“No Justice, no Peace” and True Threats

As Eugene noted previously, a federal district court dismissed a FACE act claim for threatening synagogue attendees against the Palestinian Youth Movement based on the following social post:

The PYM social media posts call on their supports to “STAND AGAINST SETTLER EXPANSION AT SUNDAY’S REAL ESTATE EVENT SELLING HOMES TO BUILD ‘ANGLO NEIGHBORHOODS’ IN PALESTINE.” The post continues by describing the Aliyah Event as a “blatant example of land theft” perpetrated by “[r]acist settler expansionists.” The posts finish with “FROM THE BELLY OF THE BEAST NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE.”  Plaintiffs allege, “upon information and belief,” that the phrase “belly of the beast” refers to a synagogue.

The court stated that the wording of this posting was too vague to constitute a true threat: “there are no allegations that phrases like ‘no justice, no peace’ or ‘belly of the beast’ have led to violence. Without that kind of context or history, there is no basis to infer that these posts are true threats.”

I don’t know what was alleged in the complaint, but I wonder if the relationship between the phrase “no justice, no peace” and violence is sufficiently attenuated that this issue was proper for disposal on the a motion to dismiss, where all factual allegations alleged by plaintiffs are presumed to be true.

On the one hand, “no justice, no peace” is often chanted at entirely peaceful rallies and in such contexts serves, as the court concluded, as advocacy of protest. On the other hand, the “no peace” half of the phrase does literally seem to call for violence, not merely protest, and it’s not hard to find examples where this phrase was chanted just before or during violent riots. That’s why you get headlines such as, ‘No justice, no peace’: 7 people shot amid downtown Louisville protests for Breonna Taylor.

Of course, the court is correct that it’s likely that this slogan does not lead to violence, as opposed to being chanted by those already poised for violence.

The FACE Act makes it illegal “by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction, intentionally injures, intimidates or interferes with or attempts to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship.”

So the right question, it seems to me, is not whether using the phrase “no justice, no peace,” will likely lead to violence, but whether it constitutes a threat of force sufficient to intimidate reasonable worshippers.