Pulaski County Special School District,

¶ … Pulaski County Special School District, 306 F.3d 616 (8th Cir. 2002).

Plaintiff Doe's son, J.M. began dating K.G. during their seventh grade year. When the pair broke up, J.M. wrote two letters in which he threatened to rape, sodomize, and murder K.G.J.M. did not deliver the letters to K.G. Or otherwise remove the letters from his home. J.M.'s friend D.M. found the letter in J.M.'s bedroom. J.M. voluntarily discussed the letter with K.G. during multiple phone conversations. K.G. asked D.M. To help obtain the letter from J.M., and D.M. took the letter from J.M.'s room without J.M.'s knowledge or permission. K.G. read it in her gym class, and one of her fellow students reported that K.G. had been threatened. The school resource officer questioned K.G., who told him that J.M. had threatened her and how she had obtained the letter. As a result, J.M. was eventually expelled from both his normal school and the alternative school. J.M. challenged the decision and the district court determined that the letter was not a true threat of violence, required the district to reinstate J.M., to restore all rights and privileges that he lost, and to remove any references to the expulsion from J.M.'s school records. The school board challenged that decision.

Issues: The preliminary issue is whether the case was moot because J.M. had already completed his eighth grade year and the expulsion was only for the duration of his eighth grade year. The main issue is whether the school board ran afoul of a student's free speech rights when it expelled him for an offensive and vulgar letter that the student had prepared at home, in which he described how he would rape, sodomize, and murder a female classmate who had previously broken up with him?

Reasoning: An appeal must be dismissed as moot when the court's decision will have no effectual relief for the prevailing party. Church of Scientology of Cal. V. United States, 506 U.S. 9, 12 (1992).

In Watts v. United States, 394 U.S. 705 (1969), the Supreme Court determined that threats of violence are not protected speech under the First Amendment, because the government has an interest in protecting people from the fear of violence. Therefore, courts are placed in the position of determining whether or not speech falls into the category of a true threat. "A true threat is a statement that a reasonable recipient would have interpreted as a serious expression of an intent to harm or cause injury to another." Doe v. Pulaski County Special School District, 306 F.3d 616, 626 (8th Cir. 2002). Furthermore, to determine whether speech is a threat, it is not necessary that the speaker intend to carry out the threat or be able to carry out the threat, but the speaker has to intentionally convey the threat to someone. Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette, Inc. v. Am. Coalition of Life Activists, 290 F.3d 1058, 1075 (9th Cir. 2002).

Analysis: The case was not moot because the school district would be permitted to document the incident in its records if the Court reversed the trial court's decision.