State v. Taupier

Citations

• 197 Conn. App. 784

Syllabus

Convicted, on a conditional plea of nolo contendere, of five counts of threat- ening in the second degree in connection with posts he made on Face- book that contained several threatening statements directed toward Superior Court judges and court employees, the defendant appealed. The defendant had been convicted of similar charges in 2014 in connec- tion with sending a threatening e-mail to a Superior Court judge during his contentious divorce proceedings. In 2017, while on house arrest and while his appeal from his prior conviction was pending in our Supreme Court, the defendant posted several statements on Facebook that threat- ened the Cromwell Police Department and called for the killing of judges and court employees and the arson of courthouses. The trial court denied the defendant's motion to dismiss, concluding that a jury reasonably could find that the defendant's statements, in light of the context in which they were made, were not protected by the first amendment because they were advocacy directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action and were likely to do so and because the statements constituted true threats. On appeal to this court, the defendant claimed that the trial court improperly denied his motion to dismiss because the statements were not true threats and, thus, were constitutionally protected free speech. Held that the trial court properly denied the defendant's motion to dismiss, as there was probable cause to support continuing a constitutional prosecution against the defendant under each count for threatening to commit a crime of violence in reckless disregard of the risk of causing such terror; the uncontested facts in the record, viewed in the light most favorable to the state, would allow a person of reasonable caution to believe that at least five of the defen- dant's statements were highly likely to be perceived by a reasonable person as serious threats of physical harm, the defendant's history of having a contentious relati