This is one of those cases where some idiot defendant makes every conceivable argument to escape the consequences of his actions, no matter how ridiculous he may sound. Since the court has to address them all, it's really long. Painful reading.
Anyway, the facts: Jerry Chase was (is) a crazy 60 year old who lived in a trailer park. After we was charged with criminal tampering (for pouring sugar in his neighbor's gas tank) and with violating a protection order (for shouting a racial slur at the same neighbor), he was evicted from the trailer park. Apparently, he was out of state when he found out about the eviction. Like any rational adult would do, he fired off a series of six emails over two days to the trailer park manager, the maintenance worker who posted the notice, the neighbor who he had been harassing, and a bunch of other people. These were wickedly threatening emails which alluded to Chase's past arson convictions, included a picture of someone pointing a gun at a judge (not sure why a judge...), had a lot of profanity-laden threats and demands to lift the eviction. The threats were primarily directed against the couple who managed the park and the maintenance worker. Two of them also happened to be out of state when they received the emails, but not the third. They were all pretty freaked out about the threats.
Surprisingly, acting like an immature ass didn't help Chase's cause. Instead of getting the eviction notice lifted, it got him arrested for three counts of stalking. He was convicted by a jury and sentenced to 12 years in prison. He appealed. Here are a few of his arguments:
First, he argued that since he was out of state when he wrote the emails, and two of his victims were out of state when they read the emails, Colorado didn't have jurisdictio because none of the elements of the crime occurred in Colorado. The Court of Appeals held that although the emails were neither written or read in Colorado, the result of the emails (causing his victims to fear for their safety) did occur in Colorado. And since that result is one of the elements of Stalking, that means that part of the offense occurred in Colorado. And if part of an offense occurs in Colorado, then Colorado has jurisdiction. The court also noted that although email can be accessed from anywhere, Chase sent the threats to accounts of people who he knew lived in Colorado, and who he thought would be in Colorado.
Chase also argued that the evidence was insufficient to prove that he made a credible threat. The content of the emails and the effect that the emails had on the victims was held to be enough to demonstrate a credible threat. Chase argued that there was insufficient evidence to show that he made repeated communications because (get this) his victims opened all the emails at the same time. The court held that six separate emails over the course of two days constituted repeated communications. He also argued that he should have been convicted of misdemeanor harassment instead of felony stalking, and that convicting him of a felony when his conduct met the elements of a misdemeanor violated his equal protection rights. The court pointed out that harassment and stalking are related offenses, but that they have different elements and are different crimes.
Also, Chase argued that his emails were protected by the First Amendment. The court pointed out that freedom of speech is not absolute, and does not protect true threats (speech that a reasonable speaker and a reasonable recipient would perceive as an actual threat of harm). Since Chase's emails were true threats, they were not protected speech.
Chase's conviction was upheld.
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