Whether petitioner's letter constitutes protected speech or a true threat

QUESTION PRESENTED Whether the petitioner, a senior African American prisoner complaining about systemic racism in a letter he mailed to the governor of Massachusetts at the Massachusetts State House, in which he averred he could “expose” the governor, his family, and prison officials as racists, may be punished by prison officials with solitary confinement, for making a “true threat,” when he was in fact engaging in protected speech and petitioning under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.