Court affirms conviction of teen who made school shooting threat in therapy

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- The state Supreme Court has affirmed the conviction of a teen who had told his therapist that he thought about taking a gun to school to shoot students who had teased him.

In an 8-1 ruling issued Thursday, the court rejected arguments that a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court last year dealing with threats made on social media had any impact on the state court's 'reasonable person' standards for what constitutes a true threat.

The defendant, identified only as Trey M., was a student at Naches Valley High School when he made the comments to his therapist in October 2014, saying he wanted to kill three boys at the school so that they would know the pain he felt.

The therapist notified law enforcement, to whom Trey repeated his intentions.

He was ultimately convicted of three counts of felony harassment and was sentenced to probation with several conditions, including mental health treatment.