Gather the following information in academic format from the case presented: Give facts (include names of people and officers), What was testified, What the officer or accuser said, What the defendant or accuser said, and what was the issue in this case? (Not surface level), What did the court decide (the holding or reasoning), What does that mean for the defendant or conviction, Results? Also answer the discussion questions.

Case

DID A STUDENT POEM CONSTITUTE A CRIMINAL THREAT?

IN RE GEORGE T., 93 P.3D 1007 (CAL. 2004) Opinion by Moreno, J.

Issue

We consider in this case whether a high school student made a criminal threat by giving two classmates a poem labeled "Dark Poetry," which read, in part,

I am Dark, Destructive, & Dangerous. I slap on my face of happiness but inside I am evil!! For I can be the next kid to bring guns to kill students at school. So parents watch your children cuz I'm BACK!!

Facts

Fifteen-year-old George T. (minor) had been a student at Santa Teresa High School in Santa Clara County for approximately two weeks when on Friday, March 16, 2001, toward the end of his honors English class, he approached fellow student Mary S. and asked her, "Is there a poetry class here?" Minor then handed Mary three sheets of paper and told her, "Read these." Mary did so. The first sheet of paper contained a note stating, "These poems describe me and my feelings. Tell me if they describe you and your feelings." The two other sheets of paper contained poems. Mary read only one of the poems, which was labeled "Dark Poetry" and entitled "Faces":

Who are these faces around me? Where did they come from? They would probably become the next doctors or loirs [sic] or something. All really intelligent and ahead in their game. I wish I had a choice on what I want to be like they do. All so happy and vagrant. Each original in their own way. They make me want to puke. For I am Dark, Destructive, & Dangerous. I slap on my face of happiness but inside I am evil!! For I can be the next kid to bring guns to kill students at school. So parents watch your children cuz I'm BACK!!

by: Julius AKA Angel 1

Minor had a "straight face," not "show[ing] any emotion, neither happy or sad or angry or upset," when he handed the poems to Mary. Upon reading the "Faces" poem, Mary became frightened, handed the poems back to minor, and immediately left the campus in fear. After she informed her parents about the poem, her father called the school, but it was closed. Mary testified she did not know minor well, but they were on "friendly terms." When asked why she felt minor gave her the poem to read, she responded, "I thought maybe because the first day he came into our class, I approached him because that's the right thing to do" and because she continued to be nice to him.

After Mary handed the poems back to minor, minor approached Erin S. and Natalie P., students minor had met during his two weeks at Santa Teresa High School. Erin had been introduced to minor a week prior and had subsequently spoken with him on only three or four occasions, whereas Natalie considered herself minor's friend and had come to know him well during their long after-school conversations, which generally lasted [from] an hour to an hour and a half and included discussions of poetry. Minor handed Erin a "folded up" piece of paper and asked her to read it. He also handed a similarly folded piece of paper to Natalie, who was standing with Erin. Because Erin was late for class, she only pretended to read the poem to be polite but did not actually read it. She placed the unread poem in the pocket of her jacket.

The next day, Saturday, Mary e-mailed her English teacher William Rasmussen to report her encounter with minor. [A substitute teacher had been teaching the class on the day that Mary received the note.] She wrote:

I'm sorry to bother you over the weekend, but I don't think this should wait until Monday. During 6th period on Friday, 3/16, the guy in our class called Julius (actually his name is Theodore?) gave me two poems to read. He explained to me that these poems "described him and his feelings," and asked if I "felt the same way." I was surprised to find that the poems were about how he is "nice on the outside," and how he's "going to be the next person to bring a gun to school and kill random people." I told him to bring the poems to Room 315 to Ms. Gonzalez because [she] is in charge of poetry club. He said he would but I don't know for sure if he did.

Mary remained in fear throughout the weekend, because she understood the poem to be personally threatening to her, as a student. Asked why she felt the poem was a threat, Mary responded:

It's obvious he thought of himself as a dark, destructive, and dangerous person. And if he was willing to admit that about himself and then also state that he could be the next person to bring guns and kill students, then I'd say that he was threatening.

She understood the term "dark poetry" to mean "angry threats; any thoughts that aren't positive."

Rasmussen called Mary on Sunday regarding her e-mail. Mary sounded very shaken during the conversation, and based on this and on what she stated about the contents of the poem, Rasmussen contacted the school principal and the police. He read "Faces" for the first time during the jurisdictional hearing and, upon reading it, felt personally threatened by it, because, according to Rasmussen, "He's saying he's going to come randomly shoot." His understanding of "dark poetry" was that it entailed "the concept of death and causing and inflicting a major bodily pain and suffering. There is something foreboding about it."

On Sunday, March 18, 2001, officers from the San Jose Police Department went to minor's uncle's house, where minor and his father were residing. An officer asked minor, who opened the door when the officers arrived, whether there were any guns in the house. Minor "nodded." Minor's uncle was surprised that minor was aware of his guns, and handed the officers a .38-caliber handgun and a rifle. When asked about the poems disseminated at school, minor handed an officer a piece of paper he took from his pocket. The paper con- tained a poem entitled, "Faces in My Head," [which read as follows]:

Look at all these faces around me. They look so vacant. They have their whole lives ahead of them. They have their own individuality.

Those kind of people make me wanna puke. For I am a slave to very evil masters. I have no future that I choose for myself. I feel as if I am going to go crazy.

Probably I would be the next high school killer. A little song keeps playing in my head. My daddy is worth a dollar not even 100 cents. As I look at these faces around me

I wonder why r they so happy. What do they have that I don't. Am I the only one with the messed up mind. Then I realize, I'm cursed!

As with the poem titled "Faces," this poem was labeled "dark poetry," but it was not shown or given to anyone at school. Minor had drafted "Faces in My Head" that morning in an attempt to capture what he had written in "Faces," because he wanted a copy for his poetry collection. Minor was taken into custody.

Police officers went to the school the following Monday to investigate the dissemination of the poem. Erin was summoned to the vice-principal's office and asked whether minor had given her any notes. She responded in the affirmative, realized that the poem was still in the pocket of her jacket, and retrieved it. The paper contained a poem entitled "Faces," which was the same poem given to Mary. Upon reading the poem for the first time in the vice-principal's office, Erin became terrified and broke down in tears, finding the poem to be a personal threat to her life. She testified that she was not in the poetry club and had no interest in the subject.

Natalie, who testified on behalf of minor, recalled that minor said, "Read this" as he handed her and Erin the pieces of paper. The folded-up sheet of paper Natalie received con- tained a poem entitled, "Who Am I." When a police officer went to Natalie's home to inquire about the poem minor had given her on Friday, Natalie was not completely cooperative and truthful, telling the officer that the poem was about water and dolphins and that she believed it was a love poem. The police retrieved the poem from Natalie's trash can and although it was torn, some of it could still be deciphered:

. . . I created? . . . cause it really . . . feel as if . . . stolen from . . . of peace . . . Taken to a place that you hate. Your locked up and when your let out of your cage it is to perform. Not able to be yourself and always hiding & thinking would people like me if I behaved differently? by Julius AKA Angel.

Natalie did not feel threatened by the poem; rather it made her "feel sad" because "it was kind of lonely." She testified that "dark poetry is . . . relevant to like pure emotions, like sadness, loneliness, hate or just like pure emotions. Sometimes it tells a story, like a dark story." Based on her extended conversations with minor, Natalie found him to be "mild and calm and very serene" and did not consider him to be violent.

Minor testified the poem "Faces" was not intended to be a threat, and because Erin and Natalie were his friends, he did not think they would have taken his poems as such. He thought of poetry as art and stated that he was very much interested in the subject, particularly as a medium to describe "emotions instead of acting them out." He wrote "Faces" during his honors English class on the day he showed it to Mary and Erin. Minor was having a bad day as a consequence of having forgotten to ask his parents for lunch money and having to forgo lunch that day, and because he was unable to locate something in his backpack. He had many thoughts going through his head, so he decided to write them down as a way of getting them out. The poem "Who Am I," which was given to Natalie, was written the same day as "Faces," but was written during the lunch period. Neither poem was intended to be a threat. Instead they were "just creativity."

Minor and his friends frequently joked about the school shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado (where, in 1999, 2 students killed 12 fellow students and one faculty member). They would jokingly say, "I'm going to be the next Columbine kid." Minor testi- fied that Natalie and Erin had been present when he and some of his friends had joked about Columbine, with someone stating that "I'll probably be the next Columbine killer," and indicating who would be killed and who would be spared. Given this history, minor believed Natalie and Erin would understand the poems as jokes.

The poems were labeled "dark poetry" to inform readers that they were exactly that, and minor testified,

If anybody was supposed to read this poem, or let's say if my mom ever found my poem or something of that nature, I would like them to know that it was dark poetry. Dark poetry is usually just an expression. It's creativity. It is not like you're actually going to do something like that, basically.

Asked why he wrote, "For I can be the next kid to bring guns to school and kill students," minor responded:

The San Diego killing [on March 5, 2001, a student at Santana High School shot and killed 2 students and wounded 13 others] was about right around this time. So since I put the three Dsdark, destructive, and dangerousand since I said"I am evil," and since I was talking about people around mefaceshow I said, like, how they would make me want todid I say that?well, even if I didn'tyeah, I did say that. Okay. So, um, I said from all these things, it sounds like, for I can be the next Columbine kid, basically. So why not add that in? And so, "Parents, watch your children, because I'm back," um, I just wanted tokind of like a dangerous ending, like aum, just like ending a poem that would kind of get you, like,like, whoa, that's really something.

Minor stated that he did not know Mary and did not give her any poems. However, he was unable to explain how Mary was able to recount the contents of the "Faces" poem.

On cross-examination, minor conceded that he had had difficulties in his two previous schools, including being disciplined for urinating on a wall at his first school, and had been asked to leave his second school for plagiarizing from the internet. He explained that the urination incident was caused by a doctor-verified bladder problem. He denied having any ill will toward the school district, but he conceded when pressed by the prosecutor that he felt the schools "had it in for me."

An amended petition under Welfare and Institutions Code section 602 was filed against minor, alleging minor made three criminal threats in violation of Penal Code section 422. The victims of the alleged threats were Mary (count 1), Erin (count 3), and Rasmussen (count 2).

Following a contested jurisdictional hearing, the juvenile court found true the allega- tions with respect to Mary and Erin but dismissed the allegation with respect to Rasmussen. At the hearing, the court adjudicated minor a ward of the court and ordered a 100-day commitment in juvenile hall. Minor appealed, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence to support the juvenile court's finding that he made criminal threats. Over a dissent, the court of appeal affirmed the juvenile court in all respects with the exception of remanding the matter for the sole purpose of having that court declare the offenses to be either felonies or misdemeanors. We granted review and now reverse.

Holding

For the foregoing reasons, we hold the poem entitled "Faces" and the circumstances sur- rounding its dissemination fail to establish that it was a criminal threat, because the text of the poem, understood in light of the surrounding circumstances, was not "so unequivocal, unconditional, immediate, and specific as to convey to [the two students] a gravity of pur- pose and an immediate prospect of execution of the threat." Our conclusion that the poem was not an unequivocal threat disposes of the matter and we need not, and do not, discuss minor's contention that he did not harbor the specific intent to threaten the students, as required by section 422.

This case implicates two apparently competing interests: a school administration's interest in ensuring the safety of its students and faculty versus students' right to engage in creative expression. Following Columbine, Santee, and other notorious school shoot- ings, there is a heightened sensitivity on school campuses to latent signs that a student may undertake to bring guns to school and embark on a shooting rampage. Such signs may include violence-laden student writings. For example, the two student killers at Columbine had written poems for their English classes containing "extremely violent imagery." Ensuring a safe school environment and protecting freedom of expression, however, are not necessarily antagonistic goals.

Minor's reference to school shootings and his dissemination of his poem in close proxim- ity to the Santee school shooting no doubt reasonably heightened the school's concern that minor might emulate the actions of previous school shooters. Certainly, school personnel were amply justified in taking action following Mary's e-mail and telephone conversation with her English teacher, but that is not the issue before us. We decide here only that minor's poem did not constitute a criminal threat.

For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the judgment of the court of appeal.

Concurring, Baxter, J.

I agree the evidence does not establish this specific element. The writing, in the form of a poem, that defendant handed to Mary S. and Erin S. said that the protagonist, "Julius AKA Angel," "can be the next kid to bring guns to kill students at school." It did not say, in so many words, that defendant presently intended to do so. And the surrounding circumstances did not lend unconditional meaning to this conditional language. That said, there is no question that defendant's ill-chosen words were menacing by any common understanding, both on their face and in context. The terror they elicited in Mary S., and the concern they evoked in the school authorities, were real and entirely reasonable. It is safe to say that fears aris- ing from a raft of high school shooting rampages, including those in Colorado and Santee, California, are prevalent among American high school students, teachers, and administra- tors. Certainly this was so on March 16, 2001, only eleven days after the Santee incident had occurred. That is the day defendant selected to press his violent writing on two vulnerable and impressionable young schoolmates who hardly knew him. Defendant admitted at trial that he intentionally combined the subject matter and the timing for maximum shock value. Indeed, he acknowledged, his words would be interpreted as threats by "kids who didn't know [he was] just kidding."

Under these circumstances, as the majority observe, school and law enforcement offi- cials had every reason to worry that defendant, deeply troubled, was contemplating his own campus killing spree. The important interest that underlies the criminal-threat lawpro- tection against the trauma of verbal terrorismwas also at stake. Accordingly, the authori- ties were fully justified, and should be commended, insofar as they made a prompt, full, and vigorous response to the incident. They would have been remiss had they not done so. Nothing in our very narrow holding today should be construed as suggesting otherwise.

Questions for Discussion

Summarize the facts in George T.

Describe the responses of Mary, Erin, and Natalie to George T.'s poem. What occurred

when the police confronted George T. at his home? How does George T. explain his

intent in writing and disseminating the poem?

What are the elements of the crime of a "true threat" under Section 422 of the California

Penal Code?

Why did the California Supreme Court conclude that George T.'s poem did not

constitute a criminal threat? Did the court fully consider the content of the note and the

circumstances surrounding the alleged threat?

Do you think that the California Supreme Court's decision was influenced by the fact

that George T. was a juvenile and that the alleged threat was contained in a "poem"? Note that a number of prominent writers viewed George T.'s prosecution as a violation of artistic freedom and urged the court to dismiss the charges against George T. They argued that there should be a presumption that a poem does not constitute a "true threat." Would the court have ruled differently if the poem had stated clearly that George T. planned to return to school with a gun? What if George T. had expressed the sentiments in the letter directly to various students and teachers?

What facts were crucial in the court finding George T. not guilty?

Do you agree with the California Supreme Court's ruling that George T.'s poem is

protected speech under the First Amendment?

When does the poem "Roses are red. Violets are blue. I'm going to kill you, and your

family too" constitute a "true threat"?