In a September 15, 2026 decision in State v. Ford, the Court of Appeals of Ohio, Sixth Appellate District reversed a previous conviction of a podcaster, Ashli Ford, over her hyperbolic anti-officials statements.
Three years earlier, in 2023, Ford was arraigned on falsification charges for publishing a Facebook post aimed at four Norwalk city officials—the Mayor, Law Director, Police Chief and Safety Service Director. She claimed she had these officials “on” their “knees”, adding: “I will escort you to your demise in a manner more akin to Malcolm X than Martin Luther King Jr.” Though the rest of the post stated she hoped to “crumble the reputation” of justice-blockers by pursuing them in the “court of public opinion”. She accused them of being guilty of municipal corruption, sex scandals and fiscal mismanagement. Initially, the court agreed with the officials that the reference to the “manner” of “demise” of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King suggested a threat of an assassination, finding her guilty of four felony counts of intimidation, punished with a probation sentence.
The appellate court overruled this previous decision by finding that the broader context threatened reputational versus physical harm, and thus could not be interpreted as a harm-threatening intimidation. One element of this context was that she had threatened to run for mayor herself, which contradicted any plans to assassinate her opponents. The court decided that under the First Amendment, a listener’s subjective fear alone is legally insufficient to transform political speech into a “true threat”. Ford had no history of physical violence, and previously merely threatened to sue these officials into bankruptcy: these were examples of mere political hyperbole protected by the law.
There have been many similar cases that have similarly been decided in favor of the speaker, unless the language used includes explicit, unconditional promise of physical violence. The precent for this direction in decisions has been Watts v. United States (1969), when during an anti-war rally, an 18-year-old stated: “If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sight is L.B.J.” He was initially convicted before the Supreme Court reversed it, establishing the right to “crude, offensive political opposition” as a protected hyperbole, and not a “true threat”. Though an Alabama woman was federally indicted for posting on Facebook a direct threat of violence against Trump: “i’ll put a bullet through him if he dares” visit their local football stadium. While there have been a few exceptions, the scales have shifted further in the direction of free-speech-guarantee in Counterman v. Colorado (2023) that decided the prosecutors not only needed to prove a “reasonable listener’s” feeling threatened, but also the speaker’s subjective mindset, or that they acted recklessly while consciously intending to express physical violence. The reason for this shift towards free-speech must be the widespread use of semi-threats, or hyperbolic aggressive language across social media. If each threatening message was prosecutable, the courts would have a lot of added cases on their dockets. It is easy to sympathize with both sides of many borderline cases. When modern politicians assassinate fishermen by blowing up their boats without due process, it is very easy for emotions to flare and for a speaker to respond with equally violent rhetoric without intending to cause any harm. On the other hand, a politician or a reporter who faces veiled threats of violence is likely tempted to turn these over to the police to protect themselves in case the speaker is issuing a warning of planning to do them physical harm.
