Maine’s highest court has declined to decide if two laws are unconstitutional under federal law.
Maine Supreme Judicial Court heard arguments in December on if the state’s domestic violence terrorizing and terrorizing laws are unconstitutional. The justices declined to rule on the issue in an opinion issued Wednesday.
The laws may be unconstitutional following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on a similar law in Colorado last summer. That law was declared unconstitutional after a man argued he was protected under the First Amendment because his statements were not “true threats.”
A stalking case before the Maine Supreme Judicial Court presented an opportunity for the justices to decide if the state’s laws complied. However, the man was not charged with any form of terrorizing or any criminal offense that was based on his speech and had liability for threats of violence, the justices wrote in the footnote of a 5-0 opinion.
That means the court was “not called upon” to decide if Maine’s laws were constitutional, per the opinion.
The man’s convictions for domestic violence stalking and two counts of violation of a protective order were upheld by the court.
Maine’s terrorizing law prohibits making threats to a person that cause them “reasonable fear” of a crime or the evacuation of a building. That’s different from another law on criminal threatening, which has the requirement of fear of “imminent bodily injury.”
The law doesn’t require prosecutors to prove the person knew or recklessly disregarded the serious fear caused by their statements, but the U.S. Supreme Court decision found the statute means the state should have to prove the person had that knowledge.
After the U.S. Supreme Court ruling was issued Penobscot County District Attorney Chris Almy said he stopped charging people with terrorizing.
