## Facts

- Abraham Jacob Alkhabaz (also known as Jake Baker), a University of Michigan student, wrote and posted graphic fictional stories depicting kidnapping and extreme violence against women and girls on an internet newsgroup.
- One story used the real name of a female classmate (Jane Doe), prompting university and law-enforcement attention.
- Investigators found additional violent stories on Alkhabaz’s computer and multiple e-mail exchanges with Arthur Gonda in Canada.
- The e-mails discussed a shared sexual interest in violent fantasies and at points described possible plans to meet and act out those fantasies.
- A federal grand jury indicted Alkhabaz on six counts under 18 U.S.C. § 875(c) (interstate/foreign transmission of communications containing threats to kidnap or injure): five counts based on the e-mails and one count based on the posted story.
- The district court dismissed the indictment, concluding the communications were not “true threats” and raising First Amendment concerns.
- The government appealed the dismissal.

## Issues

1. Whether the charged e-mails and posted story constituted “communication[s] containing any threat to kidnap” or “any threat to injure” under 18 U.S.C. § 875(c).
2. What objective standard governs whether a communication qualifies as a prosecutable “true threat” rather than protected speech.
3. Whether private electronic communications describing violent fantasies, not directed to a target, can satisfy § 875(c).

## Decision

- The Sixth Circuit affirmed dismissal of the indictment.
- The court held the government failed to allege communications that qualify as threats within the meaning of § 875(c).
- The majority applied an objective reasonable-person standard and concluded the communications did not function as intimidation directed at causing fear in an identifiable target.
- The court adopted a two-part understanding of a “communication containing a threat”: a reasonable person must view the communication as (1) expressing intent to inflict bodily harm and (2) attempting to effect change or achieve some goal through intimidation.
- Judge Krupansky dissented, arguing the communications were sufficiently serious to permit a jury to find a true threat and that a threat need not be directed to the intended victim.

## Legal Principles

- Under 18 U.S.C. § 875(c), not all violent or repugnant speech constitutes a criminal “threat”; the statute targets communications that function as intimidation.
- A “communication containing a threat” requires more than violent content: it must reasonably be understood as using the prospect of harm to influence, coerce, or intimidate.
- The threat inquiry is objective: it turns on how a reasonable person would understand the communication in context, including the relationship between sender and recipient.
- Private exchanges of violent fantasies between participants, without a communicative purpose of intimidating a target, may fall outside § 875(c), even if they reference real persons or contemplate real-world acts.
- Courts may construe threat statutes narrowly to avoid criminalizing protected expression while preserving punishment of true threats.

## Conclusion

The Sixth Circuit held that § 875(c) requires communications that a reasonable person would understand as expressing an intent to cause harm and as employing that intent to achieve a coercive end through intimidation; because Alkhabaz’s private e-mails (and related story) were not reasonably understood as intimidation directed at a target, the indictment was properly dismissed.


United States v. Alkhabaz, 104 F.3d 1492 (6th Cir. 1997)