In re George T.
| Decision Date | 22 July 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. S111780.,S111780. |
| Court | California Supreme Court |
| Parties | In re GEORGE T., a Person Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law. The People, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. George T., Defendant and Appellant. |
Michael A. Kresser, Sixth District Appellate Project, Santa Clara, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Appellant.
Marsha Levick, Philadelphia, NY, Suzanne Meiners; Abigail Trillin and Sarah Colby, San Francisco, for Legal Services for Children, Juvenile Law Center, National Center for Youth Law and Legal Advocates for Children and Youth as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Appellant.
Susan L. Burrell, San Francisco, for Youth Law Center as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Appellant.
David Greene, Oakland; Ann Brick, San Francisco; Robert M. O'Neil, Joshua Wheeler, Charlottesville, VA; Michael Murphy, Munger Tolles & Olson, Los Angeles; Rohde & Victoroff, Stephen F. Rohde, Los Angeles; Joseph, Lichtenstein & Levinson, Burton Joseph; and Joan L. Bertin for J.M. Coetzee, Michael Chabon, Peter Straub, Harlan Ellison, George Garrett, Ayelet Waldman, Neil Gaiman, Jayne Lyn Stahl, Michael Rothenberg, Julia Stein, Greg Rucka, Floyd Salas, American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, Feminists for Free Expression, First Amendment Project, Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, National Coalition Against Censorship, PEN American Center and PEN USA as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Appellant.
Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Manuel M. Medeiros, State Solicitor General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Ronald A. Bass and Gerald A. Engler, Assistant Attorneys General, Stan M. Helfman, Violet M. Lee and Jeffrey M. Laurence, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
We consider in this case whether a high school student made a criminal threat by giving two classmates a poem labeled "Dark Poetry," which recites in part, For the reasons below, we conclude that the ambiguous nature of the poem, along with the circumstances surrounding its dissemination, fail to establish that the poem constituted a criminal threat.
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, "[r]ead these." Mary did so. The first sheet of paper contained a note stating, The two other sheets of paper contained poems. Mary read only one of the poems, which was labeled "Dark Poetry" and entitled "Faces":
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 between 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.2 She wrote: 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: 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
On Sunday, March 18, 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 contained a poem entitled, "Faces in My Head" which recited:
As with the poem entitled "Faces," this poem was labeled "dark poetry" but it was not shown or given to anyone at school. Minor 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, "[r]ead this" as he handed her and Erin the pieces of paper. The folded-up sheet of paper Natalie received contained 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: "... ...
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