United States Secret Service
United States Secret Service
The United States Secret Service is a United States federal law enforcement agency that is part of the United States Department of Homeland Security. The sworn members are divided among the Special Agents and the Uniformed Division. Until March 1, 2003, the Service was part of the United States...
investigates suspected violations of this law and monitors those who have a history of threatening the President. Because the offense consists of pure speech
Pure speech
Pure speech in United States law is the communication of ideas through spoken or written words or through conduct limited in form to that necessary to convey the idea. It is distinguished from symbolic speech or "speech plus," which involves conveying an idea or message through behavior. Pure...
, the courts have issued rulings attempting to balance the government's interest in protecting the President with free speech rights under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. According to Stalking, Threatening, and Attacking Public Figures, "Hundreds of celebrity howlers threaten the President of the United States every year, sometimes because they disagree with his policies, but more often just because he is the President." The United States Attorneys' Manual
United States Attorneys' Manual
The United States Attorneys' Manual is a looseleaf text designed as a quick and ready reference for United States Attorneys and other employees of the United States Department of Justice responsible for the prosecution of violations of federal law...
states that the Terrorism and Violent Crime Section has supervisory authority over Section 871 cases.
The prototype for Section 871 was the British Treason Act 1351
Treason Act 1351
The Treason Act 1351 is an Act of the Parliament of England which codified and curtailed the common law offence of treason. No new offences were created by the statute. It is one of the earliest English statutes still in force, although it has been very significantly amended. It was extended to...
, which made it a crime to "compass or imagine" the death of the King. Convictions under 18 U.S.C. § 871 have been sustained for declaring that "President Wilson ought to be killed. It is a wonder some one has not done it already. If I had an opportunity, I would do it myself."; and for declaring that "Wilson is a wooden-headed son of a bitch. I wish Wilson was in hell, and if I had the power I would put him there." In a later era, a conviction was sustained for displaying posters urging passersby to "hang [President] Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
". There has been some controversy among the federal appellate courts as to how the term "willfully" should be interpreted. Traditional legal interpretations of the term are reflected by Black's Law Dictionary
Black's Law Dictionary
Black's Law Dictionary is the most widely used law dictionary in the United States. It was founded by Henry Campbell Black. It is the reference of choice for definitions in legal briefs and court opinions and has been cited as a secondary legal authority in many U.S...
s definition, which includes descriptions such as "malicious, done with evil intent, or with a bad motive or purpose," but most courts have adopted a more easily-proven standard. For instance, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that a threat was knowingly made if the maker comprehended the meaning of the words uttered by him. It was willingly made, if in addition to comprehending the meaning of his words, the maker voluntarily and intentionally uttered them as a declaration of apparent determination to carry them into execution. According to the U.S. Attorney's Manual, "Of the individuals who come to the Secret Service's attention as creating a possible danger to one of their protectees, approximately 75 percent are mentally ill."
Frequency
The first prosecutions under the statute, enacted in 1917, occurred during the highly charged, hyperpatriotic years of World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, and the decisions handed down by the courts in these early cases reflected intolerance for any words demonstrating even a vague spirit of disloyalty. There was a relative moratorium
Moratorium (law)
A moratorium is a delay or suspension of an activity or a law. In a legal context, it may refer to the temporary suspension of a law to allow a legal challenge to be carried out....
on prosecutions under this statute until the World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
era. The number increased during the turbulent Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
era. They have tended to fall when the country has not been directly embroiled in a national crisis situation.
The number of reported threats rose from 2,400 in 1965 to 12,800 in 1969. According to some reports, President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
received about 3,000 threats a year, while his successor Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
received about four times that many. This figure has been disputed by Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan
Mark J. Sullivan
Mark J. Sullivan is the current Director of the United States Secret Service. Sullivan succeeded W. Ralph Basham and was sworn in as the 22nd Director of the Secret Service on May 31, 2006.-Early life:...
, who says that Obama receives about as many threats as the previous two Presidents.
According to the U.S. Attorneys' Manual, "Media attention given to certain kinds of criminal activity seems to generate further criminal activity; this is especially true concerning Presidential threats which is well documented by data previously supplied by the United States Secret Service. For example, in the six-month period following the March 30, 1981, attempt on the life of President Reagan
Reagan assassination attempt
The Reagan assassination attempt occurred on Monday, March 30, 1981, just 69 days into the presidency of Ronald Reagan. While leaving a speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., President Reagan and three others were shot and wounded by John Hinckley, Jr...
, the average number of threats against protectees of the Secret Service increased by over 150 percent from a similar period during the prior year." For this reason, the agency recommends considering the use of sealed affidavits to keep news of threats from leaking to the press.
Incidents
Convictions under 18 U.S.C. § 871 have been sustained for declaring that "President Wilson ought to be killed. It is a wonder some one has not done it already. If I had an opportunity, I would do it myself."; and for declaring that "Wilson is a wooden-headed son of a bitch. I wish Wilson was in hell, and if I had the power I would put him there." In a later era, a conviction was sustained for displaying posters urging passersby to "hang [President] RooseveltFranklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
".
In a 1971 interview, Groucho Marx
Groucho Marx
Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx was an American comedian and film star famed as a master of wit. His rapid-fire delivery of innuendo-laden patter earned him many admirers. He made 13 feature films with his siblings the Marx Brothers, of whom he was the third-born...
told Flash magazine, "I think the only hope this country has is Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
’s assassination." U.S. Attorney James L. Browning, Jr.
James L. Browning, Jr.
James L. Browning, Jr. is a California jurist. He served as United States Attorney for the Northern District of California from 1969 to 1977 and later as a municipal, then state judge.-Early life and education:...
opined, "It is one thing to say that 'I (or we) will kill Richard Nixon' when you are the leader of an organization which advocates killing people and overthrowing the Government; it is quite another to utter the words which are attributed to Mr. Marx, an alleged comedian."
In 1996, pastor Rob Schenck
Rob Schenck
Rev. Rob Schenck is a leading Evangelical minister to elected and appointed officials in Washington, DC. Serving as President of the Christian outreach ministry Faith and Action, Rev. Schenck, works to build relationships with individuals in government while seeking to positively influence policy...
told then President Bill Clinton, "God will hold you to account, Mr. President," referencing a recent veto of a ban on partial-birth abortions. The pastor was detained by Secret Service agents who, according to reports, accused him of threatening the President's life.
In July 2003, the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
published a Sunday editorial cartoon by conservative Michael Ramirez
Michael Ramirez
Michael Patrick Ramirez is a two-time American Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist. His cartoons typically present conservative viewpoints....
that depicted a man pointing a gun at President Bush’s head; it was a takeoff on the 1969 Pulitzer Prize-winning
Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography
The Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography was awarded from 1968 – 1999, thereafter being renamed as the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography.-List of winners:...
photo by Eddie Adams
Eddie Adams (photographer)
Eddie Adams was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American photographer and photojournalist noted for portraits of celebrities and politicians and his coverage of 13 wars.-Combat photographer:...
that showed Vietnamese general Nguyễn Ngọc Loan
Nguyen Ngoc Loan
General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan was the Republic of Vietnam's Chief of National Police. Nguyễn gained international attention when he executed handcuffed prisoner Nguyễn Văn Lém, a Viet Cong soldier, on February 1, 1968 in front of Vo Suu, an NBC cameraman, and Eddie Adams, an Associated Press photographer...
executing a Viet Cong prisoner at point-blank range. The cartoon prompted a visit from the Secret Service, but no charges were filed. In 2005, a teacher instructed her senior civics and economics class to take photographs to illustrate the rights contained in the United States Bill of Rights
United States Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights is the collective name for the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. These limitations serve to protect the natural rights of liberty and property. They guarantee a number of personal freedoms, limit the government's power in judicial and other proceedings, and...
. One student "had taken a photo of George Bush out of a magazine and tacked the picture to a wall with a red thumb tack through his head. Then he made a thumb's-down sign with his own hand next to the President's picture, and he had a photo taken of that, and he pasted it on a poster." A Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. , branded as Walmart since 2008 and Wal-Mart before then, is an American public multinational corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores. The company is the world's 18th largest public corporation, according to the Forbes Global 2000...
photo department employee reported it to police, and the Secret Service investigated.
In 2007, Purdue University
Purdue University
Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...
student Vikram Buddhi
Vikram Buddhi
Vikram S. Buddhi was an Indian Ph.D student and teaching assistant at Purdue University who was imprisoned by United States authorities in 2006 for writing anti-Bush content, which involved direct death threats via his yahoo account, and publishing them online. He was released from prison in May...
was convicted of posting messages to Yahoo Finance criticizing the Iraq War and stating, "Call for the assassination of GW Bush" and "Rape and Kill Laura Bush
Laura Bush
Laura Lane Welch Bush is the wife of the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush. She was the First Lady of the United States from January 20, 2001, to January 20, 2009. She has held a love of books and reading since childhood and her life and education have reflected that interest...
." The defense had argued that the defendant never explicitly threatened anyone. He was located despite efforts to disguise where the messages were coming from.
In September 2009 the Secret Service investigated Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
polls that asked whether President Barack Obama should be assassinated. Some question has arisen as to how to handle Facebook groups such as "LETS KILL BUSH WITH SHOES" (a reference to the 2008 Muntadhar al-Zaidi shoe incident) which had 484 members as of September 2009; similar issues have arisen on MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
. Tweets
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
have come under Secret Service investigation, including ones that said "ASSASSINATION! America, we survived the Assassinations and Lincoln & Kennedy. We'll surely get over a bullet to Barrack Obama's head," and "The next American with a Clear Shot should drop Obama like a bad habit. 4get Blacks or his claims to b[e] Black. Turn on Barack Obama." The former tweet was marked "#tlot," a reference to "Top Libertarians on Twitter". In 2010, a man was charged for posting a poem entitled "The Sniper" about the President's assassination on a white supremacist website.
In 2010, a Dallas, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
man was arrested for allegedly posting to Craigslist
Craigslist
Craigslist is a centralized network of online communities featuring free online classified advertisements, with sections devoted to jobs, housing, personals, for sale, services, community, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums....
, "People, the time has come for revolution. It is time for Obama to die. I am dedicating my life to the death of Obama and every employee of the federal government. As I promised in a previous post, if the health care reform bill passed I would become a terrorist. Today I become a terrorist." Later in 2010, a 77-year-old white
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
man named Michael Stephen Bowden, who said that President Obama was not doing enough to help African Americans, was arrested after making murder-suicide
Murder-suicide
A murder–suicide is an act in which an individual kills one or more other persons before or at the same time as killing himself or herself. The combination of murder and suicide can take various forms, including:...
threats against Obama.
Sometimes threats come to government's attention when a private citizen reports them, but other times the threatener himself directly notifies the government that he is planning to kill the President.
History
The prototype for Section 871 was the British Treason Act 1351Treason Act 1351
The Treason Act 1351 is an Act of the Parliament of England which codified and curtailed the common law offence of treason. No new offences were created by the statute. It is one of the earliest English statutes still in force, although it has been very significantly amended. It was extended to...
, which made it a crime to "compass or imagine" the death of the King. The statute prohibiting threats against the President was enacted by Congress in 1917. The maximum fine it allowed was $1,000. The law was amended in 1994 to increase the maximum fine to $250,000.
Among the justifications that have been given for the statute include arguments that threats against the President have a tendency to stimulate opposition to national policies, however wise, even in the most critical times; to incite the hostile and evil-minded to take the President's life; to add to the expense of the President's safeguarding; to be an affront to all loyal and right-thinking persons; to inflame their minds; to provoke resentment, disorder, and violence; and to disrupt Presidential activity and movement. It has also been argued that such threats are akin to treason and can be rightly denounced as a crime against the people as the sovereign power
Popular sovereignty
Popular sovereignty or the sovereignty of the people is the political principle that the legitimacy of the state is created and sustained by the will or consent of its people, who are the source of all political power. It is closely associated with Republicanism and the social contract...
. Congressman Edwin Y. Webb noted, "That is one reason why we want this statute – in order to decrease the possibility of actual assault by punishing threats to commit an assault ... A bad man can make a public threat, and put somebody else up to committing a crime against the Chief Executive, and that is where the harm comes. The man who makes the threat is not himself very dangerous, but he is liable to put devilment in the mind of some poor fellow who does try to harm him."
Prisoners are sometimes charged for threatening the President though they lack the ability to personally carry out such a threat. The courts have upheld such convictions, reasoning that actual ability to carry out the threat is not an element of the offense; prisoners are able to make true threats as they could carry out the threat by directing people on the outside to harm the President. Sometimes prisoners make such threats to manipulate the system; e.g., a case arose in which an inmate claiming to be "institutionalized
Institutionalization (psychology)
In clinical and abnormal psychology, institutional syndrome refers to deficits or disabilities in social and life skills, which develop after a person has spent a long period living in mental hospitals, prisons, or other remote institutions...
" threatened the President in order to stay in prison; there was a case in which a state prisoner threatened the President because he wanted to go to a federal institution.
Penalties
Threatening the President of the United States is a class D felonyClasses of offenses under United States federal law
The classes of offenses under United States federal law are as follows:References-See also:*Special assessment on convicted persons*Supervised release*Probation and supervised release under United States federal law...
under United States Code
United States Code
The Code of Laws of the United States of America is a compilation and codification of the general and permanent federal laws of the United States...
Title 18, Section 871. The offense is punishable by five years in prison
Federal prison
Federal prisons are run by national governments in countries where subdivisions of the country also operate prisons.In the United States federal prisons are operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. In Canada the Correctional Service of Canada operates federal prisons. Prison sentences in these...
, a $250,000 fine, a $100 special assessment
Special assessment on convicted persons
The special assessment on convicted persons is part of the sentence of all offenders convicted of federal crimes in the United States. It applies on a per-count basis; thus, an offender convicted of 14 counts of bank robbery would need to pay 14 $100 special assessments, for a total of $1,400. The...
, and 3 years of supervised release. Internet restrictions such as a prohibition on access to email have been imposed on offenders who made their threats by computer. The U.S. Sentencing Guidelines set a base offense level of 12 for sending threatening communication, but when a threat to the President is involved, a 6-level "official victim" enhancement applies. Moreover, "an upward departure may be warranted due to the potential disruption of the governmental function." Further enhancements can apply if the offender evidenced an intent to carry out the threat (6-level enhancement); made more than two threats (2-level enhancement); caused substantial disruption of public, governmental, or business functions or services (4-level enhancement); or created a substantial risk of inciting others to harm federal officials (2-level enhancement). Since each 6-level increase approximately doubles the Guidelines sentencing range, it is not particularly rare for an offender who threatens the President to receive a sentence at or near the maximum, especially if he has a criminal history and/or does not qualify for a reduction for acceptance of responsibility
Acceptance of responsibility
Acceptance of responsibility is a provision in the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines providing for a decrease by 2 or 3 levels in offenders' offense level for admitting guilt and otherwise demonstrating behavior consistent with acceptance of responsibility, such as ending criminal conduct and...
. There is a 4-level decrease available for a threat involving a "single instance evidencing little or no deliberation", which would usually apply to spur-of-the-moment verbal threats. The maximum penalty for threatening a United States judge or a Federal law enforcement officer is 10 years imprisonment — double the maximum penalty for threatening the President.
Interpretation
There has been some controversy among the federal appellate courts as to how the term "willfully" should be interpreted. Traditional legal interpretations of the term are reflected by Black's Law DictionaryBlack's Law Dictionary
Black's Law Dictionary is the most widely used law dictionary in the United States. It was founded by Henry Campbell Black. It is the reference of choice for definitions in legal briefs and court opinions and has been cited as a secondary legal authority in many U.S...
s definition, which includes descriptions such as "malicious, done with evil intent, or with a bad motive or purpose." In U.s. v. Patillo, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that a threat to the President could lead to a verdict of guilty "only if made with the present intention to do injury to the President". Specifically, the court opined that "The word [willfully] often denotes an act which is intentional, or knowing, or voluntary, as distinguished from accidental. But when used in a criminal statute it generally means an act done with a bad purpose...We believe that a 'bad purpose' assumes even more than its usual importance in a criminal prosecution based upon the bare utterance of words."
Most of the other circuits have held that it is not necessary that the threat be intended to be communicated to the President or that it have tendency to influence his action. The legislative history
Legislative history
Legislative history includes any of various materials generated in the course of creating legislation, such as committee reports, analysis by legislative counsel, committee hearings, floor debates, and histories of actions taken...
, which contains debate over a rejected amendment that would have eliminated the words "knowingly and willfully" from the statute, reflects that the word "willfully" was included in order to avoid criminalizing behavior carried out with innocent intent (e.g. mailing to a friend, for informational purposes, a newspaper article containing a threat to the President). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that a threat was knowingly made if the maker comprehended the meaning of the words uttered by him. It was willingly made, if in addition to comprehending the meaning of his words, the maker voluntarily and intentionally uttered them as a declaration of apparent determination to carry them into execution.
Watts v. United States
In the case of Watts v. United States (1969), the United States Supreme Court ruled that mere political hyperbole must be distinguished from true threats. At a DuBois ClubW.E.B. DuBois Clubs of America
The W.E.B. DuBois Clubs of America was a national youth organization sponsored by the Communist Party USA and launched at a national convention held in San Francisco in June 1964...
public rally on the Washington Monument
Washington Monument
The Washington Monument is an obelisk near the west end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., built to commemorate the first U.S. president, General George Washington...
grounds, a member of the assembled group suggested that the young people present should get more education before expressing their views. The defendant, an 18-year-old, replied:
According to court testimony, the defendant in speaking made a gesture of sighting down the barrel of a rifle. The audience responded with laughter and applause, which the Court of Appeals would later view as potentially ominous: "[I]t has not been unknown for laughter and applause to have sinister implications for the safety of others. History records that applause and laughter frequently greeted Hitler's predictions of the future of the German Jews. Even earlier, the Roman holidays celebrated in the Colosseum often were punctuated by cheers and laughter when the Emperor gestured 'thumbs down
Pollice verso
Pollice verso or verso pollice is a Latin phrase, meaning "with a turned thumb", that is used in the context of gladiatorial combat. It refers to the hand gesture used by Ancient Roman crowds to pass judgment on a defeated gladiator....
' on a fallen gladiator."
The boy was arrested and found to be in possession of cannabis
Cannabis (drug)
Cannabis, also known as marijuana among many other names, refers to any number of preparations of the Cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug or for medicinal purposes. The English term marijuana comes from the Mexican Spanish word marihuana...
, but a Court of General Sessions Judge suppressed
Suppression of evidence
Suppression of evidence is a term used in the United States legal system to describe the lawful or unlawful act of preventing evidence from being shown in a trial. This could happen for several reasons. For example, if a judge believes that the evidence in question was obtained illegally, he can...
the cannabis because he found that there had been no probable cause for the Secret Service agents to believe the defendant's words constituted a threat to the President. This did not prevent a federal court from convicting him for threatening the President. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit known informally as the D.C. Circuit, is the federal appellate court for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Appeals from the D.C. Circuit, as with all the U.S. Courts of Appeals, are heard on a...
affirmed his conviction, but the Supreme Court reversed, stating, "We agree with petitioner that his only offense here was 'a kind of very crude offensive method of stating a political opposition to the President.' Taken in context, and regarding the expressly conditional nature of the statement and the reaction of the listeners, we do not see how it could be interpreted otherwise." In a concurring opinion
Concurring opinion
In law, a concurring opinion is a written opinion by one or more judges of a court which agrees with the decision made by the majority of the court, but states different reasons as the basis for his or her decision...
, William O. Douglas
William O. Douglas
William Orville Douglas was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. With a term lasting 36 years and 209 days, he is the longest-serving justice in the history of the Supreme Court...
noted, "The Alien and Sedition Laws constituted one of our sorriest chapters; and I had thought we had done with them forever ... Suppression of speech as an effective police measure is an old, old device, outlawed by our Constitution."
Other cases
Courts have held that a person is guilty of the offense if certain criteria are met. Specifically, he must intentionally make a threat in a context, and under such circumstances, that a reasonable person would foresee that the statement would be interpreted by persons hearing or reading it as a serious expression of an intention to harm the President. The statement must also not be the result of mistake, duress or coercion. A true threat is a serious threat and not words uttered as a mere political argument, idle talk, or jest. The standard definition of a true threat does not require actual subjective intent to carry out the threat.A defendant's statement that if he got the chance he would harm the President is a threat; merely because a threat has been conditional upon the ability of the defendant to carry it out does not render it any less of a threat. It has been ruled that taken together, envelopes containing ambiguous messages, white powder, and cigarette butts that were mailed to the President after the 9/11 anthrax outbreaks conveyed a threatening message. The sending of non-toxic white powder alone to the President has been deemed to be a threat. A broad statement that the President must "see truth" and "uphold Constitution" or else the letter writer will put a bullet in his head count as not expressly conditional as it does not indicate what events or circumstances will prevent the threat from being carried out. However, the statement "if I got hold of President Wilson, I would shoot him" was not an indictable offense because the conditional threat was ambiguous as to whether it was an expression of present or past intent.
The posting of a paper in a public place with a statement that it would be an acceptable sacrifice to God to kill an unjust President was ruled to not be in violation of the statute. The statute does not penalize imagining, wishing, or hoping that the act of killing the President will be committed by someone else. Conversely, the mailing of letters containing the words "kill Reagan" and depicting the President's bleeding head impaled on a stake was considered a serious threat. An oral threat against the President unheard by anyone does not constitute a threat denounced by statute.
Since other statutes make it a crime to assault or to attempt to kill the President, some question has arisen as to whether it is necessary to have a statute banning threats. As the Georgetown Law Journal
Georgetown Law Journal
The Georgetown Law Journal is a student-edited scholarly journal published at Georgetown University Law Center.-Overview:The Journal publishes six issues each year. It also publishes the Annual Review of Criminal Procedure, a comprehensive practitioner's guide to criminal procedure.The first volume...
notes, "It can be argued that the punishment of an attempt against the life of the President is not sufficient; by the time all the elements of an attempt have come into existence the risk to the President becomes too great. On the other hand, the punishment of conduct short of an attempt runs the risk of violating the established principle that intent alone is not punishable ... While ordinarily mere preparation to commit an offense is not punishable, an exception may perhaps be justified by the seriousness of the consequences of an executed threat on the President's life."
Psychiatric matters
According to the U.S. Attorney's Manual, "Of the individuals who come to the Secret Service's attention as creating a possible danger to one of their protectees, approximately 75 percent are mentally ill." The Secret Service notes, "These are probably Secret Service's most serious cases because it must be determined whether the person making the threat really wants to hurt [Secret Service protectees] or whether they may have some medical problems of their own, for which they need help." It is not uncommon for judges to order psychological evaluations of defendants charged under this statute in accordance with United States federal laws governing offenders with mental diseases or defects. Psychiatrists divide people who threaten the President into three classes: Class 1 includes persons who have expressed overt threatening statements but have made no overt action, Class 2 comprises individuals who have a history of assaultive behaviors toward authority figures, and Class 3 includes person who are considered dangerous and typically have been prosecuted under Section 871.Dilemmas related to patient confidentiality sometimes arise when a mentally ill subject makes a threat against the President. The termination of nurse Linda Portnoy was upheld after she reported such a statement to the Secret Service. The court noted that the patient was restrained and unable to act on his threats, so he wasn't an immediate safety risk. It also considered the patient's psychiatrist, not Portnoy, the appropriate person to assess the gravity of his threats. In a study found that in those who threaten the President, the primary differentiating variable related to lethality was "opportunity and happenstance". Conversely, a defendant's writings in his anger management
Anger management
The term anger management commonly refers to a system of psychological therapeutic techniques and exercises by which someone with excessive or uncontrollable anger & aggression can control or reduce the triggers, degrees, and effects of an angered emotional state...
workbook threatening to kill the President upon the defendant's release from the penitentiary were ruled to have fallen within the dangerous patient exception to psychotherapist-patient privilege.
Federal law provides that the director of the facility in which a person is hospitalized due to being found incompetent to stand trial or not guilty only by reason of insanity of a Section 871 violation shall prepare annual or semiannual reports concerning the mental condition of the person and containing recommendations about the need for his continued hospitalization; a copy of the reports shall be submitted to the Director of the United States Secret Service to assist it in carrying out its protective duties. The Ninth Circuit ruled that it is constitutional to hold a presidential threatener beyond Section 871's prescribed five year statutory maximum if he is found to be dangerous and mentally ill. It is possible under federal law to hold some presidential threateners indefinitely.
See also
- Barack Obama assassination threatsBarack Obama assassination threatsBarack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, has been the target of several assassination threats and alleged plots since he first became a presidential candidate in 2007. Secret Service protection for Obama began after the Senator received a death threat in 2007, when Obama was still...
- List of United States presidential assassination attempts and plots
- Lèse majestéLèse majestéLese-majesty is the crime of violating majesty, an offence against the dignity of a reigning sovereign or against a state.This behavior was first classified as a criminal offence against the dignity of the Roman republic in Ancient Rome...