Background
On March 5, 2024, a 15-year-old student identified by the pseudonym “Ira” was placed in an in-school suspension at a Sheboygan County high school after a teacher discovered a vape in his possession. While checking on Ira during the suspension, special education teacher Ms. P. discovered multiple folded and stapled notes he had written. The notes contained a “hit list” of students’ first names, drawings of guns and knives, and detailed statements including plans to “get ride to Sheboygan wi gun and kick door in and start a fight then pull gun out and shoot.” The notes also bore warnings such as “Don’t let no teachers or cops or opps see this” and “illegal writing.” One note had been hidden on the ledge of a light fixture. Ira told the responding sheriff’s deputy he had been bored and had created a “fake plan” in which he was “pretending to be a police officer” — an explanation the deputy found nonsensical and the principal did not believe.
The State filed a delinquency petition under Wis. Stat. ch. 938 charging Ira with one count of making terrorist threats contrary to Wis. Stat. § 947.019(1)(e), which prohibits threatening death or bodily harm in a manner that creates an unreasonable and substantial risk of causing public panic or fear. Ira moved to dismiss, arguing the notes were protected speech under the First Amendment because they did not constitute a “true threat” and had never been communicated to any intended victim. The circuit court denied the motion and the case proceeded to a bench trial in October 2024. Three witnesses testified for the State (the teacher, the principal, and the deputy) and three students whose names appeared in the notes testified for Ira. The circuit court found Ira delinquent, and in March 2025 imposed one year of supervision with placement in his parents’ home and the possibility of expungement upon successful completion.
Ira appealed, renewing his argument that the writings were not a “true threat” under the First Amendment and that the State had failed to establish the statutory elements of § 947.019(1)(e). He emphasized that the notes were concealed, written in a private setting, riddled with misspellings and slang, and that none of the named students had expressed fear upon learning of the list.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals affirmed the dispositional order in full. Applying a totality-of-the-circumstances analysis and independently reviewing the constitutional question of whether a true threat existed, the court concluded the writings constituted an unprotected true threat under the First Amendment. The court rejected Ira’s argument that concealment of the notes negated threat status, observing that the notes were plainly intended for an audience — evidenced by warnings directed at teachers and law enforcement, references to co-actors, and the specific “hit list” format — rather than constituting private journaling or self-expression. The circuit court’s finding that a reasonable person would view the documents as threatening was supported by the record.
The court also held that the State carried its burden on the remaining elements of § 947.019(1)(e). The notes’ contents — a named hit list of identifiable schoolmates, a step-by-step plan to obtain guns and shoot people, and accompanying drawings of weapons — created an unreasonable and substantial risk of causing public panic or fear. The teacher’s immediate escalation to the principal, the principal’s notification of the superintendent, SRO, and sheriff’s department, and his outreach to named students’ families all reflected the genuine alarm the documents provoked in reasonable observers. The court further found sufficient evidence that Ira consciously disregarded the risk his writings would be viewed as threatening, as demonstrated by his own warnings on the notes that teachers and law enforcement should not see them — showing he understood the impact their discovery would have.
Key Takeaways
- A written threat need not be delivered directly to an intended victim to qualify as a “true threat” under the First Amendment; the relevant inquiry is whether a reasonable person would interpret the communication as a serious expression of intent to commit violence, assessed under the totality of the circumstances.
- Concealment of threatening writings does not, by itself, immunize the author from prosecution — particularly where the notes were formatted for sharing, referenced co-actors, and contained warnings against discovery by authority figures, indicating awareness that others could and might read them.
- Under Counterman v. Colorado, 600 U.S. 66 (2023), the State must establish that the speaker consciously disregarded a substantial and unjustifiable risk the communication would be viewed as threatening; warnings within the notes themselves that teachers and police should not see them can satisfy this recklessness element.
- The absence of subjective fear among named student witnesses is not dispositive; the true-threat inquiry focuses on the reasonable-person standard, and the reactions of school administrators and law enforcement are relevant to whether a substantial risk of panic or fear was created.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces that Wisconsin’s terrorist-threat statute reaches threatening writings discovered in school settings even when the student-author argues the content was private, uncommunicated, or not seriously intended. In the wake of Counterman‘s requirement of subjective recklessness, prosecutors and defense counsel alike will look to cases like this one for guidance on how courts weigh concealment, ambiguity of language, and lack of victim fear against the severity of the written content and the author’s evident awareness that discovery was possible.
The opinion also illustrates how school administrators’ responses — escalating immediately to law enforcement and notifying families — are treated as probative evidence of the objective seriousness of a threat, not merely bureaucratic overreaction. Attorneys representing juveniles in analogous proceedings should note that the court gave little weight to the defendant’s implausible explanation (claiming to roleplay as a police officer) and to the student witnesses’ professed lack of fear, while crediting the detailed, plan-specific nature of the writings as central to the true-threat analysis.