What Is the Penalty for Threatening Someone?

The penalty for threatening someone runs from a misdemeanor carrying up to a year in county jail to a federal felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Where a given case falls on that range depends on who was threatened, how the threat was communicated, whether a weapon or bias motive was involved, and whether the conduct pulled federal jurisdiction into the picture. The sentence itself is only part of the exposure. A conviction can also strip firearm rights, trigger a civil lawsuit, cost someone their job or housing, and follow them through background checks for years.

What Counts as a Criminal Threat

Not every hostile statement is prosecutable. The First Amendment protects offensive and angry speech. What it does not protect are “true threats,” which the Supreme Court defines as serious expressions of intent to commit unlawful violence against a specific person or group.¹

In 2023, the Supreme Court held that prosecutors must prove the speaker was at least reckless about whether their words would be taken as a threat. In plain terms, the speaker understood that others could read the statement as threatening violence and said it anyway.¹ The prosecution does not have to show the speaker intended to carry the threat out.

Beyond that constitutional floor, most state statutes require the threat to be specific enough to communicate a real intention of harm, and most require that the recipient experienced genuine, sustained fear a reasonable person in the same situation would also feel. “You’ll regret that” rarely clears the bar. “I’m going to hurt you when you leave tonight” usually does, especially when the surrounding facts make it credible.

State Criminal Penalties

Most threat prosecutions happen in state court. Nearly every state treats threatening conduct as either a misdemeanor or a felony, and many give prosecutors discretion to charge either one based on the severity of the threat and the defendant’s record.

A misdemeanor threat conviction typically carries up to one year in a local or county jail. Fines vary by jurisdiction but commonly reach $1,000 or more. Courts frequently add probation conditions: anger management, no-contact orders, community service. A first-time offender who spoke in the heat of the moment, without a weapon or other aggravating factor, is the most likely candidate for misdemeanor treatment.

Felony threat convictions are a different order of magnitude. State prison sentences generally range from two to five years, and certain aggravators push that higher. Fines often reach $10,000 or more. A felony conviction also carries lasting collateral consequences a misdemeanor usually does not, including the loss of voting rights in some states during the sentence and permanent restrictions on firearm ownership.

Federal Criminal Penalties

Federal law adds several threat offenses on top of whatever a state might charge. These are the ones that pull ordinary cases into federal court.

Threats Sent Across State Lines

The broadest federal threat statute covers any threatening communication transmitted through interstate commerce: phone calls, emails, texts, social media posts, any electronic channel that crosses a state line. Transmitting a threat to kidnap or injure someone through these means is a federal felony punishable by up to five years in prison, a fine, or both. If the same type of threat is paired with intent to extort money or something of value, the maximum climbs to 20 years.²

Threats Against Federal Officials

Threatening a federal judge, law enforcement officer, or other federal official carries steeper penalties than a generic threat. Federal law prohibits threatening to assault, kidnap, or murder these officials or their immediate family members when the threat is meant to interfere with or retaliate for official duties. The maximum sentence is 10 years, though a threat limited to assault caps at six years.³

A separate statute covers threats directed at the President and others in the presidential line of succession. The Secret Service investigates these cases and prosecutors pursue them even when the speaker claims the statement was a joke or political hyperbole.⁴

Online Threats

Threats sent electronically deserve separate attention because they almost always create federal jurisdiction. Any threat sent by email, direct message, social media post, or text that travels through an interstate network falls under the federal interstate threat statute and its five-year maximum.² Virtually all internet-based communications cross state lines, so the federal hook is nearly always available.

When online threats become part of an ongoing pattern of harassment or intimidation, federal cyberstalking law applies. Using the mail, any internet service, or other interstate communication tool to place someone in reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury is punishable under sentencing provisions that can reach five years or more, with higher penalties if the victim is a minor or if serious injury results.⁵

The platform consequences hit faster than any court. Major services routinely suspend or permanently ban accounts for violent threats, with no process resembling due process. Screenshots travel. Threatening messages posted online tend to resurface during background checks, custody proceedings, and job applications long after the account is gone.

What Makes the Penalty Worse

Several circumstances push a threat case into more serious territory, either by adding years to a sentence or by triggering a separate, harsher charge.

Victim’s identity. Threats against judges, prosecutors, law enforcement officers, teachers, healthcare workers, and other public servants carry enhanced penalties in many jurisdictions. Federally, threatening a federal official can mean up to 10 years instead of five.³
Use of a weapon. Making a threat while displaying or referencing a firearm, knife, or other dangerous weapon elevates the charge in virtually every state. Some jurisdictions add a mandatory consecutive prison term for the weapon alone.
Domestic violence context. Threats between current or former intimate partners, family members, or household members often trigger domestic violence enhancements that raise the minimum sentence and can require batterer intervention programs.
Bias motivation. A threat driven by the victim’s race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability can be prosecuted as a federal hate crime, which carries up to 10 years, or life if the offense results in death.⁶
Prior criminal history. Repeat offenders face enhanced sentencing under state habitual offender laws and federal sentencing guidelines. A second or third threat conviction is far less likely to be treated as a misdemeanor.

Loss of Firearm Rights

One of the most significant collateral consequences of a threat conviction is the loss of the right to own or possess firearms. This catches many people off guard because it can happen even with a misdemeanor conviction.

Federal law prohibits anyone convicted of a felony from possessing firearms or ammunition.⁷ A felony threat conviction triggers a lifetime firearms ban, and violating the ban is itself a separate federal felony.

The misdemeanor path is narrower but still consequential. A misdemeanor threat conviction triggers a federal firearms ban if it qualifies as a “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.” The offense qualifies when it involved the use or attempted use of physical force, or the threatened use of a deadly weapon, and the defendant had a domestic relationship with the victim: current or former spouse, cohabitant, co-parent, or dating partner. For spouses, co-parents, or cohabitants, the firearms prohibition is permanent. For dating-relationship convictions, the ban may expire after five years if the person has only one qualifying conviction and is not otherwise prohibited.⁸

Civil Exposure

Criminal charges are not the only legal exposure. The person on the receiving end of a threat can pursue two separate remedies in civil court, independent of what the prosecutor does.

Protective Orders

A victim can petition a court for a restraining order requiring the person who made the threat to stay away, stop all contact, and keep a specified distance from the victim’s home, workplace, and family. Courts can grant temporary emergency orders quickly, sometimes the same day, and schedule a full hearing afterward.

Violating a protective order is a separate criminal offense in every state and under federal law when the violation involves interstate travel. Federal penalties for crossing state lines to violate a protection order can reach five years, with much higher sentences if the violation causes injury.⁹ This is where some defendants dig the hole much deeper. The original threat might have been a misdemeanor, but repeated violations of the resulting protective order stack into felony territory quickly.

Civil Lawsuits

The victim can also file a civil lawsuit seeking money damages. The most common claim is intentional infliction of emotional distress. The victim has to show the threat was extreme and outrageous conduct, that the person making the threat acted intentionally or recklessly, and that the conduct caused severe emotional suffering. Therapy bills, lost sleep, missed work, and anxiety serious enough to affect daily life are the kinds of damages a court can award. Dollar amounts depend entirely on the facts, but successful claims can produce significant compensation.

Fallout at Work, School, and Home

A conviction for making threats ripples outward in ways the formal sentence barely hints at, and some of those consequences start before a conviction is even final.

In most of the country, employment is at-will. An employer can fire someone based on a criminal charge alone, without waiting for a conviction. Allegations involving violence give employers an especially easy justification because of workplace safety and reputational concerns. Even if the charges are later dismissed, the termination itself is usually legal. People in licensed professions like healthcare, education, law, and finance face the additional risk of losing their license or certification after a conviction involving threats or violence.

Students face a parallel set of consequences. Colleges and universities apply conduct policies to both on-campus and off-campus behavior, and a credible threat of violence is one of the fastest routes to suspension or expulsion. Schools run their own investigations and hearings, and the standard of proof is lower than in criminal court. An acquittal does not guarantee reinstatement. For students applying to graduate or professional school, a disciplinary record for threatening behavior can be as damaging as the criminal record itself.

Housing is another pressure point. Landlords routinely run background checks, and a conviction for criminal threats can disqualify a rental applicant. Public housing authorities have additional grounds to deny admission or terminate a lease based on criminal activity that threatens the health or safety of other residents.

Common Defenses

Being charged is not the same as being convicted. A few defenses come up regularly in threat cases.

Protected speech. The First Amendment protects political hyperbole, rhetorical exaggeration, and expressions of frustration that a reasonable person would not take as a genuine intent to commit violence. The Supreme Court drew this line decades ago when it reversed the conviction of a man who made a heated comment about the President during a political rally, holding it was crude political commentary rather than a true threat.¹⁰
Lack of recklessness. After the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision, the prosecution has to prove the speaker was at least aware others could view the statement as threatening. A speaker who genuinely had no awareness the words could be perceived that way fails the constitutional minimum.¹
Vagueness or ambiguity. A threat too vague or conditional to communicate a concrete intent to harm may not meet the legal standard. “You’ll be sorry” or “watch your back” are often too ambiguous to sustain a conviction without strong supporting context.
Context negating seriousness. Words exchanged during obvious jokes, artistic performances, song lyrics, or fictional writing sometimes fall outside the definition of a true threat. The same words can be criminal or protected depending on the circumstances in which they were spoken.

These defenses are fact-intensive. Whether a statement qualifies as protected speech or a prosecutable threat almost always depends on the specific words, the relationship between the parties, the history of interactions, and whether the speaker had the means to carry the threat out.

1
Supreme Court of the United States. Counterman v. Colorado, 600 U.S. 66 (2023)
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 875 – Interstate Communications
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 115 – Influencing, Impeding, or Retaliating Against a Federal Official
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 871 – Threats Against President and Successors to the Presidency
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2261A – Stalking
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 249 – Hate Crime Acts
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 922 – Unlawful Acts
8
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Misdemeanor Crimes of Domestic Violence
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2262 – Interstate Violation of Protection Order
10
Legal Information Institute. Fighting Words, Hostile Audiences and True Threats