The People, Plaintiff and Respondent v. Eddie Jason Lowery, Defendant and Appellant

Summary

The court held that Penal Code section 140(a) is constitutional because it reaches only statements that a reasonable listener, considering the context and surrounding circumstances, would understand as a serious expression of an intent to commit unlawful violence. The statute does not require a specific intent to intimidate, an intent to carry out the threat, immediacy, or apparent ability to carry it out. The court reversed the Court of Appeal's judgment because that court used a different constitutional rationale and remanded for consideration of the effect of the clarified interpretation on defendant's conviction. Justice Baxter, concurring, agreed with the result but separately argued that a true threat does not require proof of the speaker's subjective intent that the statement be taken as a threat.