Threat

A threat has been defined to be any menace of such a nature and extent as to unsettle the mind of the person on whom it operates, and to take away from his acts that free, voluntary action which alone constitutes consent. But it is not every threat in this broad sense that is distinctly cognizable by legal remedies. The employment of threats is, upon principle, a tort at common law; and when threats are employed successfully to induce a party to make a contract or conveyance, they may, under circumstances, afford ground for equitable relief. But the criminal jurisdiction of threats, as a punishable offence, is chiefly statutory; and whether given threats are punishable must be determined by recourse to the statute of the jurisdiction.

By the Stat. 4 Geo. IV. ch.

54, § 3, knowingly sending any letter or writing without a name or signature subscribed thereto, or with a fictitious name or signature, threatening to kill or murder any of the king's subjects, or to burn or destroy their houses, out-houses, barns, stacks of corn or grain, hay or straw, was made felony, and punishable with penal servitude for life, or for any term not less than three years, or imprisonment, with or without hard labor, for any term not more than seven years; and, by subsequent enactments, the principle was much extended. It has also been widely adopted in the various states of the Union. Thus, in New York, the sending a letter threatening to accuse a person of crime, or to do an injury to person or property, with intent to extort or gain any money or property of another, is made punishable by imprisonment not exceeding five years.

2 Rev. Stat. 678, § 58.

Threatening letters

Sending threatening letters is the name of the offence of sending letters containing threats of the kinds recognized by the statute as criminal. These are such as threatening to libel a person, or to charge him with a crime, or to kill him, or perhaps any demanding of property with threats. Sending such letters has been made punishable, irrespective of any intention or attempt to do the thing threatened. Threatening letters, as cognizable in criminal courts, are of various kinds: 1. Letters threatening to publish a libel, with a view to extort money. This is punishable, under Stat. 6 & 7 Vict. ch. 96, § 3, with imprisonment not exceeding three years, with or without hard labor.

2.

Demanding money or other property with menaces, with intent to steal the same. This offence is felony, and punishable, under the larceny act of 1861 (Stat. 24 & 25 Vict. ch. 96), with two years' imprisonment, with or without hard labor.

3.

Letters demanding of any person, with menaces and without reasonable and probable cause, any property, chattel, money, valuable security, or other valuable thing. Any person sending such a letter, or causing the same to be received, knowing its contents, is liable, under the same statute, to penal servitude for life, or to imprisonment not exceeding two years, with or without hard labor.

4.

Letters threatening to accuse any person of a heinous or infamous crime. Any person sending such a letter, knowing its contents, with a view to extort money, &c., is liable to penal servitude for life, as in the former case.

5.

Letters threatening to kill or murder any person. The punishment for this offence is, by Stat. 24 & 25 Vict. ch. 100, § 16, penal servitude for five years, or imprisonment for two years, with or without hard labor. Mozley & W. A false statement, that a warrant is issued to arrest a person for a crime, and that it will be served unless money is paid to stay the process, is a threat to accuse a person of a crime.

Commonwealth v. Murphy, 12 Allen, 449.

To constitute the offence created by the New York statute against sending threatening letters, the letter must be sent with a view or intent to obtain that which belongs to another. A letter demanding the payment of a debt due to the writer, and threatening, on refusal, to burn the debtor's property, is not embraced.

People v. Griffin, 2 Barb. 427.