A stalker, the law says, is someone who repeatedly follows or maliciously harasses another person and makes a “credible threat” intended to put that person in “reasonable fear for his or her safety.” But it doesn’t have to be a threat of violence. Not if the harasser’s unwanted words and actions are the kind that would frighten an ordinary person. That was the message Friday from a state appeals court, which published as a legal precedent its ruling upholding a San Francisco man’s stalking conviction for his relentless, decade-long pursuit of a young woman. The court said Cesar Lopez first encountered the woman at a library when she was 16
