Chief Justice John Roberts' Mockery of Stalking Victims Points to a Deeper Problem
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/04/counterman-colorado-supreme-court-threats-stalking.htmlStalking is so closely correlated with lethal violence that experts refer to it as “slow motion homicide”: More than half of all female homicide victims in the U.S. were stalked before they were killed. Despite the terrifying and dangerous consequences, many victims of stalking do not report the abuse to law enforcement for fear they will not be taken seriously.
The reasonableness of that fear was vividly illustrated by the Supreme Court oral arguments in Counterman v. Colorado on Wednesday morning, as members of the highest court of the land joked about messages sent by a stalker to his victim, bemoaned the increasing “hypersensitivity” of society, and brushed aside consideration of the actual harm of stalking to focus on the potential harm of stalking laws.
For nearly two years, Billy Raymond Counterman sent thousands of unsolicited and unwanted Facebook direct messages to C.W., a local musician, ultimately driving her to abandon her career and leave the state. Counterman, who had previously served time in federal prison for making violent threats against his ex-wife and her family, argues that his conduct towards C.W. was free speech protected by the First Amendment. Counterman maintains, supported by amicus briefs from influential civil libertarian organizations such as the ACLU, the EFF, and FIRE, that stalking cannot be criminally prohibited except when the government can prove that the stalker subjectively intended to terrify his victim. The state of Colorado, supported by amicus briefs from First Amendment scholars, stalking experts, and domestic violence victim advocates, argues that it is enough to prove that the stalking would be terrifying to a reasonable person in light of the totality of the circumstances. If the court rules in Counterman’s favor, delusional stalking—no matter how objectively terrifying or threatening—will be transformed into an inviolable constitutional right.
During oral argument, Chief Justice John Roberts quoted a handful of the thousands of unsolicited messages Counterman sent to C.W. “Staying in cyber life is going to kill you,’” Roberts read aloud. After a pause, he joked, “I can’t promise I haven’t said that,” prompting laughter from other justices and the audience. Picking out another message, which he described as an “image of liquor bottles” captioned as “a guy’s version of edible arrangements,” Roberts challenged Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser to “say this in a threatening way,” leading to more laughter from the court. And the laughs didn’t stop there: Counterman’s attorney, John Elwood, shared with the court that his mother would routinely tell him to “drop dead” as a child, but “you know, I was never in fear because of that.”
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= new reply since forum marked as read
You have to throw coins in the slot, to - maybe - get something back.
i am horrified and disgusted by their douchebaggery comments and "jokes"
and if the three "liberal" judges didn't speak up i am disgusted by that as well; silence can appear as condoning this shit behavior
after reading this i have lost all respect for the supreme court
their word final word is shit
i can just imagine what those smarmy assholes had to say about dobbs, women's health - rape/incest - abortion.
couldn't get any lower, I read this. And Roberts is supposed to be one of the good ones? 
On top of everything else you mentioned, it's sad and tragic that we have people like this in powerful positions. First they dictate what we can do with our bodies, now they're protecting stalkers (who could potentially rape and impregnate their victims).
trolling by maggots and russian bots?
A guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do (to facilitate minority rule).
I really feel for Sonia, Elena, and Ketanji, having to work with those bastards as part of an institution that has had its reputation and standing repeatedly tarnished by the behavior of those jerkfaces. 
Fucking Idiot.
And that's what passes for a "Chief Justice" of the SCOTUS. 
I have experienced some of this, and I'm not young. Stalkers want to intimidate the person they're harassing. 
