Elonis v. United States

Elonis v. United States

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Docket No.	Op. Below	Argument	Opinion	Vote	Author	Term
13-983	3d Cir.	Dec 1, 2014 Tr.Aud.	Jun 1, 2015	8-1	Roberts	OT 2014

Disclosure: John Elwood, a frequent contributor to this blog, is among the counsel to the petitioner in the case.

Holding: The Third Circuit’s instruction, requiring only negligence with respect to the communication of a threat, is not sufficient to support a conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 875(c), which makes it a federal crime to transmit in interstate commerce “any communication containing any threat . . . to injure the person of another.”

Judgment: Reversed and remanded, 8-1, in an opinion by Chief Justice Roberts on June 1, 2015. Justice Alito filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. Justice Thomas filed a dissenting opinion.

A “view” from the Courtroom: Elonis and other June 1 decisions (Mark Walsh)
Opinion analysis: Internet threats still in legal limbo? (Lyle Denniston)
Court difficult to read on Facebook threats: In Plain English (Amy Howe)
Argument analysis: Taking ownership of an Internet rant (Lyle Denniston)
Argument preview: Social media as a crime scene (Lyle Denniston)
Drawing a line between therapy and threats: In Plain English (Amy Howe)
On religion issues, children are still different (Lyle Denniston)
Petition of the day (Maureen Johnston)

Date	Proceedings and Orders (key to color coding)
Dec 20 2013	Application (13A695) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from January 15, 2014 to March 7, 2014, submitted to Justice Alito.
Jan 6 2014	Application (13A695) granted by Justice Alito extending the time to file until February 14, 2014.
Feb 14 2014	Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due March 21, 2014)
Mar 12 2014	Order extending time to file response to petition to and including April 21, 2014.
Mar 21 2014	Brief amici curiae of Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, et al. filed.
Apr 21 2014	Brief of respondent United States in opposition filed.
May 5 2014	Reply of petitioner Anthony Douglas Elonis filed.
May 6 2014	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of May 22, 2014.
May 27 2014	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of May 29, 2014.
Jun 2 2014	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of June 5, 2014.
Jun 9 2014	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of June 12, 2014.
Jun 16 2014	Petition GRANTED In addition to the question presented by the petition, the parties are directed to brief and argue the following question: "Whether, as a matter of statutory interpretation, conviction of threatening another person under 18 U. S. C. §875(c) requires proof of the defendant's subjective intent to threaten."
Jul 7 2014	The time to file the joint appendix and petitioner's brief on the merits is extended to and including August 15, 2014.
Jul 7 2014	The time to file respondent's brief on the merits is extended to and including September 29, 2014.
Jul 8 2014	Consent to the filing of amicus curiae briefs, in support of either party or of neither party, received from counsel for the petitioner.
Jul 30 2014	Consent to the filing of amicus curiae briefs, in support of either party or of neither party, received from counsel for the respondent.
Aug 15 2014	Joint appendix (2 volumes) filed. (Statement of costs filed.)
Aug 15 2014	Brief of petitioner Anthony Douglas Elonis filed.
Aug 18 2014	Brief amici curiae of Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project, et al. filed.
Aug 22 2014	Brief amici curiae of People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, Inc. (PETA), et al. filed.
Aug 22 2014	Brief amicus curiae of Center for Individual Rights filed.
Aug 22 2014	Brief amici curiae of Student Press Law Center, et al. filed.
Aug 22 2014	Brief amici curiae of Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, et al. filed.
Aug 22 2014	Brief amici curiae of American Civil Liberties Union, et al. filed.
Aug 22 2014	Brief amici curiae of Rutherford Institute, et al. filed.
Aug 22 2014	Brief amici curiae of Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, et al. filed.
Sep 4 2014	SET FOR ARGUMENT on Monday, December 1, 2014.
Sep 22 2014	Brief amicus curiae of National Center for Victims of Crime filed.
Sep 22 2014	Record requested from U.S.C.A. 3rd Circuit.
Sep 29 2014	Brief of respondent United States filed.
Oct 2 2014	Brief amici curiae of Wisconsin, et al. filed. (Distributed)
Oct 6 2014	Brief amici curiae of National Network to End Domestic Violence, et al. filed.
Oct 6 2014	Brief amicus curiae of Anti-Defamation League filed.
Oct 6 2014	Brief amici curiae of Domestic Violence Legal Empowerment and Appeals Project, et al. filed.
Oct 6 2014	Brief amicus curiae of Criminal Justice Legal Foundation filed. (Distributed)
Oct 27 2014	CIRCULATED.
Oct 29 2014	Reply of petitioner Anthony Douglas Elonis filed. (Distributed)
Nov 3 2014	Record received from U.S.C.A. 3rd Circuit. The record is electronic.
Dec 1 2014	Argued. For petitioner: John P. Elwood, Washington, D. C. For respondent: Michael R. Dreeben, Deputy Solicitor General, Department of Justice, Washington, D. C.
Jun 1 2015	Judgment REVERSED and case REMANDED. Roberts, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Scalia, Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ., joined. Alito, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion.
Jul 6 2015	JUDGMENT ISSUED.

Featured Posts

Academic highlight: Hyatt is latest example of textualist-originalist justices’ willingness to overturn precedent – Anita Krishnakumar

Relist Watch – John Elwood

Opinion analysis: Justices narrow bankrupts’ power to rescind contracts in bankruptcy – Ronald Mann
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This Week at the Court
The Supreme Court released orders from the May 16 conference on Monday; the justices granted Ritzen Group Inc. v. Jackson Masonry, LLC.
On Monday, the justices released their opinions in Mission Product Holdings Inc. v. Tempnology, LLC, Herrera v. Wyoming and Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. v. Albrecht.
On Thursday, the justices met for their May 23 conference; John Elwood's Relist Watch compiles the petitions that were relisted for this conference.
Major Cases
- Department of Commerce v. New York
  (1) Whether the district court erred in enjoining the secretary of the Department of Commerce from reinstating a question about citizenship to the 2020 decennial census on the ground that the secretary’s decision violated the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 701 et seq; (2) whether, in an action seeking to set aside agency action under the APA, a district court may order discovery outside the administrative record to probe the mental processes of the agency decisionmaker -- including by compelling the testimony of high-ranking executive branch officials -- without a strong showing that the decisionmaker disbelieved the objective reasons in the administrative record, irreversibly prejudged the issue, or acted on a legally forbidden basis; and (3) whether the secretary’s decision to add a citizenship question to the decennial census violated the enumeration clause of the U.S. Constitution.
- Lamone v. Benisek
  In case in which the plaintiffs allege that a Maryland congressional district was gerrymandered to retaliate against them for their political views: (1) whether the various legal claims articulated by the three-judge district court are unmanageable; (2) whether the three-judge district court erred when, in granting plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, it resolved disputes of material fact as to multiple elements of plaintiffs’ claims, failed to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, and treated as “undisputed” evidence that is the subject of still-unresolved hearsay and other evidentiary objections; and (3) whether the three-judge district court abused its discretion in entering an injunction despite the plaintiffs’ years-long delay in seeking injunctive relief, rendering the remedy applicable to at most one election before the next decennial census necessitates another redistricting.
- Kisor v. Wilkie
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule Auer v. Robbins and Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co., which direct courts to defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of its own ambiguous regulation.
- Rucho v. Common Cause
  (1) Whether plaintiffs have standing to press their partisan gerrymandering claims; (2) whether plaintiffs’ partisan gerrymandering claims are justiciable; and (3) whether North Carolina’s 2016 congressional map is, in fact, an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.
- The American Legion v. American Humanist Association
  (1) Whether a 93-year-old memorial to the fallen of World War I is unconstitutional merely because it is shaped like a cross; (2) whether the constitutionality of a passive display incorporating religious symbolism should be assessed under the tests articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman, Van Orden v. Perry, Town of Greece v. Galloway or some other test; and (3) whether, if the test from Lemon v. Kurtzman applies, the expenditure of funds for the routine upkeep and maintenance of a cross-shaped war memorial, without more, amounts to an excessive entanglement with religion in violation of the First Amendment.
- Gamble v. United States
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule the “separate sovereigns” exception to the double jeopardy clause.
see all this term’s cases »
Recent Decisions
- Herrera v. Wyoming Wyoming’s statehood did not abrogate the Crow Tribe’s 1868 federal treaty right to hunt on the “unoccupied lands of the United States”; the lands of the Bighorn National Forest did not become categorically “occupied” when the forest was created.
- Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. v. Albrecht “Clear evidence” that the Food and Drug Administration would not have approved a change to a drug’s label – thus pre-empting a state-law failure-to-warn claim – is evidence showing that the drug manufacturer fully informed the FDA of the justifications for the warning required by state law and that the FDA, in turn, informed the drug manufacturer that the FDA would not approve a change to the drug’s label to include that warning; the question of agency disapproval is primarily one of law for a judge to decide.
- Mission Product Holdings Inc. v. Tempnology, LLC A bankruptcy debtor’s rejection of an executory contract under 11 U.S.C. §365 has the same effect as a breach of that contract outside bankruptcy; such an act thus cannot rescind rights that the contract previously granted.
see all this term’s cases »
Current Relists
- al-Alwi v. Trump (1) Whether the government’s statutory authority to detain Moath Hamza Ahmed al-Alwi has unraveled; (2) whether, alternatively, the government’s statutory authority to detain al-Alwi has expired because the conflict in which he was captured has ended; and (3) whether the Authorization for Use of Military Force authorizes, and the Constitution permits, detention of an individual who was not “engaged in an armed conflict against the United States” in Afghanistan prior to his capture.
- Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc. (1) Whether a state may require health-care facilities to dispose of fetal remains in the same manner as other human remains, i.e., by burial or cremation; and (2) whether a state may prohibit abortions motivated solely by the race, sex or disability of the fetus and require abortion doctors to inform patients of the prohibition.
- Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc. Whether a state, consistent with the 14th Amendment, may require an ultrasound as part of informed consent at least 18 hours before an abortion.
More Petitions »
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Cases argued 70

Cases decided 32

Summary reversals 4

Merits cases granted to date 73

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On March 30, Justice Clarence Thomas spoke with former clerk Brittney Lane Kubisch and Pepperdine University President-elect James Gash at Pepperdine University School of Law. Thomas told the audience that he had no plans to retire from the Supreme Court.

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Cases argued	70
Cases decided	32
Summary reversals	4
Merits cases granted to date	73

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13
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Opinions

16
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20
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23
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28
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30
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