In People v. Johnson, decided by the California Court of Appeal two weeks ago, in an opinion by Justice Ioana Petrou, joined by Presiding Justice Alison Tucher and Justice Victor Rodriguez, a defendant was convicted of felony witness tampering "based on a statement Johnson made to his family that if the police came, he would blow his brains out." The California witness tampering statute makes it a crime (punishable as a misdemeanor or a felony), "to prevent or dissuade another person who has been the victim of a crime or who is witness to a crime" from "[m]aking any report of that victimization" to the authorities. But it also makes it a more serious crime, and necessarily a felony, to do so
[w]here the act is accompanied by force or by an express or implied threat of force or violence, upon a witness or victim or any third person or the property of any victim, witness, or any third person.
The court held that Johnson's threat of suicide didn't qualify under this "witness or victim or any third person" provision:
