Joshua Paul Knight v. the State of Texas

In the
Court of Appeals
Second Appellate District of Texas
at Fort Worth
___________________________

No. 02-24-00479-CR
___________________________

JOSHUA PAUL KNIGHT, Appellant

V.

THE STATE OF TEXAS

On Appeal from the 396th District Court
Tarrant County, Texas
Trial Court No. 1773154

Before Sudderth, C.J.; Birdwell and Bassel, JJ.
Memorandum Opinion by Justice Birdwell
MEMORANDUM OPINION

Appellant Joshua Paul Knight appeals his conviction for stalking. See Tex. Penal

Code Ann. § 42.072. In one point, he argues that the stalking statute by which he was

prosecuted and punished is unconstitutional as applied to him. We disagree, and we

affirm his conviction.

I. Background

Around Christmas Day in 2020, Knight parked a vehicle1 on a service road at

DFW Airport. The vehicle was blocking a lane of traffic, and an officer with the DFW

Airport Police Department had to swerve to avoid hitting it. The officer called for the

vehicle to be towed, and an employee from Euless B&B Wrecker—a company owned

by the complainant, Debi Chesney, and her husband—responded and towed the

vehicle.

Knight never paid the towing fee to get the vehicle out of B&B’s impound lot.

He did, however, attempt to retrieve his personal items from the vehicle. At the end

of March 2021, Knight went to B&B and “caus[ed] a disturbance” while demanding

his personal items from the vehicle. A Euless Police Officer arrived and met Knight

in the parking lot, and a B&B employee told the officer that there had been ongoing

issues with Knight. Specifically, the employee stated that Knight had been harassing

B&B employees, Debi, and her husband and that there was pending civil litigation.

1
Although he had been driving it, Knight was not the registered owner of the
vehicle.

2
Knight was asked to leave, and he was subsequently issued a criminal trespass warning

at the request of Debi’s husband.

Knight claimed—and continues to claim—that the vehicle had been “illegally

towed,” so he began “a two-year saga of approximately 200 emails, civil lawsuits[,] and

formal complaints.” He filed numerous pro se civil lawsuits against DFW Airport,

B&B, Debi, and her husband. Each lawsuit was ultimately dismissed, and Knight was

declared a vexatious litigant. He also filed (1) complaints with the State Bar of Texas

against the attorney who represented B&B and Debi in Knight’s lawsuits against them

and (2) complaints against B&B and Debi with the Better Business Bureau and

regulatory towing agencies.

From January 2021 until February 2023, Knight sent several “harassing” emails

to Debi, B&B employees, DFW Airport employees, officers at the DFW Airport

Police Department, and the attorneys who represented these individuals. The emails

eventually took on a “threatening nature” as the “vitriol in them” began to pick up.

The frequency of the emails picked up over time as well; Debi received eight to ten

emails from Knight per day, several of which included personal attacks against her.

Knight also contacted Debi by phone. He called Debi and the dispatch

employee at B&B several times. He also called Debi’s attorney both at the attorneys

office and at his home number; he recorded himself doing this and then posted the

video to YouTube. Knight thought that doing so would be “funny.”

3
On two separate occasions, Debi’s attorney told Knight to stop contacting

Debi, but the communications did not stop. Debi’s attorney even sent a cease-and-

desist letter to Knight instructing him to stop contacting Debi, but he continued to

contact her.

At one point, Knight told Debi’s attorney and DFW Airport’s attorney—in

emails that were also sent to Debi—that he had installed software and was “tracking”

their email activity to see when and how many times they opened and ignored his

emails.

In an email that particularly “scared” Debi, Knight sent her and several other

recipients—including her attorney, individuals with DFW Airport and its attorneys,

local businesses and churches, local police departments, various local news stations,

and other unknown individuals—a picture of her and her husband and a picture of

the front of her house. He told Debi, “I know where you live.” He told the other

recipients of this email, “Enjoy saying hi to her around town.” This made Debi fear

for her life and the lives of her family members.

Detective Marc Bollon with the DFW Airport Police Department eventually

received the case and began investigating Knight’s harassing emails. He determined

that Knight had committed the offenses of harassment and stalking and that Debi was

the victim.

Knight was indicted for both stalking and harassment. The jury found him

guilty of stalking and acquitted him on the harassment charge. The trial court

4
rendered its judgment on the jury’s verdict and assessed his punishment at eight years’

confinement.

Following his conviction, Knight filed a motion for new trial asserting, among

other things, that the stalking statute by which he was convicted is unconstitutional,

both facially and as applied to him. The trial court denied the motion without a

hearing.

Knight timely appealed his conviction.

II. Preservation of Error

Before we turn to the merits, we must first address whether Knight has

preserved for appellate review his as-applied constitutional challenge to the stalking

statute. See Tex. R. App. P. 33.1. The State contends that Knight failed to preserve

error. We disagree.

To preserve a complaint for our review, a party must have presented to the trial

court a timely request, objection, or motion sufficiently stating the specific grounds, if

not apparent from the context, for the desired ruling. Tex. R. App. P. 33.1(a)(1);

Montelongo v. State, 623 S.W.3d 819, 822 (Tex. Crim. App. 2021). Further, the party

must obtain an express or implicit adverse trial-court ruling or object to the trial

court’s refusal to rule. Tex. R. App. P. 33.1(a)(2); Dixon v. State, 595 S.W.3d 216, 223

(Tex. Crim. App. 2020). The complaint made on appeal must comport with the

complaint made in the trial court or the error is forfeited. Clark v. State, 365 S.W.3d

333, 339 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012).

5
On appeal, Knight argues that the stalking statute was applied “in a manner

that regulated [his] speech based on its content.” Thus, according to Knight, as

applied to him, the statute is “a content-based restriction on [his] freedom of speech

[and is] not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest.” This argument

comports with the argument he raised in the trial court. See id.

In his motion for new trial, Knight argued that the stalking statute is

“unconstitutional, both facially and as-applied,” because “it violates freedom of

speech under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article I, [Sections] 8

and 27 of the Texas Constitution.” The State asserts, without any supporting legal

authority, that this “boilerplate” contention failed to preserve the “specific argument”

that Knight raises on appeal—that he was “convicted for speech alone.”

Contrary to the State’s assertion, Knight’s motion for new trial explicitly

(1) raised an as-applied challenge, (2) argued that the statute violates the freedom of

speech, and (3) cited the First Amendment. The motion thus sufficiently preserved

Knight’s as-applied challenge to the stalking statute. See Faust v. State, 491 S.W.3d 733,

741, 744 n.28 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015) (holding that appellants’ constitutional as-

applied challenge was preserved via their motion for judgment, which they raised at

trial after the parties rested, challenging “the arrest and prosecution under this law, as

applied to these facts”); Gillenwaters v. State, 205 S.W.3d 534, 537–38 (Tex. Crim. App.

2006) (holding that, while appellant’s motion for new trial asserted only a general as-

applied challenge and the word “vague” appeared nowhere in the motion, the motion,

6
in context, sufficiently preserved “unconstitutionally vague as applied” challenge to

statute); cf. In re A.K., No. 02-20-00410-CV, 2021 WL 1803774, at *14 n.10 (Tex.

App.—Fort Worth May 6, 2021, pet. denied) (mem. op.) (holding that motion for

new trial preserved as-applied challenge in juvenile transfer appeal).

III. As-Applied Challenge

Knight argues that the stalking statute, as applied to him, violates the First

Amendment by prosecuting and punishing him for the “unsavory” content of his

emails. He contends that they “d[o] not fall into a historically unprotected category of

speech” and that “there [are] no compelling state interests justifying the speech

limitation.”

In response, the State argues (1) in light of the statutory elements of stalking as

explained in the trial court’s charge, the jury implicitly found that Knight was guilty

based on his conduct, not his speech, and (2) even if Knight had been convicted for

the content of his emails, they fall into the “true threats” category of historically

unprotected speech.

A. Standard of Review

We review de novo a challenge to the constitutionality of a criminal statute.

Vandyke v. State, 538 S.W.3d 561, 570 (Tex. Crim. App. 2017). In our review, we

presume that the statute is valid and that the legislature acted reasonably when

enacting it. Faust, 491 S.W.3d at743–44. The party challenging the statute bears the

7
“heavy burden” of establishing its unconstitutionality. Estes v. State, 546 S.W.3d 691,

698 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018); Vandyke, 538 S.W.3d at 570–71.

An as-applied challenge to the constitutionality of a statute asserts that the

statute, although generally constitutional, is unconstitutional as applied to the

challenger’s particular facts and circumstances. Faust, 491 S.W.3d at 743; Ex Parte

Shires, 508 S.W.3d 856, 861 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 2016, no pet.). The challenger

must show that the statute was unconstitutionally applied to him. Schlittler v. State, 488

S.W.3d 306, 313–14 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016). “[T]hat it may be unconstitutional as to

others is not sufficient.” State ex rel. Lykos, 330 S.W.3d 904, 910, 916 (Tex. Crim. App.

2011) (orig. proceeding)

B. The Stalking Statute

The stalking statute outlaws two types of stalking: (1) stalking by harassment

and (2) stalking by threats. Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 42.072(a)(1); Ex parte Santee, No.

03-23-00772-CR, 2025 WL 3180243, at *2 (Tex. App.—Austin Nov. 14, 2025, no

pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication); see Bevers v. Mabry, No. 05-22-00713-

CV, 2024 WL 469550, at *7 (Tex. App.—Dallas Feb. 7, 2024, pet. denied) (mem. op.)

(describing statutory elements of stalking in protective-order case). Under the stalking

statute, a person commits the offense of stalking

if the person, on more than one occasion and pursuant to the same
scheme or course of conduct that is directed at a specific other person,
knowingly engages in conduct that:

8
(1) constitutes an offense under Section 42.07 [Harassment], or
that the actor knows or reasonably should know the other person will
regard as threatening:
(A) bodily injury or death for the other person; or

(B) that an offense will be committed against:

(i) a member of the other person’s family or household;

(ii) an individual with whom the other person has a dating
relationship; or

(iii) the other person’s property;

(2) causes the other person, a member of the other person’s
family or household, or an individual with whom the other person has a
dating relationship:

(A) to be placed in fear of bodily injury or death or in fear that an
offense will be committed against the other person, a member of the
other person’s family or household, or an individual with whom the
other person has a dating relationship, or the other person’s property; or

(B) to feel harassed, terrified, intimidated, annoyed, alarmed,
abused, tormented, embarrassed, or offended; and

(3) would cause a reasonable person under circumstances similar
to the circumstances of the other person to:

(A) fear bodily injury or death for the person;

(B) fear that an offense will be committed against a member of
the person’s family or household or an individual with whom the person
has a dating relationship;

(C) fear that an offense will be committed against the person’s
property; or

(D) feel harassed, terrified, intimidated, annoyed, alarmed, abused,
tormented, embarrassed, or offended.

9
Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 42.072(a).

As relevant here, a person commits the offense of harassment

if, with intent to harass, annoy, alarm, abuse, torment, or embarrass
another, the person:

....

(2) threatens, in a manner reasonably likely to alarm the person
receiving the threat, to inflict bodily injury on the person or to commit a
felony against the person, a member of the person’s family or household,
or the person’s property; [or]

....

(7) sends repeated electronic communications in a manner
reasonably likely to harass, annoy, alarm, abuse, torment, embarrass, or
offend another[.]

Id. § 42.07(a)(2), (7). “Electronic communication” includes communication via email,

instant message, network call, cellular or other type of telephone, a computer, a

camera, text message, social media platform or application, the Internet, facsimile, or

pager. Id. § 42.07(b)(1-a).

Here, the indictment alleged that Knight had committed the offense of stalking

as follows:

Knight, hereinafter called defendant, on or about the 11th day of August
2021 - 7th day of February 2023, . . . knowingly engage[d] in conduct on
more than one occasion, and pursuant to the same scheme or course of
conduct that was directed specifically at another person, namely, Debi
Chesney and such conduct constitutes harassment or defendant knew or
should reasonably have known that Debi Chesney would regard such
conduct as threatening bodily injury or death for Debi Chesney or a
member of Debi Chesney’s family, household, or a person with whom
Debi Chesney has a dating relationship,

10
and such conduct did cause Debi Chesney to be placed in fear of
bodily injury or death for Debi Chesney or a member of Debi
Chesney[’s] household, or a person with whom Debi Chesney has a
dating relationship, or did cause Debi Chesney to feel harassed, annoyed,
alarmed, abused, or tormented,

and such conduct would cause a reasonable person to fear bodily
injury or death to herself or a member of her family, household, or a
person with whom she had a dating relationship, or to fear that an
offense would be committed against her property or to feel harassed,
annoyed, alarmed, abused, tormented, embarrassed, or offended, and
such conduct is as follows: The defendant sent repeated electronic
communications in a manner reasonably likely to harass, annoy, alarm,
abuse, torment, embarrass, or offend Debi Chesney, or by threatening in
a manner reasonably likely to alarm Debi Chesney, to inflict bodily injury
on the person or to commit a felony against the person, a member of the
person’s family or household, or the person’s property on or about the
29th day of September 2022 and on or about the 30th day of December
2022.

C. Owens v. State

Knight relies on Owens v. State, No. PD-0075-24, 2025 WL 1587690, at *1 (Tex.

Crim. App. June 4, 2025) to support his as-applied challenge to the stalking statute. In

Owens, the Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) analyzed an as-applied challenge to the

electronic-harassment statute, see Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 42.07(a)(7), and held that as

applied to Owens, the statute was an unconstitutional content-based restriction on his

speech. 2025 WL 1587690, at *1, *9.

Owens was convicted of harassment for sending thirty-four electronic

messages—emails, texts, and one Facebook message—to his former therapist over a

fifteen-week period. Id. at *4, *7. All the messages, including their content, were

11
admitted at Owens’s trial over his First Amendment objection. Id. On appeal, Owens

challenged the constitutionality of the electronic-harassment statute as applied to him

and argued that he had been punished for the content of his messages. Id. at *6.

In its opinion, the CCA provided an overview of the First Amendment and

content-based laws:

The First Amendment generally prohibits the government from
prohibiting speech or expressive conduct. R.A.V. v. St. Paul, 505 U.S.
377, 382, 112 S. Ct. 2538, [2542] (1992). . . . The government cannot
restrict expression because of its message, ideas, subject matter[,] or
content. Brown v. Entm’t Merchs. Ass’n, 564 U.S. 786, 790–91, 131 S. Ct.
2729, [2733] (2011) (quoting Ashcroft v. ACLU, 535 U.S. 564, [573,] 122
S. Ct. 1700, [1707] (2002)).

....

Content-based laws target speech based on its communicative
content. Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 576 U.S. 155, 163, 135 S. Ct. 2218, [2226]
(2015). . . . If it is necessary to look at the content of the speech to
decide if the speaker violated the law, the regulation is content based. Ex
parte Nuncio, 662 S.W.3d 903, 917 (Tex. Crim. App. 2022) (citing Ex parte
Thompson, 442 S.W.3d 325, 345 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014), and Ex parte Lo,
424 S.W.3d 10, 15 n.12 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013)).

....

Prosecution based on the content of a message is permitted only
in very limited circumstances. If a statute is content based, it must meet
strict scrutiny; the statute is presumptively unconstitutional and may be
justified only if the government proves that it is narrowly tailored to
serve compelling state interests. TikTok[ Inc. v. Garland], [604 U.S. 56,] 145
S. Ct. [57,] 67 [(2025)] (quoting Reed, 576 U.S. at 163, 135 S. Ct. [at
2226]).

....

12
If a content-neutral statute is applied in a manner that regulates
speech based on its content, it must meet strict scrutiny to survive a First
Amendment challenge.

....

The government may prohibit the intrusion into the home of
unwelcome views and ideas that cannot be banned from public dialog.
Cohen [v. California], 403 U.S. [15,] 21, 91 S. Ct. 1780[, 1786 (1971)] . . . .
The government’s ability to regulate speech depends on a showing that
the speech invades substantial privacy interests in an essentially
intolerable manner. Id.[, 91 S. Ct. at 1786.] . . . The right of a person to
be left alone must be weighed against the right of others to
communicate. Rowan[v. U.S. Post Off. Dep’t], 397 U.S. [728,] 736, 90 S. Ct.
1484[, 1490 (1970)]. . . . “Nothing in the [C]onstitution compels us to
listen to or view any unwanted communication” in the privacy of our
own homes; we are permitted to bar solicitors, block senders of mail, or
turn off a radio or television to prevent offensive communications from
entering the home. [Id. at 737, 90 S. Ct. at 1490]

Id. at *1–3.

The CCA then began its analysis, “Sending messages is an act, but the messages

themselves are speech, and the prosecution in this case was based on [Owens’s]

speech, not his action.” Id. at *7. Section 42.07(a)(7) protects from conduct that

invades a person’s substantial privacy rights in an intolerable manner. Id. But when

Section 42.07(a)(7) is used to regulate speech, as it was in Owens’s case, those privacy

rights “must be delicately balanced” with the First Amendment right to communicate.

Id. The CCA concluded that the scale tipped in Owens’s favor for three reasons: First,

there was no “invasion into the home” because the messages were sent to the

therapist’s professional email and phone and to her professional social media account,

not to her home or personal accounts. Second, the therapist was not a “captive

13
audience” or “powerless to avoid the messages”; she could have deleted the messages

without reading them or blocked Owens’s contact information but chose not to do

so. Third, the government’s ability to regulate speech “requires an invasion of

substantial privacy rights in an essentially intolerable manner.” The thirty-four messages that

Owens sent during a three-month period to “publicly accessible, commercial accounts

controlled by a willing listener [was] no such invasion.” Id.

“Because [Owens] was prosecuted for the content of his messages, the statute’s

application is presumptively unconstitutional and may be justified only if the

government proves its application was narrowly tailored to serve compelling state

interests. The State makes no such showing here.” Id. Thus, the CCA held that the

electronic-harassment statute was unconstitutional as applied to Owens. Id. at *9.

D. Analysis

Knight was convicted of stalking, not harassment. Cf. id. at *4 (analyzing as-

applied challenge to electronic-harassment statute). Under the stalking statute, Knight

could have been charged with stalking either by harassment or by threats or by both,

see Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 42.072(a), and he was ultimately indicted for both. Based

on the evidence before it, the jury could have found Knight guilty of either manner

and means of stalking based on his speech or his nonspeech conduct. Thus, the

stalking statute was not unconstitutionally applied to Knight.

1. Knight’s Nonspeech Conduct

The jury heard the following evidence of Knight’s nonspeech conduct:

14
• Knight contacted or attempted to contact Debi at least 200 times over
the course of approximately two years, beginning in January 2021;

• Debi testified that Knight had sent her eight to ten emails per day;

• Knight often included B&B’s dispatcher in his emails;

• Knight sent emails addressed to Debi and several other recipients—
some of whom were accustomed to dealing with pro se litigants yet
found Knight’s conduct to be “alarming”;

• Knight sent several emails—“multiple e[]mails a day”—to Debi’s
attorney and included Debi in “every single one of them”, causing her
emotional distress;

• At first, the emails were “frustrating,” but as they went on, they became
“harassing” and concerning;

• Debi agreed that the emails were harassing;

• Knight also called Debi and her employees at B&B;

• Knight called Debi’s attorney at his office and at his home number;

• Debi’s attorney asked Knight to stop contacting Debi, but he continued
to contact her;

• Debi’s attorney sent a cease-and-desist letter to Knight instructing him
to stop contacting Debi, but he continued to contact her;

• Debi’s attorney described Knight’s conduct as “incessant”;

• Knight testified that he had been a “nuisance” and agreed that being a
nuisance long enough could make others feel like they were being
“tormented”; and

• Knight testified that he had “targeted” Debi.
Despite Knight’s “incessant” conduct, Debi did not contact law enforcement.

In March 2021—months after Knight’s correspondence began—Debi’s husband

15
requested a criminal trespass warning from the police after Knight physically showed

up at B&B and caused a disturbance, and B&B employees told the responding officer

that Knight had been “harassing” and “threatening” Debi and her husband. But it was

not until 2022 that law enforcement actually began investigating this case, in part

because of one of the lawsuits that Knight had filed.

Without even getting into the content of Knight’s electronic communications,

the jury heard evidence of Knight’s sending repeated unwanted emails and making

unwanted phone calls to Debi either directly or indirectly and continuing to do so

after being instructed to stop. Indeed, Knight himself describes this case as “a two-

year saga of approximately 200 emails, civil lawsuits[,] and formal complaints.” We

conclude that the jury could have found Knight guilty based on his nonspeech

conduct that did not implicate the First Amendment. See Ex parte Sanders, 663 S.W.3d

197, 201 (Tex. Crim. App. 2022) (holding that the harassment statute is facially

constitutional because it prohibits nonspeech conduct and thus does not implicate the

First Amendment); Wagner v. State, 539 S.W.3d 298, 314–15 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018)

(rejecting as-applied challenge to similar statute outlawing harassing communications

in violation of protective order; appellant sent approximately sixteen text messages to

the complainant in a six-day period and continued to send her messages after she told

him to stop, sent her multiple lengthy emails, and called her multiple times); Hoover v.

State, No. 03-24-00082-CR, 2025 WL 3558574, at *17 (Tex. App.—Austin Dec. 12,

2025, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication) (distinguishing Owens and

16
concluding that appellant was not indicted for stalking based on the content of his

communications but was indicted for the unwanted and persistent nature of them;

appellant had committed threatening conduct by “sending repeated unwanted

electronic messages and making repeated unwanted phone calls”, Davidson v. State, No.

12-24-00360-CR, 2025 WL 3550581, at *14 (Tex. App.—Tyler Dec. 10, 2025, pet.

filed) (mem. op., not designated for publication) (distinguishing Owens and holding

that stalking statute was not unconstitutionally applied to appellant when she was

charged with both speech and nonspeech conduct, complainant did not immediately

contact law enforcement when appellant’s conduct began, and appellant’s conduct

continued after law enforcement told her to stop); cf. Owens, 2025 WL 1587690, at *7

(sustaining as-applied challenge because the content of appellant’s messages “drove

the prosecution” instead of “[t]he manner of the communications”; complainant

called the police on receipt of the first message—not after receipt of repeated

messages—and was immediately disturbed by the messages’ content—not merely the

manner in which they were sent—and both complainant and trial judge said appellant

would have “avoided prosecution” if he had at first expressed “a different tone or

message”).

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2. Knight’s Speech

The jury heard evidence of the content of Knight’s emails—some of which was

“of a threatening nature.” On September 29, 2022, Knight sent an email to Debi and

others stating,2

Hey asshats, you’re behind schedule and I haven’t got anything from
you . . . .

....

You ladies need to get your shit together and, make something
happen sliding me a check my way within the next 7[ ]days that[ ]makes
me happy or[ ]we[ ]have issues.

....

…I lost everything. And, i’ve got zero shits to give.

....

We are done. You’re slacking bullshitting and dodging
responsibility.

I want paid in 7 days. And it better not be insulting.

....

Tick tock asshats.

On December 30, 2022—two years after B&B towed the vehicle—Knight told

Debi and others that the

We quote Knight’s emails without correction of all the typographical or
2

grammatical errors.

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longer it goes on, the more likely my winnings just go to hiring a lot of
P.I’s to watch a LOT of peoples families with nice rewards set for
anyone of them they get put into prison . . . enough and i wipe your
entire family out of the gene pool.

I lost my family, why do you get to keep yours?

I lost my significant other, why do you get to keep yours?

I lost my peace of mind and all sense of safety, why do you get to
keep yours?

I’m getting very very done.

....

You need to decide really really fast how painful you want your
loss to be.

Knight repeated these statements in another email. Detective Bollon testified

that Knight’s stating that he would “wip[e] someone out of the gene pool” was a

threat to the email’s recipients, including Debi, to “eliminate [them] from existence.”

Detective Bollon also perceived a threat to Debi’s family in Knight’s stating, “I lost

my family. Why do you get to keep yours?”

In a subsequent email, Knight told Debi’s attorney, “I’m not gonna drop it, not

gonna let it go. I lost everything. I will destroy your entire lives over this, and I’m not

making some idle crap comment or threat. You’re out of time, you know you don’t

have shit . . . .” Detective Bollon testified that he had perceived this email as a threat

as well.

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Approximately two weeks later, Knight sent Debi and others the following

email:

I’m sick of your sorry incompetent lying sack of shit asses.

....

I’m pretty fucking done and it’s actually just going to cause you a
shit ton of grief for the rest of your life ever fucking minutes we aren’t
done with this suit and you don’t make me as happy as goddamn
possible.

Everyone is already going to be lucky to ever work anything ever
again, or their families not just imprisoned for breathing in the wrong
direction.

....

And I’ll start digging through some people’s college connections.

Let’s see who got drunk and did something stupid. Let’s see how
many of the narcissistic assholes have a grey rape . . . .

....

I absolutely will start finding everything.

And I’m going to make sure everyone knows everything about all
your worst moments . . . .

In another email sent to several people, including Debi and her attorney,

Knight referred to Debi as an “old fat half witted cunt of a cum guzzling slut.” In the

same email, he told its recipients that they “have literally chosen to die or win by

scorched fucking earth,” that “[no]ne of [them] deserve at all to even be alive,” and

that “[n]one of [them] deserve to participate in society.” He also threatened to “come

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to [their] fucking place of work and make enough attention to draw the news.” Knight

warned them, “This doesn’t just go away or get better[,] . . . and it’s definitely not

getting cheaper.”

Knight claimed that he had used software to “track” his emails so that he could

see when and how many times his emails had been opened and viewed by their

recipients. He told Debi, her attorney, and others that he had been tracking them,

which led Debi’s attorney to believe that Knight had hacked into his email account.

Concerned, Debi’s attorney hired an IT professional to investigate Knight’s claims.

In yet another email—which he sent to Debi and “a lot of [other] people,”

including local businesses, churches, and news stations—Knight told Debi that he had

used Google to learn her home address, telling her, “I know where you live.” He

included in the email a picture of her and her husband and a picture of the front of

her house. He also referred to Debi as a “stupid piece of shit cunt faced fake christain

[sic] whore”; listed his accusations against Debi and her husband; and encouraged

others in her community to take action against Debi and her husband and against

B&B, stating, “Enjoy saying hi to her around town.”

When asked if Knight’s emails had made Debi feel offended or threatened, she

stated that they had “very much so.” She had never been so disrespected or felt so

degraded. She was also afraid because Knight knew where she lived and worked. Debi

testified that Knight’s finding and sharing her home address and pictures of her and

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her house to several people had scared her and that, because of Knight, she had

feared for her and her family members’ lives.

During his testimony, Knight acknowledged that he had “targeted” Debi and

that his emails to her were “hateful.” He agreed that some of the statements he had

made in his emails—e.g., telling someone that he would erase them from the gene

pool—could be perceived as a threat but attempted to clarify that it would depend on

the “context,” though he could not “a hundred percent” recall his “stream of

thought.” Knight also agreed that his being a nuisance “[m]aybe” could have made

others feel annoyed, alarmed, and abused and that if it went on “long enough,” it

would make others feel tormented.

Balancing Knight’s First Amendment right to communicate with Debi’s privacy

rights, we conclude that the scale tipped in Debi’s favor because (1) Knight’s conduct

invaded Debi and her family’s home, (2) Debi was a captive audience and could not

avoid Knight’s conduct, and (3) Knight’s conduct invaded Debi’s substantial privacy

interest in an essentially intolerable manner. Specifically,

• Knight sent several threatening emails to Debi;

• he “targeted” Debi;

• he knew where Debi and her family lived and made sure she knew that;

• he had pictures of Debi, her husband, and their house;

• he disseminated Debi’s home address, a picture of her house, and her
and her husband’s picture to several individuals, businesses, churches,
and news stations near her home;

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• he encouraged others to take action against Debi, her husband, and
B&B;

• he emailed or called not only Debi but also her attorney and B&B,
including B&B’s employees;

• he filed multiple frivolous lawsuits against Debi and B&B;

• he filed complaints with the State Bar of Texas against Debi’s attorney
for his representing her and B&B;

• he filed complaints against B&B and Debi with the Better Business
Bureau and regulatory agencies, and Debi and her husband “had to deal
with” those complaints; and

• he continued his unwanted conduct after being instructed—at least
twice—not to contact Debi.
Debi testified that she was scared and that she felt very offended and

threatened by Knight’s conduct. He had been able to get to Debi, not just through her

email address but in other ways as well. He knew where she lived and worked. He had

physically shown up to B&B twice, and one of those times resulted in a criminal

trespass warning against him. Debi testified that because of Knight, she feared for her

life and the lives of her family members. Indeed, Knight’s conduct went beyond

merely sending a few dozen messages to “publicly accessible, commercial accounts

controlled by a willing listener.” See Owens, 2025 WL 1587690, at *7; see also Kinney v.

Barnes, 443 S.W.3d 87, 95 (Tex. 2014) (noting the “significant distinction” between

violating a person’s freedom of speech and penalizing their abuse of that freedom).

We conclude that, to the extent that the jury found Knight guilty based on the

content of his emails, the compelling state interest in protecting citizens from speech

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that invades their substantial privacy interests in the home in an essentially intolerable

manner justified the statute’s limitations on Knight’s First Amendment rights. See

Owens, 2025 WL 1587690, at *3.

Further, Knight’s threats to Debi are not protected speech because they fall

under one of the historically unprotected categories of speech—true threats. See

Counterman v. Colorado, 600 U.S. 66, 72, 143 S. Ct. 2106, 2113 (2023) (“True threats of

violence . . . lie outside the bounds of the First Amendment’s protection.”); Ex parte

Lowry, 693 S.W.3d 388, 407 (Tex. Crim. App. 2024) (listing “true threats” as a category

of speech outside the protection of the First Amendment); Webb v. State, 991 S.W.2d

408, 415 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1999, pet. ref’d) (“A threat is not

protected speech.”). A threat is a “true threat” if it is a “serious expression[] conveying

that [the] speaker means to commit an act of unlawful violence.” Counterman, 600 U.S.

at 74, 143 S. Ct. at 2114 (internal quotations omitted). This distinguishes threats from

mere jests, hyperbole, or statements that in context do not convey a real possibility of

violence. Id., 143 S. Ct. at 2114. The existence of a threat depends on ‘what the

statement conveys’ to the person on the other end.” Id., 143 S. Ct. at 2114. For a

threat to be a true threat, the defendant must also have had some understanding of

the threatening character of his statement. Id. at 73, 143 S. Ct. at 2113. For First

Amendment purposes, “a recklessness standard is enough.” Id., 143 S. Ct. at 2113.

Speech enjoys no First Amendment protection when the speaker, at a

minimum, recklessly places the recipient in fear of bodily injury or death. See

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Counterman, 600 U.S. at 73, 143 S. Ct. at 2113; Lewis v. State, 88 S.W.3d 383, 392 (Tex.

App.—Fort Worth 2002, pet. ref’d) (first citing Long v. State, 931 S.W.2d 285, 290

(Tex. Crim. App. 1996); and then citing Webb, 991 S.W.2d at 415); see also Frieling v.

State, 67 S.W.3d 462, 473 (Tex. App.—Austin 2002, pet. ref’d) (“[S]peech is not

protected by the First Amendment when it is the very vehicle of the crime itself.”).

Emails that are part of a scheme or course of conduct that places another in fear of

bodily injury are not constitutionally protected speech. Webb v. Schlagal, 530 S.W.3d

793, 805 (Tex. App.—Eastland 2017, pet. denied); see Tex. Penal Code Ann.

§ 42.072(a). Here, the jury found Knight guilty of stalking, i.e., it found him guilty of

acting at least knowingly, or with knowledge, which is a higher culpable mental state

than recklessness. See Counterman, 600 U.S. at 79, 143 S. Ct. at 2117; see also Tex. Penal

Code Ann. § 42.072(a)(1) (incorporating harassment statute); Owens, 2025 WL

1587690, at *3 (noting that the harassment statute has two parts: intent and repeated

communications in a certain manner).

Knight argues that his threats were not true threats. He asserts that his emails

must be read “in context” to understand that he was not threatening violence or

harm. But in one of his emails, Knight explicitly stated that he was not making “some

idle crap comment or threat.” In another, he indicated an understanding or even

intent to make Debi feel threatened by his statements: “I lost my peace of mind and

all sense of safety. Why do you get to keep yours?” Those statements, read in context

with the other threatening statements throughout his many emails, were not mere

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jests or hyperbole: (1) he gave Debi deadlines to do as he said and threatened that

there would be consequences for failing to meet the deadlines; (2) he said he was

going to hire private investigators to watch Debi’s family; (3) he said he was going to

“wipe [Debi’s] entire family out of the gene pool,” asking the rhetorical question, “I

lost my family. Why do you get to keep yours?”; (4) he told Debi to “decide really

really fast how painful [she] want[ed her] loss to be”; (5) he told Debi that he was

“going to cause [her] a shit ton of grief for the rest of [her] life” unless she “ma[d]e

[him] as happy as goddamn possible”; (6) he told Debi and her attorney that they did

not “deserve to even be alive” or to “participate in society”; (7) he threatened to go to

Debi’s place of work, which he already had, and “make enough attention to draw the

news”; (8) he told Debi he knew where she lived in the same email in which he

encouraged others to confront her in the community; and (9) in an email to Debi’s

attorney, he threatened, “I will destroy your entire lives over this.” In context, these

statements conveyed a real possibility of violence.

We conclude that, to the extent that the jury found Knight guilty based on the

content of his emails, Knight’s threatening statements were true threats that lie

outside the protection of the First Amendment. See Counterman, 600 U.S. at 72, 143 S.

Ct. at 2113; Lowry, 693 S.W.3d 388, 407.

We hold that the stalking statute is not unconstitutional as applied to Knight.

Accordingly, we overrule his sole point.

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IV. Conclusion

Having overruled Knight’s sole point, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.3

/s/ Wade Birdwell

Wade Birdwell
Justice

Do Not Publish
Tex. R. App. P. 47.2(b)

Delivered: March 12, 2026

3
Throughout the pendency of this appeal, Knight has filed or attempted to file
several pro se documents despite being represented by appointed appellate counsel.
On December 27, 2024, Knight filed a motion to proceed pro se. We abated the
appeal and remanded the case for the trial court to determine, among other things,
whether Knight desired to proceed pro se. At the abatement hearing, Knight
informed the trial court that he did not want to proceed pro se and that he wanted his
appointed appellate counsel to continue representing him in this appeal. After we
received the supplemental record from the trial court, we reinstated the appeal.
Knight continued to file pro se documents.

We have sent Knight three letters informing him that we would not consider
his pro se documents because there is no right to hybrid representation in this appeal,
see Turner v. State, 805 S.W.2d 423, 425 n.1 (Tex. Crim. App. 1991), and directing him
to contact his appointed appellate counsel with any questions concerning his appeal.
Knight ignored our letters and continued to file pro se documents in this appeal.
Because Knight has appointed counsel, we do not consider any of his pro se
documents. See Ex parte Cole, Nos. 02-25-00345-CR, 02-25-00346-CR, 02-25-00347-
CR, 2025 WL 3684296, at *1 n.1 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth Dec. 18, 2025, no pet.)
(mem. op., not designated for publication) (refusing to consider appellant’s pro se
request because he had appointed counsel); Pickett v. State, No. 02-19-00090-CR, 2020
WL 2073733, at *1 n.3 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth Apr. 30, 2020, pet. ref’d) (“A
defendant has no absolute right to hybrid representation; courts may ignore pro se
motions filed by defendants with appointed counsel.”).

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