Is it legal to bring someone to the attention of a large mob, knowing they are likely to be injured?

Question

Say I'm a famous person with a large and particularly unsavory following.

I point at random private person Ash Zeweski and say "boy, I hate this person who is my enemy, they have poor moral fiber and are an offense to $DEITY and the world is worse off because they are alive, everyone should turn against and shun them". My two hundred million angry fans receive my message.

The next day, Ash has been murdered by some rando wearing a tee shirt with my face on it, like I sell on my online store. The rando confesses that they killed Ash because of Ash's alleged offenses against me.

The Zeweski family sues me in a wrongful death suit, on the basis that I knew or should have known that, among my two hundred million fans, there would be at least one fanatical murderer, who would be likely to try and kill my professed enemies even if not explicitly asked to do so.

Am I liable for bad things that happen to Ash (ranging from prank phone calls to vandalism to actual murder) after bringing them to the attention of an angry mob known for the doing of similar bad things?

Answer 1

The Zeweski family sues me in a wrongful death suit, on the basis that I knew or should have known that, among my two hundred million fans, there would be at least one fanatical murderer, who would be likely to try and kill my professed enemies even if not explicitly asked to do so.

Am I liable for bad things that happen to Ash (ranging from prank phone calls to vandalism to actual murder) after bringing them to the attention of an angry mob known for the doing of similar bad things?

No.

You didn't personally do anything but express your honest and sincere opinion about someone else.

You are only liable for someone else's bad conduct if you are a conspirator or solicit the bad conduct (or a part of a criminal enterprise or unlimited liability entity that commits the bad conduct).

None of these things are true. The question doesn't support the claim that you solicited an attack on the person, you asked that they be shunned. You have no interactions with the person, so you are not a conspirator with them. You weren't part of a criminal enterprise or unlimited liability entity that committed the bad conduct.

Therefore, you do not have liability in the wrongful death case.

To the extent that there is a barely colorable claim, furthermore, this has to be interpreted in light of the First Amendment protections of speech, which limits civil and criminal liability to cases where you have made a "true threat".

Furthermore, since your statements were statements of opinion, rather than express or implied false statements of presently existing facts, they can't form a basis for defamation liability.

It might be possible to narrowly draft a constitutional stochastic homicide claim for wrongful death that would cover these facts, but it would be a real stretch. These statements don't reach the threshold of what has been constitutionally allowed to constitute legally blameworthy incitement (which is slightly different than solicitation).