‘True Threat’: In Defense of Briana Boston
Florida woman's felony charges are based on assumptions, logical leaps and tone-deaf judicial overreach
As societal tensions run high in the wake of the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson,1 a Florida mother of three found herself behind bars last week for remarks made during a heated phone call with her health insurance agent.
According to a report from ABC News, 42-year old Briana Boston was told by a Blue Cross Blue Shield agent that her insurance claim was being denied. In response, Boston said, “Delay, deny, depose. You people are next.” Based on this “perceived threat,” police paid Boston a visit, during which she “apologized and said that she ‘used those words because it's what is in the news right now.’”2
In other words, it sounds like Boston was cooperative with police. From what we know, she didn’t give any indication that she intended to actually do any harm to the insurance agent — or anyone else, for that matter — and that she didn’t own any guns, anyway. She doesn’t appear to have a criminal history, or any history of violence.
Still, Boston told police that “the health care companies played games and deserved karma from the world because they are evil.”
On these grounds, Boston was slapped with handcuffs and charged with “threats to conduct a mass shooting or act of terrorism.” Her bail was set at a whopping $100,000.3 She was granted a pre-trial release, and is reported to be under house arrest with GPS monitoring as of December 16.4 A GoFundMe fundraiser in support of Boston’s legal defense has raised over $66,000.5
Delay, Deny, Depose, Defend…?
While it’s true that threatening violence towards a person is illegal, it’s not entirely clear that this is even what Boston did. Heck, even the ABC News article refers to her words as “apparent threats.”
The logic behind the charge seems to be that Ms. Boston’s use of the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose” indicated her intention to commit the same act of murder as Luigi Mangione, Brian Thompson’s alleged assassin, because he left bullet shell casings at the scene bearing the same message.
Problem is, they weren’t the same words. The writing on the casings read “deny,” “defend” and “depose,” clearly intended to communicate a message of some sort to somebody (not to Mr. Thompson, of course). In turn, these words were close to, but not the same as, the title of a 2010 book, Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don't Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It.
Despite not having read the book myself, I find it hard to believe that author Jay Feinman included “extrajudicial execution” as one of the items on the “what you can do about it” list.
Per the Associated Press, the phrase “Delay, Deny, Defend” refers to “insurers delaying payment on claims, denying claims and defending their actions.”6 The AP further points out that the phrase has been around for awhile, and is a “common phrase” among insurance industry critics — the overwhelming majority of whom do not express their criticism through violence or murder.
In other words, the idea that Ms. Boston’s apparent invocation of a common phrase used in the context of criticizing systemic issues in the insurance industry constitutes evidence of intention to hurt or kill is ludicrous at best, and baseless at worst.
The second half of her “apparent threat” — “You people are next” — doesn’t move the needle, either, and this is even more true given the context of the media environment around Brian Thompson’s assassination. Yes, it’s possible that Boston meant “you people are next” to be murdered. On the other hand, it’s just as reasonable to infer that she meant “you people are next” to face intense public scrutiny over your well-established role in a systemic issue wreaking havoc on the health and wellbeing of society at large. Or “you people are next” to lose me as a customer because you freaking suck.
This isn’t a matter of nitpicking, and it is a big deal. There are so many leaps here which, if applied mutatis mutandis to any given “hot take” on the internet, could provide justification to lock anybody up with absolutely no actual evidence of a crime committed.
“Honk Honk”
Take, for instance, Canada’s Freedom Convoy, which traveled to Ottawa, Ontario in early 2022 to loudly protest the government’s increasingly-restrictive “pandemic response” measures. Led primarily by the nation’s truckers, the protest was initially a cacophony of honking horns, until a court injunction forced them to quiet down.7 “Honk honk” nonetheless became an unofficial slogan, uttered by spoken and written word rather than by truck horn.8
Shortly after the protest was violently evicted by federal police, a Liberal Member of Parliament named Ya’ara Saks declared out of nowhere that “honk honk” actually meant “Heil Hitler.”9 The logic? According to the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, both terms contain two words that begin with the letter H, and has thus been used by “a movement of extremely online young neo-Nazis” to avoid triggering censorship.10
Now I know that next time somebody tells me “Happy Holidays,” I should loudly scold their antisemitism!
Simply put, just because somebody at some point has used a word or term as a euphemism for something, does not mean everyone else who subsequently uses that word or term is using it the same way. To infer otherwise, without any evidence to back it up, is to risk framing someone of a crime they didn’t commit.
Given that antisemitism and “hate speech” are punishable with jail time here in Canada, the risk is very serious indeed.11
True Threat, or Dumb Comment?
Unlike us Canucks, Americans’ right to freedom of expression is protected by the 1st Amendment to the United States Constitution, intended to prevent the government from limiting your ability to speak.
Not all speech is protected by the 1st Amendment. As previously mentioned, it is illegal to threaten physical harm to a person. But there are important criteria establishing what qualifies as a “true threat” versus, for example “political hyperbole.”12
As helpfully summarized by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee:13
The U.S. Supreme Court defined true threats in Virginia v. Black (2003) as “statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.” According to the Supreme Court, true threats include when a speaker directs a threat to a person or group of persons with the intent of placing the victim in fear of bodily harm or death.
So, the key question is: did Briana Boston utter a true threat?
Turns out, I’m not the only one with a case of skepticism. Christopher Day, a self-published author and activist, explored this very dilemma on his blog, Stenonymous. “Does a reasonable person believe ‘you people are next’ from a mom that’s angry about her claim being denied really mean she’s going to commit unlawful violence against them?”14 Day points out that “there are much more ‘violent’ statements that the police would never arrest anyone for,” and posits that authorities acted with a heavy hand in Boston’s case to make “people afraid of what the law might do to them if they step out of line.”
Day’s theory echoes comments by former federal prosecutor Shanlon Wu, who told Newsweek that Boston’s $100,000 bond “seems high ‘for someone with her lack of a criminal history,’ but that it may be a warning to other potential copycats in the wake of the highly visible New York case.”15
But conflating Brian Thompson’s assassination with Boston’s “apparent threat” can only go so far. No reasonable person would think the full force of the law wouldn’t come after them if they were to commit such a heinous act as murder, whether or not they can morally justify it in their own mind. This leads one to wonder if Day and Wu are on to something, and the overreaction to Boston’s comments is intentional.
Still, an overreaction does not criminal speech make.
“What did Boston do, exactly? She was rude to a customer service representative,” wrote Arwa Mahdawi in her column for The Guardian.16 Meanwhile, there are many, many others saying far, far worse things about the assassination, including examples that probably do constitute true threats.1718 Why Ms. Boston and not them?
The right to say dumb sh*t
Let’s be clear: what Ms. Boston said to the insurance agent was highly ill-advised under the best of circumstances. But freedom of speech also protects the right to say dumb sh*t. That also means bearing the consequences of saying that dumb sh*t. But the line between dumb sh*t and criminal speech is stark, and is vital for people to know and understand.
“It’s more a crime of stupidity than any actual terrorism,” Day concludes. “Then again, we live in a country where people who post legal annotations online have been called terrorist. Maybe I’m a terrorist too?”
No, Chris, you’re not. And absent new evidence, neither, it appears, is Briana Boston.
Katersky, A. (2024, December 16). UnitedHealthcare CEO killing latest: Luigi Mangione expected to waive extradition, sources say. ABC News. https://abcnews.go.com/US/unitedhealthcare-ceo-killing-latest-luigi-mangione-expected-waive/story?id=116822291
Sarnoff, L. (2024, December 13). Florida woman charged for threatening health insurance company: “Delay, deny, depose.” ABC News. https://abcnews.go.com/US/florida-woman-charged-threatening-health-insurance-company-delay/story?id=116748222
Stanton, A. (2024, December 13). Is $100K Bond Fair for Woman Accused of Insurer Threats? Experts Weigh In. Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/briana-boston-100k-bond-blue-cross-blue-shield-alleged-threat-2000612
Huggins, K. (2024, December 16). GoFundMe donors flock to woman accused of using “deny, defend, depose” on insurance call. The Daily Dot. https://www.dailydot.com/debug/briana-boston-gofundme-health-insurance-threat/
Donate to Support Briana Boston’s Legal Defense, organized by Daniel Boston. GoFundMe. Retrieved December 18, 2024, from https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-briana-bostons-legal-defense
Murphy, T. (2024, December 5). Words on ammo in CEO shooting echo common phrase on insurer tactics. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/unitedhealthcare-ceo-shooting-delay-deny-defend-depose-ee73ceb19f361835c654f04a3b88c50c
Crawford, B. (2022, February 17). Horn-honking court injunction extended 60 days. Ottawa Citizen. https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/horn-honking-court-injunction-extended-60-days
Nerozzi, T. (2022, February 22). Canadian MP claims “honk honk” is code for “heil Hitler.” Fox News. https://www.foxnews.com/world/canadian-mp-claims-honk-honk-code-heil-hitler
Bradley, J. (2022, February 22). Liberal MP says trucker slogan “honk honk” is code for “heil Hitler.” True North. https://tnc.news/2022/02/22/liberal-mp-says-trucker-slogan-honk-honk-is-code-for-heil-hitler/
Collen, D. (2022, March 1). “Honk Honk” Was An Antisemitic Meme Long Before The Convoy Started Using It. Canadian Anti-Hate Network. https://www.antihate.ca/_honk_honk_antisemitic_meme_before_convoy
Criminal Code, RSC 1985, c C-46, s 319. CanLII. Retrieved on December 18, 2024 from https://canlii.ca/t/7vf2#sec319
True Threats | Constitution Annotated. Library of Congress. Retrieved December 18, 2024, from https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt1-7-5-6/ALDE_00013807/
What constitutes a true threat? Free Speech, Rights and Limits; University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Retrieved December 18, 2024, from https://uwm.edu/freespeech/faqs/what-constitutes-a-true-threat/
Day, C. (2024, December 14). Brianna Boston Arrested: “Delay. Deny. Depose. You People Are Next!” Free Speech or True Threat? Stenonymous. https://stenonymous.com/2024/12/14/brianna-boston-arrested-delay-deny-depose-you-people-are-next-free-speech-or-true-threat/
Stanton, A. (2024, December 13). Is $100K Bond Fair for Woman Accused of Insurer Threats? Experts Weigh In. Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/briana-boston-100k-bond-blue-cross-blue-shield-alleged-threat-2000612
Arwa Mahdawi. (2024, December 14). A woman made a vague threat to a healthcare company – does she really deserve up to 15 years in prison? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/14/police-arrest-briana-boston
What Praising The UnitedHealthcare Shooter Says About America. (2024, December 14). Crooked Media. https://crooked.com/podcast/what-praising-the-unitedhealthcare-shooter-says-about-america/
Katersky, A., Charalambous, P., & Margolin, J. (2024, December 11). Executive “hit lists” and wanted posters: NYPD warns about threats to executives. ABC News. https://abcnews.go.com/US/executive-hit-lists-wanted-posters-nypd-warns-threats/story?id=116662519
I wasn't initially sure if I wanted to share the GoFundMe link, but I've had a few folks ask for it, so here it is! https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-briana-bostons-legal-defense
Excellent article!
> Secondary subtitle: "We have the right to say dumb sh*t"