Clark County man faces charges for online threats to Sisolak

At what point do angry social media rants cross the line from protected First Amendment speech to being considered a criminal offense?

That’s a question that the case of Clark County resident Steve Feeder will answer when he and his sharply worded Facebook posts that railed against Nevada’s COVID-19 restrictions in the spring go to court next year.

The case stems from a series of Facebook posts made by Feeder in May amid the economic shutdown during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, which included referring to Gov. Steve Sisolak as a “tyrant,” calling for people to arm themselves and saying to “count me in to put him down,” in reference to the governor at one point in replying to another poster who was also angry about the shutdowns.

“I’m tired of ranting so today I’m going to drink my coffee take my medication smoke a cigarette and see how many of you enjoy getting (expletive) in the SPHINCTER every morning you wake. If you haven’t noticed after 60 days we’ve been abandoned to defend ourselves,” Feeder wrote in reply to a May 19 post from Sisolak’s official Facebook account about the number of positive COVID-19 test results in Nevada, according to court documents filed in the case.

“If your (sic) not willing to do so and would rather type complaints here (versus) fighting I respect that just don’t let people fight the fight for you if (you are) not willing to step up. In any WAR which we are now in sheep will be casualties but we must March on. If you enjoy getting (expletive) in the SPHINCTER each morning continue to write here and get no results. It’s time to fight back. If not say hello to your new TYRANT leader.”

Feeder posted similar messages in the comments of the governor’s Facebook page as many as 34 times, Chief Deputy Attorney General Michael Kovac said, according to a transcript of an Oct. 6 hearing in Las Vegas Justice Court.

“He was upset. Absolutely. He used some very pointed language. Absolutely. But he was protesting the fact that we had been in a quarantine for — as he put it at the time — 60 days, and that is well within his First Amendment right,” Feeder’s attorney, Jay Maynard said during the hearing.

A request for comment from Feeder’s attorneys was not returned Wednesday.

Maynard said that the ability to complain about the government is “the most essential of the First Amendment rights.”

“Political speech is protected beyond any other form of speech. It is sacrosanct, and it is absolutely essential to the proper functioning of our democracy,” Maynard said.

Charges filed

Feeder, 60, initially faced three charges relating to his posts: two gross misdemeanors of interfering with a public officer by threat, force or violence and publishing material inciting breach of peace, and a misdemeanor of provoking a breach of peace. Two of those charges were dismissed by Las Vegas Justice Court Judge Karen Bennett-Haron.

But the judge determined that the “publish material to incite a breach of peace” charge had met the “slight or marginal evidence” standard to be bound over to Clark County District Court, where a trial is scheduled for June 14.

The case started as a complaint from Sisolak’s protection detail that sparked an investigation by the Department of Public Safety in May amid Sisolak’s directive that closed most nonessential businesses in the state to help slow the spread of the coronavirus. The department’s investigator, Colter Earl, said that he reviewed the posts and later interviewed Feeder at his home in late May.

“His response was that his wife called him an idiot and that when I had showed up at his house that I was there for his rant,” Earl said during the October hearing. “He described himself basically as very angry and upset regarding the State’s action in the COVID-19 response.”

Kovac noted that Feeder’s comments were posted on the governor’s public page, “which is open to the public for any crazy person to read it and act on it regardless of whether the defendant intended for somebody to act on it.”

Kovac said that DPS had referred several similar “threat cases” to his office but that he “rejected the overwhelming majority because they’re protected by the First Amendment.”

“There’s a thin line oftentimes between protected First Amendment speech and criminal proscribable conduct, and the defendant here clearly overstepped that line. It’s not even close. He’s talking about war,” Kovac said.

First Amendment defense

But Maynard, Feeder’s attorney, called it a “clear-cut case of First Amendment rights,” and said that to lose those protections, Feeder would have had to make an immediate call to action, which Earl, the DPS investigator, noted was not the case in his review of the postings.

“It has to be someone standing in front of a mob with pitchforks — or rather the classical formulation of this is standing in front of a mob of people with pitchforks and torches and say, ‘Let’s go burn down the castle right now,’” Maynard said.

“Crazy people aren’t the standard. The speaker has to know that his audience is receptive to an immediate calling. We don’t see that anywhere,” Maynard added.

Contact Capital Bureau Chief Colton Lochhead at clochhead @reviewjournal.com. Follow @ColtonLochhead on Twitter.