United States Second Circuit

Judgment convicting and sentencing defendant for threatening to kill the President of the United States in violation of 18 U.S.C. section 871(a) is deferred as to the sufficiency of the evidence, vacated as to the sentence, and remanded for further sentence proceedings, where: 1) consideration of whether defendant's threat to kill the President constituted a "true threat" cognizable under section 871 is deferred until after the Supreme Court has issued its decision in US v. Elonis, which may bear directly on the analysis; 2) so the district court may reconsider the sentence imposed before defendant has served the remaining balance, this case is remanded for further reconsideration of the sentence in light of this court's holding that the "deliberation" to be considered under U.S.S.G. section 2A6.1(b)(6) is deliberation related to the communication of the threat itself; and 3) the district court should consider defendant's deliberation with respect to her course of conduct leading up to her communication of the threat only if it is closely tied to the communication of the threat.

Appellate Information

• Decided 03/24/2015
• Published 03/24/2015

Judges

• Hall

Court

• United States Second Circuit

Counsel