Supreme Court throws out Anthony Elonis' conviction for violent Facebook postings

The Supreme Court threw out the conviction of a man from Pennsylvania who was found guilty of posting threatening Facebook statements about his estranged wife, former co-workers and an investigating FBI agent.

In reversing Anthony Elonis' conviction for the said charges, Chief Justice John Roberts said it was not enough for prosecutors to show that the statements of the accused would make a rational person feel endangered.

Despite reaching to this conclusion, the seven majority justices refused to specify exactly what standard of proof should be applied for the remanded case and other similar cases to be convicted. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. then criticized the ruling claiming that it is more confusing than enlightening.

"This failure to decide throws everyone from appellate judges to everyday Facebook users into a state of uncertainty," Thomas wrote in disagreement.

The said case was being examined thoroughly as a potential indication of criminal enforcement of offensive speech on social networking sites on the interrnet like Facebook. Largely, Elonis' case also offered the high court a chance of improvement in specifying the appropriate time where the government can arraign someone for something they say.

However, instead of discussing the larger aspect of the protection one's free speech provides, the Supreme Court came up with a narrow decision nullifying Elonis' conviction from the mentioned charges.

It was noted that Elonis was convicted and penalized with imprisonment for almost four years after posting unpleasant Facebook statements in the form of Eminem's rap lyrics. The said posts were perceived by his wife, former co-workers and several law enforcers as real threats in which he was about to aggressively take into action.

The accused claimed however that the rap lyrics were just a healing method for him to cope with the sadness and anger he felt after being separated with his wife and children.

"There's one way to love ya but a thousand ways to kill ya," Elonis wrote of his wife in October 2010. "And I'm not going to rest until your body is a mess, soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts..."

One more notable lyric he posted on the site was about wanting to cut an agent's throat or detonate a suicide bomb after an FBI arrived at his door step one day.

Due to these alleged Facebook threats that Elonis was imprisoned for more than three years but the conviction was then overturned by the court recently.