A Threat Is a Threat

Federal prosecutors last week failed to convict a man accused of violating the civil rights of some UC Irvine students by threatening them with death. That does not change the fact that such threats are a crime whether communicated on paper or by computer over the Internet.

The trial of Richard Machado, the first federal prosecution of a hate crime on the Internet, ended in a hung jury with nine jurors favoring acquittal. That may give prosecutors pause in deciding whether to retry the 20-year-old.

Machado admitted he sent e-mail messages threatening to “hunt down and kill” several dozen Asian Americans at UCI, but he described his action as a prank born of boredom, not criminal intent. A majority of the jurors said later they believed Machado was a disturbed youngster who did not really intend to harm the Asian Americans.

Some recipients, on a campus where about half the students are of Asian extraction, saw the missive simply as a hateful annoyance. Others genuinely felt threatened as individuals, especially since white supremacists had murdered an Asian youth in Tustin months earlier.

At least one law professor contended at the time charges were filed that free-wheeling speech is the norm of the Internet and should know no barriers. But free speech should not protect threats, regardless of the medium. The significance of this case is that it established the resolve of authorities to take such threats seriously and to prosecute them when warranted.

Machado, who flunked out of UCI before sending his messages, apologized to the recipients, which earned him points with jurors. Prosecutors said that merely putting Machado on trial had deterred similar abuses of cyberspace. There clearly is a line for computer users between argumentative, protected speech and an outright threat.