LUTHMANN NOTE: This case should chill anyone paying attention. When the government can criminalize speech by stretching “fear” into intent, the First Amendment is already on life support. The jury didn’t apply constitutional standards—they reacted to offensive language. That’s not justice; that’s crowd psychology in a courtroom. The real danger isn’t Paul Boyne’s rhetoric—it’s a system willing to punish speech without proving criminal intent. If this verdict stands, every critic of government power becomes a potential defendant. That’s not America—it’s something far more dangerous. Did Connecticut Cross the Line? – Watch The Unknown Podcast on YouTube, Rumble, and Spotify, and decide for yourself.
By Richard Luthmann with Michael Volpe
Richard Luthmann and Michael Volpe took apart the Paul Boyne verdict piece by piece in a hard-hitting discussion on The Unknown Podcast, arguing that Connecticut’s prosecution crossed a dangerous constitutional line. Their core point was simple: this case was sold as “cyberstalking,” but the actual fight was over speech, true threats, and the shrinking boundaries of the First Amendment. In the podcast, Volpe framed the basic facts for listeners: Boyne, a Virginia resident and Family Court critic, was convicted after blog posts targeting Connecticut judges mixed savage rhetoric with personal identifying details. Luthmann answered that the real question was whether ugly, inflammatory, or even reckless political speech had been improperly transformed into criminal conduct.
The March 10, 2026, guilty verdict itself is not in dispute. Connecticut prosecutors announced that a New Haven jury found Boyne guilty on 12 counts of first-degree stalking and six counts of electronic stalking tied to threats against Judges Jane K. Grossman, Elizabeth J. Stewart, and former Judge Thomas G. Moukawsher. Prosecutors said forensic evidence showed Boyne authored and edited the posts, and they argued the writings were “true threats,” not protected speech. Sentencing is set for May 26, 2026.
What makes the Luthmann-Volpe discussion explosive is their claim that the jury instructions buried the defense’s best arguments. In the podcast, both men hammer the same themes: the jury instructions were sprawling, confusing, and failed to squarely address Counterman v. Colorado’s subjective-intent requirement; they also argue the instructions never properly presented a “good faith” or journalistic-purpose theory to the jury. Volpe stresses that no evidence showed Boyne directly sent his posts to the judges or even knew they were reading them, while Luthmann argues the instructions improperly shifted focus from Boyne’s intent to the judges’ reaction.
That critique lines up with contemporaneous reporting from Frank Parlato, who wrote that Judge Peter Brown’s charge ran about 145 pages, mentioned unanimity repeatedly, and failed to clearly walk jurors through the Counterman mental-state standard in a focused, intelligible way. Parlato also reported Boyne’s conviction on all 18 counts immediately after the verdict.
The debate is bigger than Boyne. Luthmann and Volpe are really asking whether courts can criminalize inflammatory online commentary about judges without proving the speaker subjectively understood it as a threat, and whether a bad defendant makes for bad constitutional law. In the podcast, Luthmann predicts appeal and even possible Supreme Court review, especially because the conversation repeatedly returns to the mismatch between Connecticut’s result and broader First Amendment cases involving “true threats,” stalking statutes, and political hyperbole.
