Travis Seals v. Brandon McBee, 898 F.3d 587

Background

In Dec. 2014 Travis Seals was arrested after making threats to police; charges were later dismissed but Seals remained legally subject to prosecution under La. Rev. Stat. § 14:122 until Dec. 2019.
Seals and a co-plaintiff sued the arresting officer and moved for partial summary judgment, arguing § 14:122 is facially overbroad under the First Amendment.
Louisiana intervened to defend the statute, arguing it reaches only unprotected speech (e.g., true threats, extortion) and that plaintiffs lacked standing because the DA had disavowed prosecution.
The district court found Seals had standing and held § 14:122 overbroad as applied to constitutionally protected "threats," enjoining enforcement.
The Fifth Circuit affirmed: it concluded Seals had a credible threat of prosecution and that § 14:122—construed to require a corrupt intent—nonetheless criminalizes many constitutionally protected threats (e.g., threats to sue, boycott, run against an incumbent).

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Standing to seek injunctive relief	Seals: prior arrest + statutory exposure creates a credible, imminent threat of prosecution	Louisiana: DA disavowed prosecution; no realistic future injury	Held: Seals has standing — arrest plus continued legal vulnerability and history of enforcement create credible threat
Proper construction of § 14:122 (scope of “threat”)	Seals: statute sweeps broadly and includes protected speech; cannot be limited to true threats	Louisiana: state caselaw and comments read in a corrupt‑intent gloss; statute targets only unprotected threats/extortion	Held: Court assumes (for appeal) § 14:122 requires corrupt intent, but that still covers threats to take lawful actions (e.g., sue) and cannot be narrowed to true threats alone
Whether § 14:122 is content‑based and thus subject to strict scrutiny	Seals: criminalizing "threats" is content‑based and burdens protected speech	Louisiana: targets unprotected content (true threats), so constitutionally permissible	Held: The statute targets some unprotected speech but also reaches substantial protected speech; content analysis does not save it — overbreadth doctrine applies
Overbreadth under the First Amendment	Seals: statute criminalizes many protected threats (boycotts, lawsuits, political challenges) and is therefore substantially overbroad	Louisiana: statute is narrowly aimed at unprotected threats and comparable statutes were upheld	Held: § 14:122 is substantially overbroad and invalid — it criminalizes constitutionally protected threats and cannot be salvaged by limiting constructions

Key Cases Cited

Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555 (standing requires injury in fact, causation, redressability)
City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95 (injunctive relief requires real and immediate threat of repeated injury)
Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 561 U.S. 1 (credible threat of prosecution supports standing in First Amendment challenges)
Babbitt v. United Farm Workers Nat’l Union, 442 U.S. 289 (standing where government will not disavow prosecution for intended conduct)
United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. 460 (overbreadth analysis; construe statute before assessing invalid applications)
Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343 (true threats are unprotected but still content for analysis)
R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377 (content‑based restrictions on speech and limits when government targets particular viewpoints/topics)
NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886 (threatening collective action/boycotts can be protected political expression)
City of Houston v. Hill, 482 U.S. 451 (criminalizing broad categories of speech directed at police can be overbroad)
Gooding v. Wilson, 405 U.S. 518 (use of dictionary definitions and overbreadth in laws penalizing abusive/oppobrious language)
New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (First Amendment protection for criticism of public officials)