Threatening the president of the United States

[1][2][3][4] It consists of knowingly and willfully mailing or otherwise making "any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict great bodily harm upon the president of the United States".

"[7] The first prosecutions under the statute, enacted in 1917, occurred during the highly charged, hyperpatriotic years of World War I, and the decisions handed down by the courts in these early cases reflected intolerance for any words demonstrating even a vague spirit of disloyalty.

[12] This figure has been disputed by Secret Service director Mark Sullivan, who says that Obama received about as many threats as the previous two presidents.

[17] In 1935, 52-year-old Austin Phelps Palmer, a mechanical engineer, wrote two letters to President Roosevelt, blaming him for the loss of his $1 million fortune.

[20][21] In 1943, William Thomas Reid, a known Nazi sympathizer, was arrested for telling an associate in the oil business, "President Roosevelt is one guy I hate.

"[22] In July 2003, the Los Angeles Times published a Sunday editorial cartoon by 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 South Vietnamese National Police Chief Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing a Viet Cong prisoner (Capt.

"[30] In 2010, Johnny Logan Spencer Jr. was sentenced in Louisville, Kentucky, to 33 months in prison for posting a poem entitled "The Sniper" about the president's assassination on a white supremacist website.

He apologized in court, saying that he was, as WHAS news put it, "upset about his mother's death and had fallen in with a white supremacist group that had helped him kick a drug habit.

"[31][32] In 2010, Brian Dean Miller was sentenced in Texas to 27 months in prison for posting to Craigslist: "People, the time has come for revolution.

[35] On July 19, 2011, the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed the conviction of Walter Bagdasarian for making online threats against Obama.

[36] In 2017, Stephen Taubert, a 59-year-old Air Force veteran and resident of Syracuse, New York, called the office of Senator Al Franken and, in a rant full of racial slurs, said he was going to "hang" former President Barack Obama.

[37] On April 29, 2019, United States District Court Judge Glenn T. Suddaby sentenced him to federal prison for 46 months for that crime and for making threats against the life of Congresswoman Maxine Waters and her staff.

"[39] After his sentencing, Grant C. Jaquith, the United States attorney for the Northern District of New York, said in a statement, "Racist threats to kill present and former public officials are not protected free speech, but serious crimes.

"[37] In August 2023, firearms collector and former welding inspector Craig Robertson threatened to assassinate President Joe Biden and the Manhattan D.A.

[15] 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.

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.

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."

[11][45] Specifically, the court opined that "The word [willfully] often denotes an act which is intentional, or knowing, or voluntary, as distinguished from accidental.

[9] 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.

At a DuBois Club 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.

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.

[75] 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.

[76] 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 not to be in violation of the statute.

[78] 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.

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.

"[81] 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.

[85] 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.

[86] 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.