Threats to Commit a Crime in Massachusetts (M.G.L. c. 275, § 2)

Threats to commit a crime under M.G.L. c. 275, § 2 is among the most commonly charged offenses in Massachusetts, and among the least understood. It appears on domestic violence complaints alongside assault and battery on a family or household member under M.G.L. c. 265, § 13M whenever a police report quotes something said during an argument. It appears alone, by summons, when a neighbor, a coworker, an ex-partner, or a stranger in a road rage incident reports something said in anger, and increasingly when a text, a group chat message, or a social media post is read as a threat. The charge is a misdemeanor with a modest maximum penalty, but it is a criminal charge of violence-adjacent speech: it enters a CORI the moment an arraignment occurs, it triggers licensing and firearms suitability review, and in a domestic violence prosecution it does independent work for the Commonwealth by putting the defendant’s own words before the factfinder. It is also a charge with real constitutional limits, sharpened by the Supreme Judicial Court in 2024, that many complaints cannot survive when actually litigated.

The Statute and the Penalty

Chapter 275 of the General Laws is titled Proceedings to Prevent Crimes, and Section 2 is drafted as a procedural provision: it directs a court receiving a complaint that a person has threatened to commit a crime against the person or property of another to examine the complainant under oath and reduce the complaint to writing. The offense of threatening to commit a crime has been prosecuted under Sections 2 through 4 for well over a century. The penalty is set by M.G.L. c. 275, § 4: a fine of not more than $100 or imprisonment in the house of correction for not more than six months. In lieu of imprisonment, the court may order the defendant to enter into a recognizance to keep the peace, with sureties, for up to six months, a genuine oddity in modern practice that reflects the chapter’s crime-prevention origins. A probationary term imposed on the charge, however, is not limited to six months. Commonwealth v. Powers, 73 Mass. App. Ct. 186 (2008). The modest statutory maximum misleads people into treating the charge casually; the CORI entry, the companion-charge dynamics, and the collateral consequences described below are where the real exposure sits.

The Elements the Commonwealth Must Prove

Under Massachusetts Model Jury Instruction 6.700, the Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that: (1) the defendant expressed an intent to injure the person or property of another, now or in the future; (2) the defendant intended that the threat be conveyed to a particular person; (3) the injury threatened, if carried out, would constitute a crime; and (4) the threat was made under circumstances that could reasonably have caused the recipient to fear that the defendant had both the intention and the ability to carry it out. Several refinements matter in practice. The threat need not be communicated directly to the target, and need not even successfully reach the target, so long as the defendant intended it be conveyed directly or indirectly. The target of the threat and the victim of the threatened crime need not be the same person: a threat to harm a person’s child is a threat against that person. Commonwealth v. Hamilton, 459 Mass. 422, 428 (2011). Vague menace can suffice where context supplies the meaning, Commonwealth v. Melton, 77 Mass. App. Ct. 552, 558 (2010), but immediate ability to carry out the threat is unnecessary; what matters is a reasonable apprehension of intention and ability. And where the Commonwealth alleges more than one threatening statement, the jury must receive a specific unanimity instruction and agree on which statement was the threat. Commonwealth v. Palermo, 482 Mass. 620, 629 (2019).

Since 2024 there is a fifth element. In Commonwealth v. Cruz, 495 Mass. 110 (2024), applying the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Counterman v. Colorado, 600 U.S. 66 (2023), the Supreme Judicial Court held that the Commonwealth must also prove a mens rea as to the threatening character of the statement: that the defendant was aware of, or consciously disregarded, a substantial risk that the communication would be viewed as threatening violence. The SJC revised the model instruction accordingly. Any threats case built on pre-Cruz assumptions, and any plea offered without accounting for the Commonwealth’s new burden, is a case that has not been examined hard enough.

True Threats and the First Amendment

Because Section 2 criminalizes speech, the First Amendment limits its reach, and Massachusetts courts have long construed the statute to reach only true threats, which are not protected speech. Commonwealth v. Sholley, 432 Mass. 721, 727 (2000). A true threat is distinguished from political hyperbole, jokes, venting, and heated rhetoric by context: the relationship of the parties, the setting, whether the statement was conditional, and how a reasonable recipient would understand it. Commonwealth v. Chou, 433 Mass. 229, 236 (2001). Counterman and Cruz added the recklessness requirement precisely to keep the statute from punishing careless words as crimes. This matters enormously in the domestic context, because the statements charged under Section 2 are so often uttered mid-argument, in anger, conditionally, or as hyperbole, and it matters just as much in the digital context, where tone, sarcasm, and audience are stripped from a screenshot. Whether a given statement was a true threat made with the required recklessness, or an ugly but protected outburst, is frequently the entire case, and it is a question that rewards actual litigation: cross-examination on context, the full message thread rather than the excerpt, and the history between the parties.

Procedure: Arrest, Summons, and the Clerk-Magistrate Hearing

Chapter 275 itself does not authorize a warrantless arrest for threats. Commonwealth v. Jacobsen, 419 Mass. 269, 271-272 (1995). In practice, defendants in domestic cases are arrested at the scene anyway, because M.G.L. c. 209A, § 6(7) separately authorizes, and Massachusetts arrest-preferred policy strongly encourages, warrantless arrest where an officer has probable cause to believe a person committed a misdemeanor involving abuse of a family or household member. Outside the domestic context, or where police proceed by application for complaint rather than arrest, the accused is generally entitled to a clerk-magistrate hearing under M.G.L. c. 218, § 35A before any complaint issues. That private show cause hearing is the single best opportunity in the case: a denial means no complaint, no arraignment, and no CORI entry, ever. This office has litigated show cause hearings for thirty years and treats a threats summons as a case to be ended in that room; see the Complete Clerk-Magistrate Hearing FAQ, the Massachusetts Clerk-Magistrate Hearing FAQs, and the practitioner’s guide to clerk-magistrate hearings.

Threats Inside a Domestic Violence Complaint

In a domestic violence prosecution, the threats count is rarely the Commonwealth’s main event, and that is precisely why it must be taken seriously. It packages the defendant’s alleged words as a standalone crime, giving the prosecution something to argue even if the assault count fails. It supplies an additional count for plea leverage. It survives witness problems, because the responding officer can often testify to what was reported. And where the alleged threat concerned calling the police or going to court, the same words routinely generate a companion felony charge of intimidation of a witness under M.G.L. c. 268, § 13B, with vastly greater exposure. The threats count is therefore defended with the whole complaint in mind: the same context and credibility work, the marital privilege under M.G.L. c. 233, § 20, the complainant’s own Fifth Amendment exposure where the argument was mutual, and the strict rule that the defendant has no contact about the case with the complainant, ever, because procured silence forfeits the very objections the defense needs. Where a 209A order issues on the same facts, the threats allegation becomes the abuse finding’s factual core, and where the words were part of a pattern, prosecutors reach instead for stalking and criminal harassment under M.G.L. c. 265, §§ 43 and 43A. See Massachusetts domestic violence defense and the Massachusetts Domestic Violence Law FAQs.

Collateral Consequences: Licensing, Firearms, Immigration, Universities

For licensed professionals, physicians, nurses, attorneys, teachers, and FINRA-registered financial professionals, an arraignment on a threats charge is a CORI event that reaches boards and employers before any adjudication, which is why the pre-arraignment strategy dominates. For License to Carry holders, a threats charge is a textbook trigger for a police chief’s suitability review, and under St. 2024, c. 135 a suspension takes effect immediately, with no automatic stay pending appeal. For non-citizens on F-1, H-1B, and permanent resident status, there is a genuine analytical wrinkle worth exploiting: because the statute reaches threats against property, requires no intent to carry the threat out, and is indivisible, there is a strong argument, advanced by the Committee for Public Counsel Services among others, that a Section 2 conviction is categorically not a crime involving moral turpitude. No non-citizen should accept any disposition on any count of a domestic violence complaint without the full categorical analysis; see Domestic Violence Charges and Immigration in Massachusetts. And for college and university students, a threats allegation over a dorm dispute, a group chat, or a post nearly always runs on two tracks at once, the criminal case and the university disciplinary or Title IX process, and the defense must be coordinated so that neither proceeding supplies evidence to the other.

The Courts Where Threats Cases Are Defended

Attorney Serpa defends threats charges, standing alone and inside domestic violence complaints, across every courthouse in the region: the eight Boston Municipal Court divisions; Quincy District Court, serving Quincy, Milton, Weymouth, Braintree, Randolph, Cohasset, and Holbrook; Dedham District Court; Newton District Court; Brookline District Court, where student and Longwood Medical Area professional cases concentrate; Somerville District Court, serving Somerville and Medford and the Tufts community; Concord District Court, serving Concord, Lexington, Bedford, and Acton; and Brockton District Court, along with Cambridge, Waltham, Malden, Woburn, Framingham, and Hingham. See the complete guide to the Massachusetts District Courts and Boston Municipal Court and Massachusetts Trial Court criminal defense. Show cause culture differs building to building, and the defense is tailored to the room.

Defending the Charge

The defense works through the elements in order, at the earliest stage available. Was the statement a true threat at all, or hyperbole, venting, or a conditional outburst, given the full context Sholley and Chou require? Did the defendant intend the words to reach the alleged target, or were they said to a third person with no intent they be conveyed? Could the recipient reasonably have feared both intention and ability? Was the defendant at least reckless about the threatening character of the words, as Counterman and Cruz now demand, on facts the Commonwealth can actually prove? Where the case arrives by summons, these questions are pressed first at the clerk-magistrate hearing, before a record exists; where it arrives by arrest, they are pressed through motions and, where necessary, at trial, prepared from day one. Representative outcomes across three decades of this work are at Massachusetts Criminal Defense Results.

Contact Serpa Law Office at 617.936.0201 for a confidential consultation, available 24 hours a day. Boston office: 20 Park Plaza #400A. Quincy office: 500 Victory Rd., Suite 400A.

Related Serpa Law Office resources

• Assault and Battery on a Family or Household Member (M.G.L. c. 265, § 13M)
• Intimidation of a Witness (M.G.L. c. 268, § 13B)
• Stalking and Criminal Harassment in Massachusetts (M.G.L. c. 265, §§ 43, 43A)
• Violation of a 209A Abuse Prevention Order (M.G.L. c. 209A, § 7)
• Massachusetts 209A Restraining Orders and Abuse Prevention Orders
• Clerk-Magistrate Hearings in Massachusetts and Greater Boston
• The Complete Clerk-Magistrate Hearing FAQ
• Arraignment in Massachusetts
• Massachusetts Domestic Violence Law FAQs
• Domestic Violence Charges and Immigration in Massachusetts
• College and University Student Criminal Defense
• Massachusetts District Courts and Boston Municipal Court: Court-by-Court Guides
• Massachusetts Criminal Defense Results
• Boston Domestic Violence Defense Lawyer