https://www.avvo.com/attorney-answers/53548-wi-jay-nixon-1529181/answers.html
Would it be a "criminal threat" to write a
fictional account of killing a real person?. . .to write a detailed, fictional
account of hypothetically killing someone who you know actually exists? . . . the
story would be written in the past tense, . . . didn't actually do it. On the
other hand, it could instill fear in them which seems to be one prerequisite
for a threat (or harassing-type behavior). Brandenburg v. Ohio doesn't seem
applicable, though it's related. Would it matter if the person is a public
figure?
Jay’s Answer
[Jay K. Nixon, Criminal Defense Attorney with Offices in Kenosha
& Janesville, WI]
Hypotheticals are not real cases, so you could never get a
real answer until you tried this in real life, and then asked a court to rule
on it (possibly while you were sitting in jail, awaiting that answer). I agree
that details would matter, and particularly, the details as to how it was
intended to effect this living "victim." For example, making the ex-wife
of the author the "victim," particularly after a nasty divorce, could
certainly constitute criminal harassment, threats to injure, or extortion.
Permission from the victim would probably help, and I would recommend getting
that in writing; and, like many things in the law, legal problems stemming from
this would tend to be complaint driven. If nobody cared or complained about it,
I doubt that much would happen in the legal system because of the story. If a tree fell in the forest and nobody heard
it, there wouldn’t be a sound. Here, if
nobody read it, there would also be no “sound,” at least not when “legally”
speaking.
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