People v. Chandler

Filed 8/28/

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA

THE PEOPLE, )

) Plaintiff and Respondent, ) ) S207542 v. ) ) Ct.App. 4/2 E054154

BEN CHANDLER, JR., )

) Riverside County Defendant and Appellant. ) Super. Ct. No. SWF027980 ___________________________________ )

Penal Code section 422, subdivision (a) prohibits ―willfully threaten[ing] to commit a crime which will result in death or great bodily injury to another person, with the specific intent that the statement . . . is to be taken as a threat . . . which, on its face and under the circumstances in which it is made, is so unequivocal, unconditional, immediate, and specific as to convey to the person threatened, a gravity of purpose and an immediate prospect of execution of the threat, and thereby causes that person reasonably to be in sustained fear for his or her own safety or for his or her immediate family‘s safety.‖ We granted review to determine whether a defendant who utters words to a victim with a subjective intent to threaten may be convicted of…

Penal Code section 422, subdivision (a) prohibits “willfully threaten[ing] to commit a crime which will result in death or great bodily injury to another person, with the specific intent that the statement... is to be taken as a threat . . . which, on its face and under the circumstances in which it is made, is so unequivocal, unconditional, immediate, and specific as to convey to the person threatened, a gravity of purpose and an immediate prospect of execution of the threat, and thereby causes that person reasonably to be in sustained fear for his or her own safety or for his or her immediate family’s safety.” We granted review to determine whether a defendant who utters words to a victim with a subjective intent to threaten may be convicted of an attempt to violate Penal Code section 422 without proof that the intended threat under the circumstances was sufficient to cause a reasonable person to be in sustained fear. For the reasons below, we hold that the crime of attempted criminal threat requires not only proof of a subjective intent to threaten but also proof that the intended threat under the circumstances was sufficient to cause a reasonable person to be in…

Concurring and Dissenting. — The majority reasons that “[t]o avoid substantial First Amendment concerns associated with criminalizing speech, we construe the offense of attempted criminal threat to require proof that the defendant had a subjective intent to threaten and that the intended threat under the circumstances was sufficient to cause a reasonable person to be in sustained fear.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 525.) The majority posits that avoidance of constitutional concerns requires us to assume that an objective threat is an element of an attempted criminal threat. The facts of this case do not raise this issue. Yet the majority reaches out to add an element and to create an instructional duty in every case. I respectfully decline to join this expansion.

The majority’s conclusion stems from a misapplication of the doctrine of constitutional avoidance. This canon of interpretation applies to ambiguous statutes: “When a question of statutory interpretation implicates constitutional issues, we are guided by the precept that ‘ “[i]f a statute is susceptible of two *527 constructions, one of which will render it constitutional and the other unconstitutional in whole or in part, or…