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Lori Drew Cyber-Bullying Trial Begins
An anonymous reader writes "The cyber-bullying trial of Lori Drew opened yesterday. She was indicted for conspiring to access and accessing MySpace illegally in order to 'further a tortious act, namely, intentional infliction of emotional distress' (PDF of the indictment). The BBC has background on the case, the NYTimes covers the opening statements, and Wired has today's testimony."
On the one hand, the federal case is rubbish. Intentionally inflicting emotional distress is so subjective of an offense as to be unconstitutional (judges have used vagueness as a reason to strike down statutes). This case is now clearly entirely one of catharsis for the community and a career opportunity for ambitious prosecutors.
Yet, I think there can be a case under state law that Lori Drew murdered Megan Meier. I looked it up before, and remember seeing that it said that if you knowingly cause someone to be killed, then you are guilty of murder, and that's a good definition of what Drew did here. With basically demonic-level of malice of forethought, prodded and goaded this girl into exposing herself emotionally to a fictitious lover, knowing full-well that she had some severe issues with depression, and then she stabbed the girl and butterflied the wound.
It's no wonder why Meier committed suicide. On some level, Drew knew what she was doing. It's already been established in previous reports that she knew all about this girl's psychological problems, and her reported behavior is that of a true predator. She can't claim innocence like "gee golly, I didn't know she very well might kill herself if I set her up for that much anguish and suggested to her that the world might be better off with out her (which Drew did suggest to her)."
Personally, I would like to have seen a state prosecutor charge her with at least second degree murder because it's a very reasonable conclusion from the evidence that Meier wouldn't have committed suicide had Drew not done what she did, and Drew had a reasonable basis to know that her actions would lead to the girl's suicide.
You jest, but leadership is what sociopaths are for.
A sociopath (aka psychopath) lacks any empathy, and is only vaguely aware of long-term consequences. They are also very highly skilled at manipulation. This makes them ideal leaders in the face of an ill-willed adversary. Unfortunately, they hurt everyone they come in contact with, so outside of a leadership job they are loathsome. I have one in the office next door to mine, and the world would be a better place if she were to depart it.
The rate at which mother nature presents us with sociopaths -- from 1% to 5%, it's hard to tell -- indicates the historical size of our tribes, assuming each tribe needs one sociopathic leader. If the birth rate of sociopaths is 2%, then our average tribe size throughout our history is 50.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
I know I've long since learned, anything that can be abused, will be abused eventually
To make an analogy for /.:
Most programmers make mistakes
Most groups of programmers make mistakes (no matter how big your group is)
These mistakes do get abused eventually. The problem is that there is no one doing 'sanity' tests on these laws and attempting to abuse them before they get made, while we have companies who do 'sanity' tests with QA and hired security consultants.
You are right, we need more sanity checks, especially for things like laws, the controlling factor of society.
Disclaimer: I am not god.
We may not be created equal
But we can be treated equal.
They are only trying to do this route because there is NO law on the books against what she did. And allowing them to bend this law to get her would set an ominous precedent.
Are we sure about that?
I know in Canada we have a "sexual interference with a minor" law, maybe Missouri has something applicable. She certainly carried on a courtship with the girl. And it's pretty obvious that Megan was interested romantically. as well, one of the topics of discussion was sex.
If Lori Drew were a guy (other than a congressman, of course), I have little doubt he'd be in jail now, and on a sex-offender registry as well. I agree that the statutes they are using are rubbish, but I wouldn't be surprised if some sex-crime statute has been violated.
At the risk of having a "what about the children" moment... The amount of callous comments here are ridiculous (not directed at P). An adult psychologically manipulated and abused a kid, and it gets responded to by blaming the kid ("she would have done it anyways..." etc.).