Off-Duty, Personal-Social-Media Threats Can Violate 18 U.S.C. § 115(a)(1)(B)
Commentary on United States v. Damon Taylor, 89 F.4th ___ (7th Cir. 2025)

Introduction

In United States v. Damon Taylor, the Seventh Circuit confronted a recurring modern-era question: can an off-duty, after-hours threat delivered through a federal employee’s private social-media account satisfy the federal “true threat” statute, 18 U.S.C. § 115(a)(1)(B)? Defendant Damon L. Taylor, diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, had issued a months-long series of escalating statements—face-to-face, by phone, and on Facebook—aimed at an Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) in Fort Wayne, Indiana. A jury convicted him on two counts of threatening a federal law-enforcement officer. On appeal Taylor asserted (1) cumulative evidentiary error and (2) insufficiency of evidence on Count II, arguing the February 15, 2023 Facebook message was “personal,” reaching the AUSA after work and therefore outside § 115.

The Seventh Circuit (Judges Rovner, Brennan, St. Eve; opinion by Judge Rovner) rejected both arguments, affirming the conviction and, in doing so, announced two clarifying principles:

1. A threat delivered to a federal officer’s personal social-media account, even outside business hours, can still be intended to impede or retaliate for the officer’s official duties within the meaning of § 115(a)(1)(B).
2. The district court does not abuse its discretion by (a) admitting a defendant’s continuous course of threatening conduct under Fed. R. Evid. 404(b) while (b) excluding mental-health “observation evidence” and unrelated threats to other officers when such evidence is only tangentially probative of mens rea and risks jury confusion.

Summary of the Judgment

• Government’s 404(b) evidence admitted. The court allowed the jury to hear Taylor’s entire pattern of conduct—visits, phone calls, profanity-laden outbursts, and social-media posts—to establish motive, intent, plan, knowledge, and context.
• Defense evidence excluded. Testimony from a nurse-practitioner, a case worker, and two city police officers about Taylor’s threats and mental-health episodes was excluded as minimally probative and potentially confusing.
• Sufficiency challenge rejected. The Facebook threat met the “intent to impede/intimidate/interfere” element even though received at home on a private account.
• Conviction affirmed. No abuse of discretion in evidentiary rulings; evidence sufficient under a subjective-recklessness standard derived from Counterman v. Colorado.

Analysis

Precedents Cited and Their Influence

• Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343 (2003) & Watts v. United States, 394 U.S. 705 (1969)
  – Established “true threat” doctrine carving out unprotected speech.
• Counterman v. Colorado, 600 U.S. 66 (2023)
  – Shifted focus from an objective to a subjective understanding of threats, adopting a recklessness minimum. Taylor is the first published Seventh Circuit decision to apply Counterman to § 115.
• Clark v. Arizona, 548 U.S. 735 (2006)
  – Discussed admissibility of “observation evidence” concerning a defendant’s mental state. Defence relied on it to admit Park Center testimony; the Seventh Circuit distinguished it as too attenuated.
• United States v. Saunders, 166 F.3d 907 (7th Cir. 1999)
  – Earlier Seventh Circuit guidance on § 115 intent element; reaffirmed here.
• United States v. Edwards, 26 F.4th 449 (7th Cir. 2022)
  – Standard of review for 404(b) rulings; quoted by the panel.

Legal Reasoning

1. Rule 404(b) Framework.
   The district judge treated Taylor’s months-long campaign as “intrinsic” or, alternatively, admissible under 404(b) to prove intent and context. Because the threats were tightly connected to the charged acts, their probative value outweighed prejudice, and standard limiting instructions cured any risk.
2. Exclusion of Mental-Health “Observation Evidence.”
   The proposed testimony failed Fed. R. Evid. 401: no explicit reference to the AUSA; limited linkage to the charged threats; risk that jurors would import an improper diminished-capacity inference contrary to Taylor’s own non-insanity posture (Rule 403).
3. Exclusion of Unrelated Police Encounters.
   Incidents involved different victims and objectives; temporal gap; minimal relevance to Taylor’s subjective state toward the AUSA. Distraction danger justified exclusion.
4. Sufficiency of Evidence on Count II.
   The panel held that mode and timing of delivery are not dispositive. Intent can be inferred from the broader campaign: repeated office visits, calls, and references to the AUSA’s job. A threat need not arrive while the victim is literally on the clock to target her official function.
5. Standard of Review Debate.
   Although Taylor failed to renew his Rule 29 motion, the court bypassed procedural default and found no error even under the more defendant-friendly de novo standard.

Impact and Future Implications

• Digital-age expansion of § 115. Prosecutors may now cite Taylor to argue that threats on private social-media profiles, even during an officer’s off-hours, can satisfy the statute. Expect more cyber-threat cases invoking this rationale.
• Clarified Counterman application. Taylor is an early appellate blueprint for instructing juries on subjective recklessness: “aware recipient could regard statements as threatening and delivered them anyway.”
• Evidentiary guidance on mental-health context. The decision underscores courts’ wariness toward admitting mental-health observation testimony that is neither expert opinion nor directly tied to the charged act—especially when no insanity defense is raised.
• Course-of-conduct evidence post-Rule 404(b) amendments. Taylor affirms that a seamless narrative of interactions with a victim, even if uncharged, is routinely admissible to avoid jury confusion and to illuminate intent.

Complex Concepts Simplified

True Threat

A statement that a reasonable person would understand as a serious expression of intent to harm; post-Counterman, the focus is on what the speaker understood or recklessly disregarded, not just the listener’s perception.

18 U.S.C. § 115(a)(1)(B)

Makes it a felony to threaten a federal law-enforcement officer with intent to impede, intimidate, interfere, or retaliate because of official duties.

Fed. R. Evid. 404(b)

Bars propensity evidence but allows “other acts” to show motive, intent, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake, etc.

Rule 29 Motion

Request for judgment of acquittal when evidence is insufficient; must ordinarily be renewed after defense rests to preserve full appellate review.

Mens Rea of Recklessness (Post-Counterman)

Defendant consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that his words will be received as a threat.

Conclusion

United States v. Damon Taylor is notable less for its dramatic facts than for the precedential clarity it supplies. It cements two propositions: (1) threatening messages sent to a federal official’s private social-media account—even outside work hours—can implicate § 115 when context shows an intent to impede or retaliate for official duties; and (2) courts retain broad discretion to strike a balance between context-rich 404(b) evidence and peripheral mental-health or third-party encounters that might confuse jurors.

Practitioners should heed the decision when crafting jury instructions on “subjective recklessness” and when litigating the admissibility of evidence that bears only tangentially on intent. Taylor thus marks an incremental but meaningful evolution in true-threat jurisprudence in the digital age.

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