--- old/src/hotspot/share/runtime/threadSMR.cpp	2018-04-02 10:09:38.000000000 -0400
+++ new/src/hotspot/share/runtime/threadSMR.cpp	2018-04-02 10:09:37.000000000 -0400
@@ -580,6 +580,8 @@
 // the Thread-SMR protocol.
 void ThreadsSMRSupport::verify_hazard_pointer_scanned(Thread *self, ThreadsList *threads) {
 #ifdef ASSERT
+  assert(threads != NULL, "threads must not be NULL");
+
   // The closure will attempt to verify that the calling thread can
   // be found by threads_do() on the specified ThreadsList. If it
   // is successful, then the specified ThreadsList was acquired as