The federal judge had a big decision to make when Robert Doggart’s plea agreement slid across his desk nearly two years ago.
U.S. District Judge Curtis Collier could accept a compromise that made the 65-year-old former Tennessee Valley Authority engineer guilty of one count of transmitting in interstate commerce a threat or communication to injure others. Or, Collier could reject the proposal and let grand jurors decide whether Doggart made a “true threat” when he threatened to burn down buildings at Islamberg, N.Y., during a March 6, 2015, phone call with an informant.
Robert Doggart
On that day in June 2015, Collier ditched the agreement, saying that prosecutors failed to show Doggart’s speech intimidated others into furthering his plan to attack the Muslim community and therefore wasn’t a “true threat.”
For justification, Collier used a hypothetical.
Suppose a man planning a bank robbery recruited a friend to be his getaway driver. Suppose the man said, in all earnestness and apparent seriousness, “If any teller doesn’t hand over the money, I’m going to kill ’em,” Collier wrote.