When do threats become "threats"?

Inspired by Hulk Hogan’s rant about going O.J. on his wife.

At what point does a threat become real?

For instance, say you have a neighbor who is nasty to children. Would one get in trouble with a conditional threat such as “If I ever see you physically touch my child I will kill you on the spot.” I think this sort of statement should be allowable, versus an unconditional or guaranteed threat such as “The next time I see you I will beat you to a pulp”.

I’m not planning any threats but I’m still curious as to what I can safely say.

Why should it be more allowable just because it has a condition in it? It seems just as sincere (if anything, moreso) a declaration of criminally violent intent.

I guess it depends on the laws in your state and also whether the DA thinks you should be prosecuted for it.

Maybe my example was too vague.
Use the same nasty neighbor. The statement is “If I ever catch you breaking into my house I will shoot you.”

The neighbor is in full control here. If he never breaks in, he has nothing to fear.
That is what I feel distinguishes this “threat” from one with no conditions.
The neighbor has no right to feel safe while breaking into my home. I want him to have the fear of god put in him with regards to peforming criminal acts on my property. Why is this not justified? Wouldn’t a policeman just laugh if he calls them and says “My neighbor says he’ll kill me if I break into his house”. My response would be “Don’t break in”.

Well, as a matter of law, you generally don’t have the right to kill someone just for physically touching your child or breaking into your house. Sure, this only comes into effect after they commit an initial unwarranted transgression, but your subsequently murdering them remains, as well, a further criminal act. It’s not open season on all infractions.

(I’m not saying this implies anything about whether your “threats” would be legal or not. I’m just saying it casts aspersions on your reasoning that they should be)

IANAL, but I think I remember that threats are only illegal when they arise to the level of assault – that is, when they would convey to a reasonable person an immediate fear of bodily harm. Thus, conditional threats are OK, as are statements concerning a distant future (“one of these days”). For example, a case in California identified the following elements of “criminal threat”:

•willful threat of a crime which would result in great bodily injury;
•specific intent that the statement be taken as a threat, whether or not the perpetrator intended to carry it out;
•the threat, under the circumstances, conveyed a “gravity of purpose and an immediate prospect of execution of the threat”;
•the threat actually caused the person threatened to be in sustained fear; and
•the threatened person’s fear was reasonable under the circumstances.

Of course I can’t kill the neighbor without impunity.

The concept here is to put fear into the neighbor so that he would never choose to commit a crime against me.

Sounds like Nametag’s info is answering my question.

Sure, that’s what you hope to accomplish with the threat. Why would that intent bolster the legality of your actions (in making the threat), though?

But it looks like in California, I could make such statements to keep menacing bad neighbors at bay (assuming they believe I’d carry out my “threat”).

How do you conclude that? It seems to me plausible that your making such a threat could satisfy all the conditions Nametag gives for criminality. Where do you think you would get off?

The overall idea is to put the fear back where it belongs - with the criminal.
I would find it refreshing that there would be something I could legally say to a potential criminal that would really make him take pause from committing a crime.

Stuff like “I’ll call the cops on you” is laughable. Promising bodily harm sounds right.

Maybe I’m reading his list wrong; I assumed you had to meet all the conditions to be illegal. Since my threat is conditional, there is no “immediate” threat.

I remember when studying torts there was a case somewhat on point - I guess it was involving the tort of assault, but I don’t remember too well and it’s not my field - Anyway, a guy with a sword gets into an argument with another guy with a sword and says “if it were not assize-time*, I’d run you through!” The other guy sues him in assault. I’m not going to get into what is assault for the purpose of torts, but it can be made out by a threat. In this case the court determined that this was not a threat, because the condition preceding the threat wasn’t true - it was assizes time, so the guy was in fact saying that he would not stab the other guy.

*assize-time was, iirc, when the courts were in session. They used to only be open for certain periods of the year.

On re-reading, I realize that I didn’t explicitly connect the test from that case (I think it is Wilk’s case) to the question [and I missed the edit window]. The test taken from that case is that for a threat to be an assault, the words must advance a present intention to cause harm. This supports your feeling about what constitutes a threat. It’s likely that the “next time I see you, I’m gonna pummel you” would also qualify, as the intent is unconditional.

I keep thinking of things too late. Sheesh.

I just want to add that I’m not giving you advice here, I just wanted to tell the story of this very old English case that seemed to be related. The criminal law in your jurisdiction would supercede the ancient common law. So please, don’t sue me if you get charged with making threats. Enough disclaimer?

Forgive me, but I laughed out loud at this. You seem to have a lot of bluster to let out. In another post you talked about putting the “fear of god” into your neighbor to dissuade him from breaking into your home. Now you want to issue a stern lecture to a would-be-criminal?

Words are just words. I don’t doubt that you may discourage some criminals by making overt threats, but what have you got to prove you’ll follow through? I doubt anyone who is discouraged from committing a crime against you (or anyone else shooting off threats) is going to walk away trembling in their boots unless weapons are brandished or some degree of violence is initiated. In the case of these latter two possibilities, however, the situation becomes vastly different from a legal standpoint.

It gets complicated:

Site Has Moved

People v. Sorrell (Cal. Ct. App 2008), unpublished.

Dunkleberger v. Commonwealth, 132 Pa. Commw. 600; 573 A.2d 1173; 1990 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 247 (1990)

Money v. State, 2001 Tex. App. LEXIS 2

Holcombe v. Whitaker, 294 Ala. 430; 318 So. 2d 289; 1975 Ala. LEXIS 1221 (Ala. 1975)

Glad you were amused. All of this is hypothetical (I have nice neighbors).

I have heard of many instances of bullying and I wondered to what level words could be used as a counterweapon. You may have a scrawny kid who get picked on. If said kid tells a threatening bully, “If you ever touch me again, I’ll pay a bigger kid to break your arm.” This meets the conditional clause outlined by others and the condition is one a person has a right to make (“don’t touch me”).
Such a threat might give a bully pause; question is does the bully have legal leg to stand on and claim he was threatened.

I don’t see how saying you understand something is some how a threat. I understand school shootings, but I’m not going to shoot up a school.

Kinda like placing a sign in your window that reads “House Protected by Smith and Wesson” with picture of a .45 revolver underneath the wording. How is that any different from the verbal threat? Assuming the sign is in plain view of the neighbor.