Neagle v. State

¶1Justice, dissenting.

¶2Because the majority misconstrues the offense of terroristic threat, and because the majority opinion conflicts with well-established authority, I must respectfully dissent.

¶3A person commits the offense of terror-istic threat if he threatens to commit any offense involving violence to any person or property with intent to place any person in fear of imminent serious bodily injury.1 The term “imminent” relates to the threat *835of bodily injury.2 The majority, however, applies the term “imminent” to the fear. The majority holds that the evidence is sufficient because Appellant’s reference to the Martin murder/suicide “was calculated to cause the attendees to immediately fear appellant” even though any threatened violence was both contingent and future.

¶4The term “imminent,” as used in various sections of the penal code, has been interpreted to mean that injury or death is “ready to take place, near at hand, impending, hanging threateningly over one’s head, menacingly near.”3 It refers to a present, not a future, threat of harm.4 In other words, the threat must be of present injury, rather than of some future consequence.5 A threat conditioned on a future occurrence is not a threat of imminent infliction of serious bodily injury. One must look at the proximity of the threatened harm to the condition.6

¶5The majority also emphasizes the effects of Appellant’s words on mere witnesses. In the case now before us, Appellant told the board members that if they ever came to his property again, he would shoot them. But the State did not allege that this threat of shooting constituted a terror-istic threat. Instead, the misdemeanor information charged that Appellant

did then and there intentionally threaten to commit an offense involving violence to LEE CARROLL DARDEN; namely, STATED “IF THE SUIT CONTINUED AGAINST HIM, HE WOULD MAKE MARTIN LOOK LIKE A SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER”, with intent to place LEE CARROLL DAR-DEN, in fear of imminent serious bodily injury.

¶6The majority points out that eight witnesses testified about the effect Appellant’s words had on them. Respectfully, the State was required to show a threat of imminent serious bodily injury to Lee Carroll Darden, the person named in the indictment. The reaction of eight other witnesses to Appellant’s words does not establish the gravamen of the offense. Yet the majority refers to all these unnamed witnesses as “victims” and holds that “Appellant’s threat, in the minds of the victims, was near at hand, and highly threatening.”

¶7At trial, the prosecutor asked, “Mr. Dar-den, did you hear Mr. Neagle threaten that he would make Don Martin look like a Sunday School Teacher?” Darden replied that he had. The record shows that after Appellant made the Martin remark, Dar-den and Appellant got into a shoving match. Darden admitted that he had used profanity toward Appellant. Darden described the profanity as “You mother-something, to that effect.” When asked whether he thought that Appellant “would actually — shoot [him] relatively soon,” Darden replied, “At that point I did.” “Relatively soon” is not “menacingly near.”7

¶8I would hold that the evidence is neither legally nor factually sufficient to support the trial court’s judgment. Because the *836majority opinion misapplies the controlling law and conflicts with well-established authority to reach the opposite conclusion, I must respectfully dissent.