The Supreme Court on Tuesday made it slightly more difficult to prosecute online stalkers, as the 1st Amendment protects the free speech of those who repeatedly send unwanted and harassing messages

as long as they

are not intended as threats.

In a 7-2 decision, the court overturned the stalking conviction of a Colorado man who sent hundreds of disturbing and alarming messages to Coles Whalen, a singer and songwriter.

The court ruled that prosecutors must prove that defendants knew they were acting recklessly by making threatening remarks.

“The question is whether the 1st Amendment still requires evidence that the defendant had any subjective understanding of the threatening nature of his statements,” Elena Kagan wrote in the majority ruling.

“We believe that this is the case, but that a mental state of recklessness is sufficient. The state must demonstrate that the suspect knowingly disregarded a substantial risk that his communications would be perceived as imminent violence. The state does not have to no more demanding form of subjective behaviour.” with intent to threaten another,” Kagan wrote.

The singer, Whalen, said she repeatedly tried to block the messages, suggesting she was being watched and followed. She became increasingly frightened and stopped performing in public.

Billy Counterman, the defendant, was previously convicted of sending violent and threatening messages to family members and others. He was charged with stalking in Colorado for sending unwanted messages at a time that a reasonable person would consider threatening.

He was convicted by a jury and sentenced to four and a half years in prison.

While Counterman’s lawyers said the messages were not threats, Whalen disagreed.

The thousands of unstable messages sent to me were life-threatening and life-changing, she said in an internet post about her case. I was terrified of being followed and could be hurt at any moment; I had no choice but to take a step back from my dream, a music career that I had worked very hard on.

Some messages invited her to have a coffee. Others referred to seeing her in public. A few sounded angry: That one. Don’t need you.

Coles Whalen is a professional singer-songwriter who has released six records and toured extensively throughout the United States and Canada. She is also the survivor of a terrifying years-long stalking campaign by petitioner Billy Raymond Counterman, who sent her thousands of disturbing, alarming and threatening messages. The messages were life-threatening and life-aging. Terrified that she was being followed and that Counterman would show up at one of her live performances to make good on his threats, Coles had no choice but to pursue her dream music career that she had worked hard to achieve on the road and in recording. build, leave behind. studio for decades. In contrast, Counterman spent half of the decade leading up to 2014 in federal prison and the other half on supervised release after pleading guilty twice (in 2003 and 2011) to violating the federal criminal threat statute, 18 USC 875( c), by threatening to injure at least four different women. Beginning in 2014, while still on supervised release from his 2011 conviction and continuing until his 2016 arrest, Counterman stalked Coles, harassed him, and threatened her with thousands of unsolicited messages that grew in frequency over time. and hostility increased. Things came to a head in the spring of 2016, after Counterman tasked Coles [d]that is, you don’t need it [f]permanently finish, and that [s]Taying in cyber life is going to kill you. Pet app 7a; JA 85, 111, 17778. He also made it clear that he had watched her describe her car and those around her. Pet app 7a; JA 85, 111, 17778. The born performer most at home on stage found herself constantly looking over her shoulder and, for the first time in her life, crippled by stage fright, afraid Counterman might be there, going up in the public eye, waiting to make these threats come true. Facing that fear night after night turned out to be too much. The meet & greets with fans went first. Then the fear became so paralyzing that Coles was forced to leave the stage in the middle of a performance.