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The Volokh Conspiracyopinion
Insulting letters to politician’s home are constitutionally protected, unless they are ‘true threats’
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/09/28/insulting-letters-to-politicians-home-are-constitutionally-protected-unless-they-are-true-threats/?utm_term=.42a35c686b98
So the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held Tuesday in Commonwealth v. Bigelow (some paragraph breaks added):
Here, given Michael’s status as a selectman and the content of the letters, it cannot be said that Michael’s “substantial privacy interests [were] invaded in an essentially intolerable manner.” Cohen v. California (1971). See State v. Drahota (Neb. 2010) (defendant’s abusive, outrageous, electronic mail messages to former professor running for State elective office, insofar as they did not qualify as fighting words, were protected speech not subject to criminal punishment under disturbing peace statute despite professor’s previous instruction not to send further messages). See also United States v. Popa (D.C. Cir. 1999) (defendant’s seven anonymous telephone messages left on United States Attorney’s office telephone, containing racial epithets directed at United States Attorney and complaints about abusive police officers, constituted protected speech directed at public official; statute punishing anonymous telephone calls made with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass held unconstitutional as applied to defendant, requiring reversal of conviction); State v. Fratzke (Iowa 1989) (First Amendment precluded defendant from being punished under criminal harassment statute for offensive, profane letter written to State trooper to protest speeding ticket where no “fighting words” were included). Contrast Hott v. State (Ind. Ct. App. 1980) (upholding defendant’s conviction of making indecent telephone call based on vulgar calls made to police chief and prosecuting attorney at their respective homes late at night to complain about police sergeant).
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