US Supreme Court backs man who sent female musician flood of unwanted messages

of a Colorado man who sent a barrage of unwanted messages to a female musician in a case involving constitutional free speech protections, ruling that prosecutors had not shown he understood the "threatening nature" of his words.

Kagan wrote that the First Amendment "requires proof that the defendant had some subjective understanding of the threatening nature of his statements." Justice Amy Coney Barrett, in a dissent to the ruling joined by fellow conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote that the decision "unjustifiably grants true threats preferential treatment."

Counterman, citing mental illness and delusions, argued that his messages were not intended to be threatening and were thus protected speech. The Colorado stalking law did not require proof of a speaker's subjective intent to intimidate. It defines stalking in part as communication that "would cause a reasonable person to suffer serious emotional distress" - known as an "objective" legal standard.

Whalen has described the messages from Counterman, which came to her starting in 2014, as life-threatening and life-altering. She never responded to Counterman during this time and blocked his Facebook account at least four times, prompting him to continue messaging her from other platforms or through new Facebook accounts he created.

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