Ragansky v. United States
| Decision Date | 13 August 1918 |
| Docket Number | 2605. |
| Citation | 253 F. 643 |
| Parties | RAGANSKY v. UNITED STATES. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Seymour Stedman, of Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff in error.
Charles F. Clyne and Robert T. Neill, both of Chicago, Ill., for the United States.
Before MACK and EVANS, Circuit Judges.
The sole question for consideration on this writ of error to reverse a judgment based upon a verdict of guilty under all three counts of an indictment for knowingly and willfully making threats to take the life of the President of the United States is the construction of the Act of February 14 1917 (39 Stat. 919, c. 64) copied in the margin. [1]
Concededly the language charged to have been used by defendant in and of itself constituted such a threat; that specified in the first count was 'I can make bombs and I will make bombs and blow up the President'; in the second, 'We ought to make the biggest bomb in the world and take it down to the White House and put it on the dome and blow up President Wilson and all the rest of the crooks, and get President Wilson and all of the rest of the crooks and blow it up;' in the third, 'I would like to make a bomb big enough to blow up the Capitol and President and all the Senators and everybody in it.' The demurrer and motion to quash, not shown in the record, as well as the motion in arrest of judgment, were therefore properly overruled.
While the testimony is not preserved, it appears, from the statement of the judge in overruling a motion for a new trial, that 'there was a claim by this defendant and testimony in corroboration of his claim that he was joking that he was not in earnest, that he did not intend to kill him.'
The court instructed the jury that 'the claim that the language was used as a joke, in fun,' is not a defense. It was not claimed that every one present understood that he was joking, or that he intended them so to understand; the claim appears to have been that defendant had no intention to carry out his threat, and that, therefore, it was a joke; the instruction read in the light of the entire charge must be so construed, and in our judgment it was correct.
A threat is knowingly made, if the maker of it comprehends the meaning of the words uttered by him; a foreigner, ignorant of the English language, repeating these same words without knowledge of their meaning, may not knowingly have made a threat.
And a threat is willfully made, if in addition to comprehending the meaning of his words, the maker voluntarily and intentionally utters them as the declaration of an apparent...
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Watts v. United States
...and intentionally utters them as the declaration of an apparent determination to carry them into execution." Ragansky v. United States, 253 F. 643, 645 (7th Cir. 1918). See Pierce v. United States, 365 F.2d 292, 294 (10th Cir. 1966). There is no requirement that the person uttering the thre......
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U.S. v. Kelner
...§ 875, does not expressly require that the threat to injure be transmitted "willfully," the trial judge followed Ragansky v. United States, 253 F. 643, 645 (7th Cir. 1918), and charged the element of willfulness in terms of "an apparent determination" to carry the threat into execution. Cf.......
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Elonis v. United States
...Stat. 919.Courts applying this statute shortly after its enactment appeared to require proof of only general intent. In Ragansky v. United States, 253 F. 643 (C.A.7 1918), for instance, a Court of Appeals held that "[a] threat is knowingly made, if the maker of it comprehends the meaning of......
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State v. Taylor
...IntentCongress enacted the anti-threat statute that would become 18 U.S.C. § 871(a) on 14 February 1917. See Ragansky v. United States , 253 F. 643, 644 (7th Cir. 1918). 18 U.S.C. § 871(a) states in part: Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail ... any ... wr......