An aspiring California rapper's online lyrical rant targeting two rape victims has landed him in legal hot water in a prosecution testing whether his threatening lyrics were protected speech or a criminal act.

The case comes at a time of uncertainty over what constitutes a threat in the online world. For example, in June, the Supreme Court overturned a 44-month sentence of a Pennsylvania man whose Facebook rap lyrics threatened attacks on an elementary school, his estranged wife, and a FBI agent. A Supreme Court majority, analyzing a federal threats statute, said the government must prove first whether the lyrics he posted online were produced with a mental state having a "subjective intent to threaten."

In the latest case decided Wednesday, California rapper Anthony Murillo got into trouble for his lyrics from 2013. He verbally attacked two high school sexual assault victims—victims of one of his close friends who was jailed for the crimes. He linked to his rapping video, in which he identified the underaged girls by name and called them "snitches" on Facebook and Twitter. He posted the video to the music site ReverbNation, where his profile photo showed him holding a shotgun.

The song was called "Moment for Life Remix" and was removed from ReverbNation after being posted for 26 days and played nearly 24,000 times. The lyrics read:

"[T]hese bitches caught him slippin' / Then they fuckin' snitchin' / . . . I'm fucking all these bitches / Hunting down all these snitches / . . . Shit, you know we have no fear / I'll have your head just like a dear / It will be hanging on my wall / . . . I said go and get the Feds / 'Cause you're gonna end up dead / You're going to be laying on that bed / 'Cause I'm coming for your head, bitch."

A California trial judge dismissed the two-felony count case. The judge called the lyrics "misogynistic" and "vulgar" but nevertheless ruled they were protected speech and therefore did not constitute a willful threat. Murillo maintained that he did not intend to harm the rape victims by creating, singing, or posting the song.

California prosecutors appealed, arguing that the song expressed his intent to commit acts of violence.

A California appeals court agreed with prosecutors. The appellate court said it was not bound by the Supreme Court's decision because California state law, not federal law, was at issue. The rapper's mental state, the court concluded, is not a factor like it was in the case the Supreme Court decided.

California's law, the state appeals court wrote, "does not require that a threat to harm a crime witness or victim be immediate or that the defendant has the apparent ability to carry out the threat." The court said that the "Moment for Life Remix" song "could be understood to convey a serious expression of intent to commit an act of unlawful violence against the girls."

The rapper's attorney, David Andreasen, said he was mulling his legal options.

Santa Barbara County District Attorney Joyce Dudley told The Recorder that the decision was "significant."

"We really have to redefine what constitutes a threat," Dudley said. "Most people have access to a computer or a smartphone, which means they're subject to potential threats all the time."

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