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Michael Pajak: A Case Study

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I. Introduction Michael Pajak was a practicing attorney at Gramigna & Buckingham, LLC for seven years, until his termination in May of 2015. Pajak was dismissed for using client funds to pay for sporting tickets. One month later, in retaliation for his firing, Pajak sent a mass email to all attorneys at Gramigna & Buckingham, that could be construed as a threat of imminent harm. As a result, Pajak was arrested and convicted of one count of facilitating a criminal threat. However, Pajak could have been threatening to sue, when he warned that “Gramigna & Buckingham, LLC., will pay for their actions. No, I cannot fire anyone, but I can harm you in other ways.” Pajak ultimately appealed his conviction on the basis of improper jury instruction …show more content…

There are two variations of the specific intent standard. First, the test that evaluates the defendant’s intent to carry out the threat, which requires proof that a defendant seriously intended to actually commit the act threatened. Second, the court can find culpability, because of the defendant’s intent to threaten. Specifically, the prosecution needs to prove that the defendant intended the statement “to place the victim in fear of bodily harm or death. The basis for the subjective standard, used by a minority of the courts, comes from Black, where Justice O’Connor wrote, “‘True threats’ encompass those 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.” Courts in applying the subjective intent standard have used Justice O’Connor’s choice of wording, specifically “means to communicate,” as defining true threats as those which a defendant intended to communicate and intended for the language to threaten the …show more content…

Jeffries that the words “threat” and “threaten” has always been understood in society’s use of language to include an intent element. Judge Sutton cites six dictionaries, each containing a definition for the word “threat” that includes subjective intent. Notably, there are no dictionaries describing an objective standard in defining “threat.” Therefore, courts should evaluate the subjective intent of the defendant charged with making a criminal threat, because it should be understood in statutory interpretation and the defined meaning of the word, that the drafters of any law criminalizing threats, which does not specifically bar subjective intent evaluations, intended to analyze threatening speech using the subjective

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