A County judge directed us out on a Harassment count that involved a telephone harassment victim who was not the person to actually hear the threats on the phone, i.e., defendant calls business, receptionist answers the phone, defendant says "I'm coming in to the kill the CEO." He makes 9 calls with the same or similar messages over a couple of hours. The CEO never personally hears any of the messages as they come in and they were not recorded.

The judge believes that the language in the statute [42.07(a)(2)]that reads "the person receiving the threat" only refers to the person who actually has their ear to the phone and hears the threat. We could not find caselaw exactly on-point. We found cases involving answering machines and the statute language itself includes fax machines.

Anyone ever come across this or have any input? What we had was PLENTY for him to deny the DV, but I would still love to take an on-point case to him.

Thanks,
Sherri

You might take a look at the protective order language that prohibits a respondant from communicating a threat through a third party. Case law on that issue may (I haven't looked) discuss why a person is harmed by the harassing statements made through a third party.

Seems kind of silly to direct out the case. Defendant used a third party to accomplish his deed. The third party can be totally innocent and still the defendant is held responsible. See PC sec. 7.01-02.

Also, why didn't the judge submit the lesser-included of attempted harrassment?