Lori Drew Trial Results In 3 Misdemeanor Convictions

grassy_knoll writes "As a follow up to an earlier story, the Lori Drew 'cyber-bullying' trial has resulted in misdemeanor convictions." grassy_knoll quotes from the AP story as carried by Salon: "The Los Angeles federal court jury on Wednesday rejected felony charges of accessing a computer without authorization to inflict emotional distress on young Megan Meier. However, the jury found defendant Lori Drew guilty of three counts of the lesser offense of accessing a computer without authorization. The jurors could not reach a verdict on a conspiracy count. Prosecutors said Drew violated the MySpace terms of service by conspiring with her young daughter and a business assistant to create a fictitious profile of a teen boy on the MySpace social networking site to harass Megan. Megan, who had been treated for depression, hanged herself in 2006 after receiving a message saying the world would be better without her." Adds reader gillbates: "She now faces up to 3 years in jail and $300,000 in fines — a troubling precedent for anyone who has ever registered with a website under a pseudonym."

Comments

Shit

[bluefoxlucid]

She's an asshole though.

Re:Shit

[Nursie]

Oh YOU'RE the extra pickles guy.

I always get your damn burger after I've ordered no pickles. Dammit.

Re:Shit

[cayenne8]

"She's an asshole though."

Well, but, that is not against the law...if it were, well, the prisons would be bursting at the seams even moreso than they do now..

I hope this gets tossed out on appeal. While what she did was reprehensible, this sets a dangerous precedent. You can get a misdemeanor conviction with jail time and heft fine just for joining something like myspace under false name, etc?

Even if you think she is a bitch and should get some punishment for what she did....I'd hope you would not like to have a precedent of this type of conviction that could be used against someone doing something as innocuous as joining a website under a false name....

Re:Shit

[Anonymous Coward]

Herein lies the problem with the American way of life. If someone is an asshole to you they KNOW that you cant reach over and smack them in the face.

It's why these jerks on the highways and roads, tailgaite you, cut you off, and generally put your life in danger for their convenience. If they knew that I would stop my car and kick their ass, they would not do it.

Honestly a lot of people in his world need to be smacked in the head, all the way to having the ever living crap beat out of them. If that happened more and Judges had 1/4 a brain and said," you deserved to be smacked.. you cover all court costs and his costs as well." Then the world would be far more polite and less jerkwad filled.

Yes that applies to cops too.. if a cop is an asshole, we deserve to be able to wait for him after work and kick his ass.

Re:Shit

[lysergic.acid]

Adds reader gillbates: "She now faces up to 3 years in jail and $300,000 in fines -- a troubling precedent for anyone who has ever registered with a website under a pseudonym."

how so? i register on websites with pseudonyms all the time. this does not trouble me at all (other than the fact a grown woman would conspire with her daughter to bully a neighbor's kid, especially a young girl with emotional problems).

the problem isn't with the interpretation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in this particular case. the problem is with the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act itself. this incident actually resulted in the death of a girl and was motivated by deliberate malice. a maximum (which are rarely handed out to members of privileged social groups) of 3 years in jail and $300,000 doesn't seem any more ridiculous than handing out such punishments to well-intending security experts.

i would be more disturbed by the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act being applied to non-malicious teenage hackers breaking into un-secured government networks out of curiosity. if they can be faulted for "damages" that include the time spent investigating the intrusion and fixing the pre-existing security flaws, then certainly a grown woman can be punished for causing the death of a little girl.

in any case, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act needs major reforms, and perhaps making such ridiculous laws applicable to the general population will open people's eyes.

Re:Shit

[onkelonkel]

Well, in Texas, don't they have enshrined in their legal system the doctrine of "He done needed killin"

Re:Shit

[v3lut]

Are you familiar enough with Megan's medical history, her treatment history, her symptoms and her prescribed medications and dosages to speak intelligently about them with the treating physician? If so, then you should write a paper, or at least an article on the subject.

However, if you are basing your statements off the fact that antidepressants are carelessly over-prescribed in some cases, and completely unnecessary in other cases, without knowing for fact that this was actually the case in Megan's case, then I postulate that you don't actually know enough about what was going on to blame the parents for anything.

What happened here was pretty messed up. I don't know exactly where I fall in all this, legally speaking. Morally speaking, I'm pretty clear on the subject. But to blame Megan's parents for letting her be prescribed antidepressants, without being able to speak in depth about what was being treated, how and by whom, is pretty weak. Being a parent is hard enough as it is.

Re:Shit

[644bd346996]

All that this case has shown is that seducing a child by means of a false identity for the purposes of causing emotional harm is going to get you a jury conviction. Most likely regardless of the actual charge. If Lori Drew hadn't been targeting a specific person as revenge, and if she hadn't known that the person she was seducing was a child, she probably would have gotten off pretty easily.

Re:Shit

[phulegart]

Wow... what a way to justify your own inappropriate actions... to throw out a blanket policy that Everyone has harassed someone to the point of regretting it, just so you feel better about the times that YOU did it in the past.

So, how does it feel to be wrong? I mean, you are sure that everyone here has harassed someone to a point where they might have felt bad about it. I've never done that. I know others that have never done that. This makes you wrong. Don't even bother to argue that... you said everyone. I'm part of that Everyone, and I'm here. Some of us actually take responsibility for our actions, and the words that come out of our mouths. Some of us think about what we say before we say it, and if we say biting things, we mean to be biting. I understand that this is a foreign concept to you. Don't argue that it's not a foreign concept to you either. You've already proven that you need to be reminded how much words can hurt someone. That means you forget how much words can hurt people. That means you don't always think about what you say. That means that you don't take responsibility for what you say. That means the concept of ALWAYS thinking before you speak and ALWAYS taking responsibility for your words and actions is a foreign concept.

Lori Drew knew full well what she was doing was malicious. She just thought nothing was wrong with what she was doing. She thought her actions were correct for HER and her life. She just did not put any real thought to what she was doing. She enjoyed being mean to that child, and she enjoyed making that child's life hell. Then she applied her own twisted morality to it, and thought, "Aww, what a baby... can't take the heat."

Well, this woman got off light. I say an Eye for an Eye. I say that if you want to teach people to take responsibility, you must show them that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated. Execute her. I don't really care if people think that is absurd or too harsh. If people do not fear and respect the consequences, they will continue to behave badly. Lori Drew's punishment should be so harsh that she not only never EVER wants to act that way again, but that she should spend her remaining life making amends... considering her actions already cost someone else (someone who was not fully developed enough to realize their potential and understand life) her life. Lori Drew's life should be forfeit. Ok. Maybe not Executed. Maybe a lifetime of public service helping kids with self-esteem issues.

Somewhat fitting.

[MMC Monster]

I don't think that putting her away for life is appropriate, let alone the death penalty.

That being said, I also don't like the idea of an adult conspiring to harass an emotionally unstable child (aren't they all).

This is a good decision, so long as it is upheld. 300K fine and a (relatively) short jail term is enough to ruin a life for anyone not upper class, and will likely act as a deterrent to others that think that conspiring to harass someone online is just fun and games.

Now mod me to oblivion.

Re:Somewhat fitting.

[_Sprocket_]

True. But where were her parents? Pretty sad the girl lived in a household where she couldn't talk to her folks about what was going on.

I'm usually on the side of parents taking responsibility for the welfare of their children. It bothers me to no end when parents seem to think others should assume that responsibility. However, I'm not so sure this is one of those situations.

From the Wired blog:

Then on October 15, Josh sent Megan a message saying that he didn't want to be friends anymore. The next day, Josh told her he'd heard she wasn't nice to her friends, and that's why he wanted to sever their ties.

Megan became upset and Meier, who had to leave the house to take her other daughter to an orthodontist appointment, told Megan to shut down the computer. Megan didn't do as she was told, however, and got embroiled in an electronic brawl when at least two other people began attacking her online, culminating in the final message from "Josh".

When Meier came home she found Megan still online and in tears. When she appealed to her mother for support, Meier chastised her for being on the computer when she'd been instructed to shut it down, and suggested that Megan had brought some of the attacks on herself by continuing to communicate with her attackers.

Megan, in mental anguish at this point, told her mother, "You're supposed to be my mom. You're supposed to be on my side."

Thirty minutes later, Megan hanged herself, Meier testified.

I'm sure the mother wishes she could have had that moment back; handled it differently. However, this certainly doesn't seem like a case of an inattentive parent who didn't communicate with their children.

Re:Say what?

[91degrees]

No. It was about the charge as written.

If she was guilty of psychological stalking (which she was) she should have been charged with stalking. This is a clear misapplication of the law.

Re:It's far more troubling...

[Dog-Cow]

All that means is that the law is wrong. Goading someone into killing themselves is murder.

I have no idea why you brought up anarchy. I am advocating that we change our Justice system to actually mete out justice. That doesn't sound like anarchy to me.

It is not justice to allow a murderer to go free. Technicalities are not justice.

In your world, pushing someone off a cliff is OK because you didn't kill them. After all, is it your fault they hit the ground?

Re:Precedent

[LaskoVortex]

Owning a crowbar is not a crime. Using it to bash in the skull of your neighbor is a major felony. Likewise, it isn't illegal to have a pseudonym.

But using your pseudonym to bash in the skull of your neighbor is a major no no.

Re:It's far more troubling...

[Free the Cowards]

That's an interesting interpretation of the law or morality but I don't think you'll find that it matches the real world even a little bit.

Forget to feed your baby and he cries a lot and shrugs it off: no consequences.

Forget to feed your baby and he dies: you go to prison for a very long time.

Go 25MPH over the speed limit and get caught by a cop: expensive speeding ticket.

Go 25MPH over the speed limit and kill a van full of girl scouts: you go to prison for a very long time.

Plan to kill somebody and screw it up: go to prison for a little while.

Plan to kill somebody and succeed: get the chair.

Need I go on? Outcomes matter.

Re:let this be a warning...

[jcr]

Still...is that against the law??

I'm not sure. I know some countries have laws against inducement to suicide, I'd have to ask an attorney whether any US states do.

Seems to me that justice would have been better served here if someone had just beaten the crap out of Lori Drew, and gotten acquitted for it due to extenuating circumstances.

-jcr

Re:"He Needed Killing"

[jcr]

Are you sure of that? Last I heard, you could still introduce evidence against the character of the deceased in pursuing a justifiable homicide defense in Texas.

-jcr