Cite as: 575 U. S. ____ (2015) 17 THOMAS, J., dissenting state of intent when it comes to threat prosecutions under §875(c), primarily relying on Watts, 394 U. S. 705, and Virginia v. Black, 538 U. S. 343 (2003). Neither of those decisions, however, addresses whether the First Amendment requires a particular mental state for threat prosecutions. As Elonis admits, Watts expressly declined to address the mental state required under the First Amendment for a “true threat.” See 394 U. S., at 707–708. True, the Court in Watts noted “grave doubts” about Raganksy’s construction of “willfully” in the presidential threats stat­ ute. 394 U. S., at 707–708. But “grave doubts” do not make a holding, and that stray statement in Watts is entitled to no precedential force. If anything, Watts con­ tinued the long tradition of focusing on objective criteria in evaluating the mental requirement. See ibid. The Court’s fractured opinion in Black likewise says little about whether an intent-to-threaten requirement is constitutionally mandated here. Black concerned a Vir­ ginia cross-burning law that expressly required “ ‘an intent to intimidate a person or group of persons,’ ” 538 U. S., at 347 (quoting Va. Code Ann. §18.2–423 (1996)), and the Court thus had no occasion to decide whether such an element was necessary in threat provisions silent on the matter. Moreover, the focus of the Black decision was on the statutory presumption that “any cross burning [w]as prima facie evidence of intent to intimidate.” 538 U. S., at 347–348. A majority of the Court concluded that this presumption failed to distinguish unprotected threats from protected speech because it might allow convictions “based solely on the fact of cross burning itself,” including cross burnings in a play or at a political rally. Id., at 365– 366 (plurality opinion); id., at 386 (Souter, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part) (“The provision will thus tend to draw nonthreatening ideological expres­ sion within the ambit of the prohibition of intimidating