Jacob White was charged with harassing state Supreme Court justices after ignoring a request to stop emailing them directly.
By Nolan D. McCaskill
Austin Bureau Correspondent
AUSTIN — A Frisco man is challenging the constitutionality of state laws that criminalize repeated electronic communications after he was charged with harassing Texas Supreme Court justices.
A Travis County court next week will hold a hearing on Jacob White’s motion to terminate early his deferred adjudication probation and dismiss nine criminal harassment charges against him.
White sent a dozen emails to state Supreme Court justices threatening to file complaints and sue them, according to an affidavit from a Texas Department of Public Safety special agent.
His persistent messaging raised safety concerns among the nine justices in August 2023, the affidavit read. They issued a cease-and-desist letter “since no direct threat was directed at the justices,” telling White not to contact them or their staff directly.
“Please CEASE all further notices of this sort as they are complete non-sense,” White responded, according to the affidavit. “Nice try though.”
White continued to email the justices directly. He was arrested a month later and pleaded no contest last August, meaning he accepted a guilty plea without admitting guilt.
“Rather than simply blocking my emails through technological means, they chose to arrest me — clearly not the least restrictive means for what I believe was a matter of public interest,” White told The Dallas Morning News in an email.
Now he’s suing prosecutors in Collin, Travis and Harris counties, alleging the statute used to prosecute him — and another like it — violates constitutionally protected free speech.
Each prosecutor listed as a defendant has a duty to prosecute the statute, said Mark Bennett, an attorney representing White in the lawsuit. The complaint notes White was charged in Travis County; sends his communications from Collin County; and his messages are likely to reach people in Harris County, the most populous county in the state.
White argues that the Texas laws on electronic and online harassment violate the Constitution by infringing on the First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Texas law considers it harassment if a person repeatedly sends electronic communications in a manner “reasonably likely” to harass, annoy, alarm, abuse, torment, embarrass or offend someone. This includes causing someone emotional distress or tormenting them online. The exception is if the communications are made in relation to a matter of public concern.
Bennett, a Houston attorney, noted in the complaint his client wasn’t seeking to have his record expunged.
“He seeks only to be free from prosecutions for future violations of the same statutes,” he wrote.
In an interview, Bennett said he has spent the past decade unsuccessfully trying to prove the laws are unconstitutional in state courts. He believes taking the issue to federal court represents his best chance to get a favorable ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court.
“I don’t think it’ll get settled in the trial court or the court of appeals,” Bennett said. “The Supreme Court has listed the categories of unprotected speech, and harassment is not among them.”
The filing describes White as an American citizen who “regularly engages in political advocacy” by frequently writing elected and appointed officials online to report misconduct, request investigations and advocate for policy reforms.
The document concedes White’s “communications might reasonably be expected to make their recipients feel adverse emotions such as embarrassment, annoyance, and offense.” But now he refrains from such communication because he fears prosecution.
The filing notes that the state’s laws “may cause others not before the court to refrain from constitutionally protected speech or expression.”
The complaint argues government officials who commit criminal acts or abuse their power “should be made to feel” annoyed or embarrassed by reports of their misconduct.
“Rather than remedying the underlying problem, they may prefer to silence the complainant,” the complaint reads. “By using vague and overbroad statutes like those Mr. White challenges, such officials can intimidate critics, preventing them from exercising their constitutional right to petition and hold officials accountable.”
Bennett lamented to The News that the government would punish people over hurt feelings.
“They are punishing people like Mr. White for hurting government officials’ feelings,” he said. “That is intolerable to me.”
White was sentenced to a year of deferred adjudication probation, 25 hours of community service to satisfy court costs and required to take a class on cognitive skills and receive counseling or treatment.
He was ordered to stay 200 yards away from the justices, not go to the Supreme Court building and refrain from any contact with the court or its justices.
White argues state statutes illegally prohibit certain communications before they occur and are overbroad and too vague.
“The statutes fail to provide explicit standards for applying the law to avoid arbitrary and discriminatory applications,” the complaint says. “By way of example, what ‘harass’ means … and what is ‘a matter of public concern’ … are in the eye of the beholder.”
White wants the pair of statutes declared unconstitutional, a court order barring their enforcement and reimbursement for court costs and attorney fees.
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