{"id":1610,"date":"2021-01-19T18:51:05","date_gmt":"2021-01-19T18:51:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vtjuryinstructions.org\/?page_id=1610"},"modified":"2022-03-08T17:57:23","modified_gmt":"2022-03-08T17:57:23","slug":"criminal-threatening","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/vtjuryinstructions.org\/?page_id=1610","title":{"rendered":"Criminal Threatening"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>CR28-641.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vtjuryinstructions.org\/criminal\/MS28-641.htm\">Criminal Threatening<\/a>, 13 V.S.A. \u00a7 1702(a) (01\/11\/21)<\/li>\n<li>CR07-821.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vtjuryinstructions.org\/criminal\/MS07-821.htm\">Inability to Carry Out Threat Defense to Criminal Threatening<\/a>, 13 V.S.A. \u00a7 1702(f) (01\/11\/21)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Reporter&#8217;s Note<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The model instruction is based on instructions given by the trial courts in\u00a0<u>State v. Benson<\/u>, 61-8-16 Gicr (Apr. 18, 2017) (Harris, J.) and\u00a0<u>State v. Steele<\/u>, 750-8-18 Wrcr (May 23, 2019) (Tomasi, J.).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Vermont Supreme Court has observed that \u201cthe Legislature may have enacted \u00a7\u00a01702\u00a0based on a concern that the disorderly conduct statute would not prohibit pure speech,\u201d and that \u00a7 1702 thus \u201cspecifically addresses threatening speech and acknowledges that such a crime can extend only as far as the First Amendment allows.\u201d\u00a0<u>State v. Schenk<\/u>, 2018 VT 45, \u00b6\u00b6\u00a026\u201327. The Court inferred from the \u201cpresence\u201d of \u00a7 1702 that \u201c\u2018threatening behavior,\u2019 as criminalized in \u00a7\u00a01026(a)(1) [the disorderly conduct statute] should not extend to threatening speech.\u201d\u00a0<u>Id<\/u>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The criminal threatening statute \u201cexpressly excludes constitutionally protected activity from the definition of \u2018[t]hreat\u2019 and \u2018threaten.\u2019 \u201d\u00a0<u>State v. Blanchard<\/u>, 2021 VT 13, \u00b6 10 (quoting 13 V.S.A. \u00a7 1702(d)(2)). Thus, the statute \u201ccan only punish constitutionally unprotected \u2018true threats.\u2019\u00a0\u201d\u00a0<u>Id<\/u>. (citing <u>Hinkson v. Stevens<\/u>, 2020 VT 69, \u00b6\u00b6 43-44). Trial courts may need to address and elaborate on this point and the \u201ctrue threat\u201d doctrine in cases where constitutionally protected activity is potentially at issue.\u00a0<em>See<\/em>\u00a0<u>id<\/u>. \u00b6 17 (concluding that a jury could find that, \u201cconsidering the context of defendant&#8217;s overall conduct, his statement \u2018I have an AR-15 right fucking here. Do we need that?\u2019 would cause a reasonable person to fear unlawful violence\u201d and therefore constituted a \u201ctrue threat\u201d that did not fall outside the scope of the criminal threatening statute); <em>see also<\/em> <u>State v. Noll<\/u>, 2018 VT 106, \u00b6\u00b6 24\u201325, 208 Vt. 474 (discussing concept of \u201ctrue threats\u201d in stalking context).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Note that it is an affirmative defense to a charge of criminal threatening that the defendant \u201cdid not have the ability to carry out the threat.\u201d 13 V.S.A. \u00a7 1702(f). The defendant has the burden to prove the affirmative defense by a preponderance of the evidence.\u00a0<u>Id<\/u>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CR28-641.\u00a0 Criminal Threatening, 13 V.S.A. \u00a7 1702(a) (01\/11\/21) CR07-821.\u00a0 Inability to Carry Out Threat Defense to Criminal Threatening, 13 V.S.A. \u00a7 1702(f) (01\/11\/21) Reporter&#8217;s Note The model instruction is based on instructions given by the trial courts in\u00a0State v. Benson, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/vtjuryinstructions.org\/?page_id=1610\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1610","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vtjuryinstructions.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vtjuryinstructions.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vtjuryinstructions.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vtjuryinstructions.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vtjuryinstructions.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1610"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vtjuryinstructions.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1654,"href":"https:\/\/vtjuryinstructions.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1610\/revisions\/1654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vtjuryinstructions.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}