WASHINGTON — For nearly two years, Billy Raymond Counterman sent a musician thousands of unsolicited Facebook messages, carrying on a one-way conversation as if he had a relationship with her.
Then things escalated.
"Was that you in the white Jeep?" "I'm currently unsupervised. I know, it freaks me out too." "Five years on Facebook. Only a couple physical sightings." "Die. Don't need you."
Six years after an Arapahoe County jury convicted Counterman of stalking, members of the U.S. Supreme Court heard his appeal on Wednesday. The legal question is whether prosecutors needed to prove Counterman intended his messages to be threatening. Accordingly, some of the justices appeared to believe juries could not simply look at the stalking behavior itself, given how "sensitive" Americans have become to misconduct.
"We live in a world in which people are sensitive, and maybe increasingly sensitive," said Justice Neil M. Gorsuch during oral arguments. "What do we do in a world in which reasonable people may deem things harmful, hurtful, threatening — and we’re gonna hold people liable willy-nilly for that?"
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. even suggested that one of Counterman's messages to the musician — "Staying in cyber life is going to kill you. Come out for coffee" — sounded like a benign invitation for professional development.
"The threat in that," responded Attorney General Phil Weiser, "is, 'If you don't come out and meet me, your life's in danger.'"
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