What is the test for making a criminal threat under section 422 of the California Criminal Code?

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To render our discussion of this lengthy provision more manageable, we believe it is helpful to divide the crime of criminal threat into five constituent elements that must be established to find that a defendant has committed this offense. In order to prove a violation of section 422, the prosecution must establish all of the following: (1) that the defendant "willfully threaten[ed] to commit a crime which will result in death or great bodily injury to another person," (2) that the defendant made the threat "with the specific intent that the statement ... is to be taken as a threat, even if there is no intent of actually carrying it out," (3) that the threatwhich may be "made verbally, in writing, or by means of an electronic communication device"was "on its face and under the circumstances in which it [was] made, ... so unequivocal, unconditional, immediate, and specific as to convey to the person threatened, a gravity of purpose and an immediate prospect of execution of the threat," (4) that the threat actually caused the person threatened "to be in sustained fear for his or her own safety or for his or her immediate family's safety," and (5) that the threatened person's fear was "reasonable]" under the circumstances. (See generally People v. Bolin (1998) 18 Cal.4th 297, 337-340 & fn. 13, 75 Cal.Rptr.2d 412, 956 P.2d 374.)

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Furthermore, it also is useful to note that the present version of section 422 was enacted after a former version of section 422 had been held unconstitutional by this court in People v. Mirmirani (1981) 30 Cal.3d 375, 178 Cal.Rptr. 792, 636 P.2d 1130. The former version of section 422 at issue in Mirmirani which was designated the crime of terrorist threat, provided in pertinent part that "[a]ny person who willfully threatens to commit a crime which will result in death or great bodily injury to another person, with intent to terrorize another or with reckless disregard of the risk of terrorizing another, and who thereby either ... [clauses another person reasonably to be in sustained fear for his or [her] or their immediate family's safety[,] ... [c]auses the evacuation of a building, place of assembly, or facility used in public transportation] ... [interferes with essential public services[,] or ... [otherwise causes serious disruption of public activities, is guilty of a felony...." (Former 422, as added by Stats.1977, ch. 1146, 1, pp. 3684-3685.) A companion statute, former section 422.5, defined the term "terrorize" to mean "to create a climate of fear and intimidation by means of threats or violent action causing sustained fear for personal safety in order to achieve social or political goals." (Pen.Code, former

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422.5, as added by Stats.1977, ch. 1146, 1, p. 3685.)

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