BILL NUMBER: AB 1100	INTRODUCED
	BILL TEXT


INTRODUCED BY   Assembly Member Bloom

                        FEBRUARY 27, 2015

   An act to amend Section 422 of the Penal Code, relating to
criminal threats.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   AB 1100, as introduced, Bloom. Crimes: criminal threats.
   Existing law provides that a person is guilty of a crime if he or
she willfully threatens to commit a crime that will result in death
or great bodily injury to another person with the specific intent
that the statement, made verbally, in writing, or by means of an
electronic communication device, is to be taken as a threat, as
specified.
   This bill would clarify that this provision also applies when the
threatening statement is published on an Internet Web page.
   Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no.
State-mandated local program: no.


THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

  SECTION 1.  Section 422 of the Penal Code is amended to read:
   422.  (a) Any person who willfully threatens to commit a crime
which will result in death or great bodily injury to another person,
with the specific intent that the statement, made verbally, in
writing, or by means of an electronic communication device, 
including publication on an Internet Web page,  is to be taken
as a threat, even if there is no intent of actually carrying it out,
which, on its face and under the circumstances in which it is made,
is so unequivocal, unconditional, immediate, and specific as to
convey to the person threatened, a gravity of purpose and an
immediate prospect of execution of the threat, and thereby causes
that person reasonably to be in sustained fear for his or her own
safety or for his or her immediate family's safety, shall be punished
by imprisonment in the county jail not to exceed one year, or by
imprisonment in the state prison.
   (b) For purposes of this section, "immediate family" means any
spouse, whether by marriage or not, parent, child, any person related
by consanguinity or affinity within the second degree, or any other
person who regularly resides in the household, or who, within the
prior six months, regularly resided in the household.
   (c) "Electronic communication device" includes, but is not limited
to, telephones, cellular telephones, computers, video recorders, fax
machines, or pagers. "Electronic communication" has the same meaning
as the term defined in Subsection 12 of Section 2510 of Title 18 of
the United States Code.