CUA Law Professor Sarah Duggin was quoted in a July 2, 2018 WFMY News 2 article entitled "Capital Gazette shooting suspect seen as angry loner, obsessed with those who 'wronged' him"

Capital Gazette shooting suspect seen as angry loner, obsessed with those who 'wronged' him

From: WFMY News 2
Date: July 2, 2018
By: Trevor Hughes

He left a years-long trail of harassment, threats and contemptuous behavior. There were dozens of warning signs that he might turn violent - including repeated threats of killing a journalist.

Although none of that was seemingly taken very seriously by authorities, Jarrod Ramos' words and online activity offer examples that in hindsight could have prompted a stronger response from his employers, police and the court system. Ramos is now charged with killing five people at a Maryland newspaper last week.

. . .

Supreme Court scrutiny has helped establish what a "true threat" entails, a carve-out from First Amendment-protected speech, said Sarah Duggin, a law professor at the Catholic University of America.

"The line for charging ordinarily is if there's a threat, was there intent to threaten on the part of the caller, not what a reasonable person would think," Duggin said. "The 'true threat' exception in Virginia vs. Black established there's no First Amendment protection for speech meant to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence."

. . .