What is the test for criminal threats under section 422 of the Criminal Code?

People v. Wilson (2015) 234 Cal.App.4th 193, 201 is also instructive. There the apparently drunk defendant threatened to kill the victim twice during a 15 to 20-minute encounter and was convicted of two counts of criminal threats. (Id. at pp. 198-199.) The court of appeal reversed one of the convictions because "section 422 authorizes only one conviction . . . per threatening encounter during which the victim suffers a single period of sustained fear." (Id. at p. 202.) "A violation of section 422 is not complete upon the issuance of a threat; it depends on the recipient of the threat suffering 'sustained fear' as a result of the communication. It is not appropriate to convict a defendant of multiple counts under section 422 based on multiple threatening communications uttered to a single victim during a brief, uninterrupted encounter." (Id. at p. 201.)

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