US News
Judge dismisses charges in MySpace hoax death
Jul 2, 2009, 22:10 GMT
Los Angeles - A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a criminal case against a woman who was charged with computer fraud for signing up for a false MySpace account and using it to badger a 13- year-old girl, who later committed suicide.
Lori Drew, 50, was found guilty of three misdemeanour counts by a jury last year, but US District Court Judge George Wu granted a defence motion to dismiss the entire case.
'I dont see how the misdemeanour aspect would be constitutional,' said Wu, who argued that the vagueness of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act could be used to prosecute anyone who lied about their age when signing up for an online account. 'That is the issue I'm wrestling with at this time.'
Drew had been accused of setting up a false profile on MySpace, in which she posed as a teenage boy and flirted with Megan Meier, 13, a girl who had been arguing with Drew's own daughter. After Drew told Meier that the world would be a better place without her, Meier hanged herself in her bedroom.
Drew had faced a maximum sentence of three years and a 300,000- dollar fine.
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Older Talkback
page: 1
...there was no way she could have possibly predicted the outcome of her actions. Thank god we have a judge who understands the law.
you really have no concept, whatsoever, about right and wrong, do you, sh*t pile.
Any mother who would take part in a scheme such as that, to emotionally destroy a young girl, should just be shot. No judge, no jury, just gone. Her actions, which she actively knew would be damaging and malicious, led to the death of a young girl. It's not murder, but it's reckless, immoral, and evil behavior that is just plain wrong in so many ways I can't even describe. WTF happened to people just being somewhat decent? There were always criminals and bad people in this world, but for a mother to take part in activities like this.....it just makes me sad about where this country has gone. Human beings are no longer human it seems.
I agree that she didn't know that her actions would lead to the consequences that it did, but she certainly took on the role of tormentor of this young girl and should have to be held accountable in some way.
We could go on and on about someone doing something that they didn't know would lead to serious consequences - like a person driving recklessly and killing a passenger,etc., but they are usually made to serve a sentence of some kind, and this should be no different.
...a driver is fully aware of the consequences of their actions, and if they're intoxicated, all the more so. The state recognizes this, licenses drivers, set age limits, etc. This is, after all, why there are laws to address such offenses.
Writing crap online, not knowing anything about who may or may not be reading it, and that person, responsible for their OWN actions taking their own life, is no comparision to said reckelss driving, in any way. Honestly, I'm convinced this is just another product of our libnazi nannycare state i.e. words are to be feared.
This person, while repugnant, is certainly not culpable in the death of this person,in any way. Telling someone you'd rather see them dead is certainly in bad taste, but if it were a crime, just think of all the libnazis GW Bush could have put in jail over the last eight years.
If your family was affected by something as this, you darn well would be singing a different tune. No, this person couldn't know what her actions would cause, but they were evil and vicious and there was intent to cause harm, and if not suicide, at least mental harm. And if a person were driving recklessly, they wouldn't necessarily perceive they would cause some one's death - stupid maybe, but not definitely knowing a death was going to occur.
....how does society produce failures like yourself? What compound in the nations water robbed you of an intellect?
Your driving, child, is the result of you gaining access to a license, and in most states, this is the result of testing designed to mae SURE you understand the ramifications of your actions, ALL of which have a physical relationship to your actions.
This internet thing has a person musing online who could not possibly know what the other person would do, no matter how far your people magazine morality takes you.
Just because you're incensed at someone's actions does not make them guilty of a crime. That involves breaking some kind of law, child.
Now run along and do society the favor of NEVER serving on any kind of jury.
I have to agree with other posters,SP, your mind is shot!
at SP's drug trafficking trial. I'd vote for the death penalty. Give him his one last shot of drugs, right in the ^ss.
you're a first class A-hole!
and light some sparklers with the rest of the home residents.
...but that still does not make me wrong, either. The libnazi standard is that they, like most bigots, wish to be judge, jury, and as you can plainly see above, executioner.
Rather than codify morality, or lack of it, into law they reach into their emotions for moral guidence, a veritable psychedelic fun-house of relativist mish-mash morality. The result can plainly be seen above, a new twist with roots back to the middle ages, lighting the stake on fire to kill the wicked witches of the age they now live in.
...and I'm the one who is sick? Look at what the brain trust above is advocating: Punishment without a legal reason, judging someone by the facts they know now, but not the facts in evidence at the time...
No Thanks.
Run along, children and educate yourselves and on behalf of your elders, try doing it as soon as possible.
And you actually agree with and advocate a grown woman (apparently with a limited IQ at best) to take on the role of a boyfriend to try to torment a troubled girl, which resulted in her suicide?? You, sir, need your head examined.
...that, if you disagree with what someone is saying, and you write back what you think, you can now be punished for something you were not ever witness to or took part in. Your words, according to the stinted intellect above, somehow now make you repsonsible for the action.
Now let's ask him what it's like to be in the second grade these days.
The next drop on the slippery slope is that, by speaking, you now, somehow, become responsible for what are, soley, anothers actions. Consider the lawsuit of Judas Priest by a family who's child committed suicide after listening to the record. True, millions of others nev er killed gthemselves, but one person did and so it must be the record...right?
See where this goes?
Under this doctrine, you are now supposed to be held accountable as if those words have physical consequences.
Why is it conservatives like me are the only one's advocating for rule by law and free speech? Is it because the libnazi left only advocates for it when one of theirs is threatened? Is it relativism, run wild? Is it a deliberate appeal to the idea of the nanny state, where everyone and no one is responsible?
Go ponder that and get back to us.
Blather all you want, SP. The laws will be achanging to cover these lunatics and their computer vices.
...yep, veeery young. You can be the new poster child for the mindless automatons. Try thinking...just once. I'll admit it's a lot to ask but I still believe in people.
you are so stuck in the past, old man, it's incredible. And it's further incredible that you are able to manage a computer. Now, dust off your cobwebs and try to get with the current century. Your holier-than-thou attitude on everything and anything on this site is REALLY tiresome. And this is much nicer than most responses to your crap. What this woman did was extremely abusive with malicious intent, and I would hope she would be ostracized from any area in which she tried to settle. If this girl hadn't committed suicide, I hate to think what this woman would try to do next - murder maybe? Then everyone would be saying that they had no idea she would do something like that when maybe the signs were evident. Now, go take a nap and refresh your thinking. And WE don't care that you get back to us.
page: 1
JannJul 3rd, 2009 - 00:57:19
She should have to pay for this crime in some way.
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