Disturbing Behavior, Harassment and Threats to Public Employees

Editor's Note: This post has been updated in response to helpful feedback from a reader.  A few weeks ago, my colleague Jill Moore asked me to participate in a recorded interview addressing whether certain disturbing or threatening behavior from citizens directed at public officials and employees could support criminal prosecution. Jill is an expert in public health law so the questions she posed related primarily to concerns raised by officials and employees who work in that field. More recently, another colleague advised that social services employees had similar questions. I thought it might be helpful to share here my thoughts on the questions they posed. Spoiler alert. I began my video interview with Jill with a spoiler alert, and I’ll repeat it here. There are several state statutes that prohibit threatening and harassing another person – and those statutes apply to public health officials and other public employees just as they would anyone else. Now for the spoiler:  The threshold for establishing that disturbing and distasteful statements made to or about a public health official or other public employee constitute a criminal threat or harassment may be higher than some think. Statutes governing threats and harassment. The crimes most often implicated in the circumstances I’ve been asked about are the following: Using threatening language on the telephone (G.S. 14-196(a)(2)) (Class 2 misdemeanor) Repeated telephone calls to harass (G.S. 14-196(a)(3)) (Class 2 misdemeanor) Using electronic mail or communication to threaten or extort (G.S. 14-196.3(b)(1)) (Class 2 misdemeanor) Repeated use of electronic mail [...]