United States v. Paul Kent Cassel

We must decide- whether the First Amendment permits the government to punish a threat without proving that it was made with the intent to threaten the victim.

I

In early 1998, Paul Kent Cassel and his girlfriend, Anastasia Kafteranis, were living on property owned by Kafteranis and located near Randsburg, California, in the Mojave Desert. The federal government owned several lots near Kafteranis’s property and it sought to sell them, acting through the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Cassel apparently liked his privacy, though, and was not about to let neighbors move in without doing what he could to stop them.

Arthur and Alice Rinard, a married couple, were interested in buying one of the government lots, and in January 1998 they visited the property to look around. As they were walking around, Cassel approached them. He was accompanied by two of his dogs. One of the dogs — a certain “Mr. Mooch Face” — was extremely ugly and at least somewhat aggressive, probably because it had once been run over by a car. Cassel began a conversation with the Rinards that would continue over the following two days. Cassel’s participation in the conversation consisted mostly of providing the…