United States v. Clifford Houston

OPINION

SUTTON, Circuit Judge.

A grand jury indicted Clifford Leon Houston for transmitting a threat in interstate commerce. 18 U.S.C. § 875(c). When the case went to trial, the judge, applying then-governing Sixth Circuit precedent, instructed the jury that Houston’s statement was a “true threat” if a “reasonable person hearing the statement would understand it as a serious expression of intent to inflict injury.” R. 294 at 28. The jury convicted Houston. The Supreme Court recently reversed a similar .conviction under the same statute premised on a nearly identical jury instruction. Elonis v.…