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Teenage League of Legends Player Jailed For Months For Facebook Joke

Posted by Soulskill on from the a-very-unwise-joke dept.

Kohath writes "Eighteen-year-old Justin Carter of Austin, Texas was arguing with a friend on Facebook about League of Legends back in February. After being called 'insane,' he responded with 'Oh yeah, I'm real messed up in the head, I'm going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts.' Below that, he wrote 'lol' and 'jk.' He was arrested March 27, 2013 and has been in jail since that time. A hearing to review his case is scheduled for July 1, 2013. His parents have launched a change.org petition to convince the authorities to release their son."

41 of 743 comments (clear)

  1. So much for... by cayenne8 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    ...freedom of speech.

    He wasn't actually making a direct threat at any place or thing...just shooting off his mouth.

    Sad that you can be arrested for just a general saying of something.

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    1. Re:So much for... by ganjadude · · Score: 5, Insightful

      thought crimes?? I mean seriously everyone knows that if you are going to do something stupid like that, you dont post about it, you dont joke about it, you just do it. Its never the ones who say things like that you need to worry about its the ones who are silent to watch out for.

      Im most likely moving to austin in the next few months, not a fan of hearing this though

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    2. Re:So much for... by jellomizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes Freedom is more important than general safety.

      When the government says you can't have or do X because it is unsafe. It allows them to take the next step and say the next thing is unsafe and you shouldn't do it.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    3. Re:So much for... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It happened countless times. It shouldn't count as a fallacy anymore.

    4. Re:So much for... by Penguinisto · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And yet he is still allowed to own guns... Because that freedom is so much more important

      Flamebait, but I'll bite:

      If he made a joke about drunk driving, do you think his driving privileges should be permanently revoked too?

      There's a *huge* difference between a credible threat leveled at a specific target, and just farting around. If you cannot tell the difference, kindly stop your internet service, burn your computer, and cancel your TV/cable/sat subscription.

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    5. Re:So much for... by h4rr4r · · Score: 4, Informative

      Can we take them away just because he is a teenager?

      We have the drinking age and driving age totally backwards in this country.

    6. Re:So much for... by Antipater · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Freedom of speech does not absolve one from responsibility for the consequences of the speech in question.

      Depends on what consequences you're talking about.
      People around you thinking you're an asshole and never talking to you again? No, it doesn't protect you from that.
      Getting arrested and jailed? Yes, in fact, it does protect you from that; that's the entire meaning of the term.

      --
      Everything is better with chainsaws.
    7. Re:So much for... by vidnet · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In a Twilight Zone revelation, the authorities do exactly what the people want them to do.

      They're showing a "tough and uncompromising stance on terror" which gets you public support. What if? Think of the children! (except the ones you jail, obviously). If he did happen to have something they could pin on him, they've "stopped a terrorist", gaining more public support.

      If they had done nothing and nothing happened, no one would have cared either way. If they had done nothing and something happened, there would be public outrage, mass firing and countless inquisitions.

      Arresting him was the logical thing.

    8. Re:So much for... by magarity · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And yet he is still allowed to own guns... Because that freedom is so much more important

      Both freedom of speech and freedom to bear arms are explicitly enumerated in the constitution so what's your point, exactly? Other than his free speech is being trampled upon?

    9. Re:So much for... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      You cited the wrong section. This is what you should have cited: imminent lawless action. There are three parts of the test:
      intent, imminence, and likelihood.

      If you say "Jews should be killed", it doesn't imply imminence. If you say "Let's go put some Jews in gas chambers", it doesn't have likelihood. And if you say "It would be funny if y'all went and lynched a Jew" it wouldn't have intent.

      For the Facebook post, it didn't have likelihood or any real intent (it was a joke). The imminence of it could be argued. In any case, it fails the test and his speech is protected.

    10. Re:So much for... by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "the public invariably crucifies them for failing to follow up"

      Two wrongs don't make a right...

      --
      People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
    11. Re:So much for... by gnick · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm curious as to what 'crime' he made by expressing himself this way.

      I think the problem is a little more complicated than that.
      1) Somebody got a phone call from an idiot saying that they believed someone was making a threat.
      2) This person realizes that there is no threat, BUT, if the kid for some unrelated reason commits some act of violence and the media finds out that a warning was ignored, they'll have a field day and the person will be crucified.
      3) So, the person who received the phone call passes along the fact that they got it and it's in somebody else's lap who, using the same logic, feels the need to at least make a show of taking some sort of action.
      4) Spirals out of control and we get a ridiculous arrest over a stupid, but innocent, sarcastic comment.

      Welcome to the modern age...

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    12. Re:So much for... by SecurityTheatre · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The public is wrong for crucifying them for not arresting the 50,000 or so teenagers who, each month, make a crass joke about violence on the Internet.

      That doesn't make them justified to arrest this kid, unless we're seriously short on information and he was clear that he owned a bunch of guns and planned to use them.

      I don't have a problem if this anonymous Canadian lady perhaps called his parents and told them... nosy as hell, but not life destroying.

      But phoning police is absurd.

    13. Re:So much for... by SJHiIlman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      and I am also free to take the consequences of my action.

      Then countries such as North Korea must have as much freedom of speech as the US... but there are consequences for exercising the right. That's all. Just consequences.

    14. Re:So much for... by PRMan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Nope, just in jail for 4½ months for making a joke post immediately followed by LOL JK. But no sentence...

      --
      Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
    15. Re:So much for... by charles2678 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Sure there are stats showing how many lives have been saved from seatbelts and helmet laws, I don't have any cause to disbelieve them.

      Actually, there is good reason to disbelieve that bicycle helmet laws (as distinct from motorcycle helmet laws) have a beneficial effect: Simply put, the desired effect doesn't show up on country-level statistics after these laws have been implemented.

      One of the more plausible explanations for this related to its interaction with the safety-in-numbers effect: The more cyclists are on the roads, the more motorists are watching for them. Requiring helmets reduces the number of cyclists on the road on a scale reaching towards 50%, both directly from inconvenience and vanity, and less directly by making cycling seem so unsafe that it needs to be regulated... but by making cycling seem unsafe, it thus becomes actually unsafe: Every time the cyclist population doubles, the per-person accident rate drops by about 1/3rd.

      So -- cut the cyclist population in half with a helmet law, and you reduce the safety-in-numbers effect enough to entirely lose what little you gained. And that's presuming that people are actually wearing appropriately sized and fitted helmets correctly -- there's no shortage of studies showing that the percentage of people doing so in areas where helmet usage is mandatory is in effect is low enough that the beneficial side of the law is of little help as well.

      There are other reasons to be skeptical of bicycle helmets -- motorists are measurably more careless when driving near a cyclist with a visible helmet, and the risk compensation effect (in which a helmeted cyclist behaves more recklessly on the belief that they're safer) is clearly a factor as well. Me? I wear a helmet when I ride anywhere with traffic (it's where my mirror and headlight are mounted)... but I'm vehemently opposed to any attempts to make the practice mandatory.

      [And another addendum, to be fair -- there's some new work on helmets that effectively dampen rotational inertia; if those actually make it to market, something which has been effectively suppressed in the US by manufacturers having no incentive to exceed CSPC regulations, I might want to review parts of my position -- they've been shown to be quite effective at preventing concussions, which widely available bicycle helmets don't do].

      Oh -- and about seatbelts: There's no question that they make folks who are belted in safer. However, it's also well-established that they make people who aren't belted in -- such as pedestrians -- less safe: Drivers behave more recklessly when they feel secure, and seat belts and anti-lock brakes provide such security.

    16. Re:So much for... by interkin3tic · · Score: 4, Insightful

      the public invariably crucifies them for failing to follow up on the warning signs

      Do they really? I see exponentially more outrage at the war on drugs, the patriot act, PRISM and TSA than I do at law enforcement letting the odd criminal slip by. Law enforcement seems to withstand YEARS of complaints about racial profiling and jail for nonviolent offenders, yet they have to utterly destroy this teenager because they might be questioned if he were to have done something?

      Lets not make excuses for them. They crushed him like a bug for a trifling offense because they could.

    17. Re:So much for... by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly. Makes this whole mess even more offensive to justice.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    18. Re:So much for... by Applekid · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Right, so the slippery slope in the gun control debate is that the constitution only allows for a well-trained militia to keep their guns, but gun-owners have forced it to become anybody's right regardless of training or participation in a militia. The government is trying to go back up the slope (with mandatory ID and criminal record checks), but they just keep sliding back down.

      No, the constitution recognizes the need for a regulated militia and the right of the people. Otherwise:

      1. It would be self contradictory, since regulating your militia is, in turn, regulating arms, which the text says shall not be infringed
      2. It wouldn't be located next to the third amendment, which also puts the freedom of the people over soldiers of the union
      3. It would be unique, as the fifth amendment also refer to the militia as external to the people
      4. It would be misplaced, as rights specifically granted to a government entity (states) that wasn't already addressed in the articles is all the way in the back at amendment ten
      5. It would be redundant, since the military is already presumed to exist as in Article 2

      Anyone can argue whether they like it or not, but the fact is the second amendment, quite clearly, refers to the right of the people. Anyone claiming otherwise is mistaken at best and selectively manipulative at worst.

      --
      More Twoson than Cupertino
  2. Sarcasm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    A teenager being sarcastic? No way that *never* happens.

    1. Re:Sarcasm by intermodal · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is just the perfect thread to remind everyone that text has no tone. And a perfect time to remind everyone that we need to stop letting this kind of nonsense by law enforcement go unchallenged. There's nothing about that statement that implies seriousness, and in fact the eating of hearts makes it even more obvious that there is nothing to justify what they've done here.

      --
      In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
  3. Oh, Canada... by CanHasDIY · · Score: 5, Funny

    The statements “lol” and “jk” — meaning “laughing out loud” and “just kidding” — indicate that Justin’s statement was entirely sarcastic, said his father.

    But a Canadian woman who saw the post looked up Carter’s Austin address, determined that it was near an elementary school, and called the police.

    Fucking Canadians...

    --
    An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    1. Re:Oh, Canada... by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What she did was stupid, and the result of being a nosey busybody, none of which is unusual. What the authorities have done is madness and dangerous.

    2. Re:Oh, Canada... by sjames · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's something this particular American and many more here on /. regularly call for an end to.

  4. Uhhh what? by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A Change.org petition? Do people still think those have any relevance to the people they petition? Has a Change.org petition ever had any meaningful effect?

  5. Appropriate response by Ice+Tiger · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Your tax dollars at work here people.

    --
    "Because we are not employing at entry level, offshoring will kill our industry stone dead."
  6. Old News?? by randomuser2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The real shame here is that we're hearing about this now, after the kid's been in jail for 3 months. WTF?

  7. Ugh, this is disgusting. by Yosho · · Score: 5, Funny

    Really, how could he get away with saying something like this:

    eat their still, beating hearts.

    That is entirely the wrong place to put a comma. How could a heart be both still and beating? If you really have to have some kind of punctuation there, "still-beating heart" would be acceptable.

    --
    Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
    1. Re:Ugh, this is disgusting. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      The article doesn't mention it, but this is actually why he is in prison.

    2. Re:Ugh, this is disgusting. by Megane · · Score: 4, Funny

      (Scene: prison cafeteria)
      "So kid, what are you in here for?"
      "I spelled lose with two 'o's."
      (everyone at the table moves away a few inches)

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
  8. his crime? by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Informative

    In case anyone wonders what crime he could be accused of with those words, from the article: "Authorities charged him with making a terrorist threat. If convicted, he will face eight years in prison."

    I also found this bit from the article hilarious: "“Justin was the kind of kid who didn’t read the newspaper,” said [father] Jack Carter. “He didn’t watch television. He wasn’t aware of current events. These kids, they don’t realize what they’re doing. They don’t understand the implications. They don’t understand.”

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    1. Re:his crime? by Andrio · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "Authorities charged him with making a terrorist threat. If convicted, he will face eight years in prison."

      Greetings, humans. I am a traveler from another world, trying to study your civilization. You humans are a strange race. In all my travels I've never seen a single race capable of such altruism and beauty as humans. And yet, conversely, I've also never seen a race capable of such evil and ugliness. One wonders your future: will both sides even out, resulting in mediocrity? Or will one side triumph out over the other, either blessing--or cursing--the entire galaxy and all life as a whole?

      Such a peculiar species.

      Another mystery, which has been solved just now, was the bizarre and disproportionate punishments and reactions to certain speech, such as this pre-adult being arrested for an obviously ficticious statement of no malicious intent. But I understand now! If something gets labeled "terrorism", then regular laws and common sense do not apply! Authority figures are allowed to do anything they want, arrest anyone they want, or attack anyone they want. All that is needed is the "terrorist" label.

      I don't see the sense in this personally. In fact, it seems awfully silly. But then again, it's your civilization--you should be free to explore your own destiny. I'm just here to observe. (This statement won't be interpreted as terrorism will it?).

      --
      The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
  9. Re:Teens and their thousands of Facebook "friends" by Synerg1y · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The teen's stupid, the woman's human waste, and... the authorities don't know what jk means. When he gets out I hope they sue for 1st amendment rights violations. Whoever issued that warrant is the real monster here.

  10. Alec Baldwin by transporter_ii · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Contrast that to Alec Baldwin, who was making a direct threat: Alec Baldwin Melts Down On Twitter, Threatens To 'F*ck Up' Reporter

    http://gawker.com/alec-baldwin-melts-down-on-twitter-threatens-to-fuck-604856776

    I wonder if the rich still have their rights?

    --
    Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
  11. Sad by space_jake · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Land of the sensational, home of the afraid.

  12. Re:Teenager? by Microlith · · Score: 5, Interesting

    a fully functional member of society, who should be a little more responsible with words.

    Yes, he should know when not to say the bad things! You might not know what they are, so be careful and keep your mouth shut!

    Especially when those words are are direct threat to health and lives of others.

    Except it wasn't a direct threat.

    In any case, "j/k" and "lol" does not excuse a sociopath

    He's a sociopath, huh? How'd you figure that one out?

    nor does it guarantee that a mentally ill person will not actually act upon the threat.

    And now he's mentally ill?

    Aside from that, we don't know all the circumstances of the case (except for what one side with vested interest tells us).

    Hasn't stopped you from casting judgement.

    Perhaps such threat does really exist.

    Therefore no amount of abusive, oppressive investigation and imprisonment is too much!

  13. How can you say that?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Fallacy: Slippery slope argument.

    How can you say that considering all the bullshit coming out of Washington, DC lately? The government always abusing their power? The NSA was able to get away with it for so long because of abuse of the PATRIOT Act. The TSA is constantly going way beyond their original purpose.

    The Slippery Slope argument is not only true but it is a fact.

    Actually, I can't think of when it's NOT true.

  14. Total cop out by brunes69 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, they are MOST CERTAINLY NOT "damned if they do and damned f they don't". There is a big difference between doing an ACTUAL INVESTIGATION, and arresting someone without any critical thought or due process.

    If any actual critical thinking was applied here, this kid would not be arrested.

    No one has a problem with the police investigating threats. They are not "damned if they do". The problem starts when they just go off arresting people without any thoughts on if, you know, they actually meant whatever was being written.

    1. Re:Total cop out by void* · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "They have a responsibility to arrest him and see what his intentions were" is one of the scariest statements I've read in this thread.

      --


      Code or be coded.
  15. Charged with "making terroristic threat" by wile_e_wonka · · Score: 4, Informative

    For once I actually RTFA, because I couldn't think of a crime this kid could have been charged with. He is charged with "making a terroristic threat."

    Then I wondered what that means, feeling a bit surprised that this kid's actions could be interpreted as a terroristic threat (though, I think we can all agree that sometimes summaries on /. and descriptions in news can be innaccurate, which may very well be the case here), so I found this summary of the common elements of the crime of "making a terroristic threat":

    http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/making-a-terrorist-threat.html

    Basically, my conclusion is that, yes, we should all be afraid--This is getting into "thought crime" territory.

  16. Why is subject denied bail? by ChromaticDragon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why is this chap still in jail?

    I've read the articles. Maybe my Google-Fu is weak today. But I cannot find anything that explicitly states why either he was denied bail or the bail was set ludicrously high.

    Having to go to court for this is silly enough. But did a judge seriously deem this teen so much a threat as to deny him bail? I'd really like to know because it would seem to me a judge is who should have added some sanity to this issue.