SCOTUS Won’t Hear Facebook Rap Threats Case Again

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to again take up the case of a man convicted of making threats on Facebook despite his argument that his online posts were rap lyrics protected by the First Amendment (Elonis v. United States, U.S., No. 16-1231, review denied, 10/2/17).

After making statements that some perceived as threats on the social networking site, Anthony Elonis was convicted of several counts of transmitting in interstate commerce a communication containing a threat to injure the person of another.

The Supreme Court reversed the convictions in 2015 because an erroneous jury instruction permitted convictions for negligently ...