You may recall that this is the case in which our coblogger Orin Kerr (currently on leave from the blog because of his temporary government position) participated; he has written the leading law review article on the statute involved. Here's a brief excerpt from an L.A. Times blog:
A federal judge tentatively decided today to dismiss the case against a Missouri woman who had been convicted of computer fraud stemming from an Internet hoax that prompted a teenage girl to commit suicide.
Lori Drew of Dardenne Prairie, Mo., was convicted in November of three misdemeanor counts of illegally accessing a protected computer.
The decision by U.S. District Judge George H. Wu will not become final until his written ruling is filed, probably next week. Wu said he was concerned that if Drew was found guilty of violating the terms of service in using MySpace, anyone who violated the terms could be convicted of a crime....
Drew 50, was to be sentenced in May but Wu had delayed the sentencing until today, saying he wanted to consider the defense motion to dismiss the entire case.
A federal jury convicted Drew in November of the three misdemeanor charges but deadlocked on a felony conspiracy charge that would have carried a sentence of up to 20 years in prison....
Orin's detailed post on the subject -- from before he decided to work on the case -- is here; it's very much worth reading.
All Related Posts (on one page) | Some Related Posts:
- Judge Tentatively Dismisses Charges Against Lori Drew:
- Judge Wu Reschedules Sentencing in Lori Drew Case to July, Leaves Motion to Dismiss Undecided:
- Additional Sentencing Briefs in Lori Drew Case:...
- Lori Drew Update:
- Pro Bono Defense in United States v. Lori Drew:
- The MySpace Suicide Indictment -- And Why It Should Be Dismissed:
Why? There wasn't much doubt that she committed the acts alleged to be criminal, and she hardly comes off as likable. Do you think that the judge expected the jury to reject the applicability of the law?
He nailed it at the outset.
[sing song]judicial activism[/sing song]
No, it could have happened to a nicer woman, but instead it happened to this one. :)
Judge Wu is brilliant and a fine, fine man, and fair and decent besides.
However, occasionally his level of indecision makes Hamlet look like a pathologically impulsive tweaker on six cups of coffee.
Lior:
IANAL, but my understanding is that if the judge rules this way NOW, the appeals court can review the case, and if necessary, re-instate the conviction. If he ruled this way before the verdict, it might be harder for the appellate court to overturn his ruling.
However, the fact that this took six months to decide from the verdict is..... strange.....
What I am troubled by is the rush to pass cyberbullying laws without regard to legitimate first amendment concerns in the wake of this case, though.
Don't you care about the children?
Indeed, this suggests an additional downside to the criminal proceeding against her: the money that she has spent on her defense is money that could go to the Meirs in a civil judgment.
Absolutely. I want them to grow up in a free country ruled by laws rather than by men.
Isn't that what this is about? ;-)
No. If one is that unstable, Darwin awaits.
No. If one is that unstable, Darwin awaits."
"Unstable" pretty much describes a 13-yr-old girl. You don't have any daughters, do you?
It is not that I disagree with you as far as you go, but it seems to me that once one starts down the road of saying that "she committed suicide, so the behavior that led to it MUST be criminal" then we depart fundamentally from the ideas of rule of law and free society.
I think the line on criminal sanctions for cyberbullying ought to be drawn at the point where the behavior continues after the victim tries to cut off contact. In the case where one is duped into a point where hurtful words are exchanged, there is no crime if the victim continues to remain in the situation by his/her own decisions. Otherwise we gut the first and fourth amendments.
So if instead of committing suicide, the girl had gone into school and shot a bunch of students, you'd blame this woman for that, too?
Considering that Tina Meier is arguably as responsible as Lori Drew for Megan's suicide I really don't see a problem with this. Not that the Drews had much in the way of assets, anyway.
I don't think we're saying that any behavior leading to suicide must be criminal. If Drew had said "stay away from my daughter you little bitch" and Megan had committed suicide, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Drew took action over a period of time, action that required some effort on her part, to inflict as much emotional suffering as she could on an immature child. There is no civil right that I want to have that is protected by allowing this.
The problem with what you say is that it is entirely applicable to adults. It absolutely is not to 13-year-olds. You can't really expect a 13-year-old to act the way you would in a given situation. You wouldn't act the way a 13-year-old would, would you? Do you swoon over boy bands and paint your toenails pink and purple? Look at Romeo and Juliet, for pete's sake - the story wouldn't have worked if it had been about 40-yr-olds.
As I said, appropriate for a civil suit (intentional inflection of emotional distress), not a criminal case.
Also it is not as if Drew told Megan, "The world would be better off without you." According to trial testimony, Ashley Grills admitted to what are arguably the most cruel parts of the hoax. But although both were adults, the older one goes to jail just because of some ideas of command responsibility?
Yet, I have yet to hear the same concern about Ms Grills behavior (sending the most cruel of the messages). Ms Grills was an adult at the time too. But evidently you think the law should go harder on Drew just because she was 40 and Grills was 18?
Umm.... I was thinking primarily of intentional infliction of emotional distress, which has many of these problems but has a well defined body of law limiting these problems. After all, that is what is the substance of the accusations, right? That Drew masterminded a plan to cause emotional distress to Meier, right?
These aren't problems our courts haven't been dealing with for a long time. However, I am not at all sure which way a jury would rule in a civil case given the fact that they acquitted her of the tortuous side of this in criminal court. I suspect that the Meier family would find such judgements to be unsatisfying because Drew's finding would be made less severe by Grill's admissions, and Grills would be hard to prosecute because she was only 18 at the time.
There is some precedent for "command responsibility" as you call it. But mainly, this thing is about Lori Drew and what happens to her. Throw the book at Grills too, I won't stop you.
The news says the prosecutor, O'Brien, may appeal Judge Wu's decision, so I'm still waiting and seeing.
Other than that, there is nothing to be glad about in this case. An evil person walks and goes on TV to brag about her innocence, although her actions were the opposite of innocent. Some posters here seem unaware of the long-standing rule of a principal being liable for the acts of her agent (such as an employee) and argue that this evil person should also have no civil liability.
As to why the judge didn't rule prior to the conviction, when the fallacies in the legal theory were so obvious? An old legal maxim: hard cases make bad law. Lori Drew is a reprehensible person. Who would want to acquit her of her bad acts?
As I said, I'm glad for the judge's ruling, but I wouldn't have minded if Drew had served her entire term in prison before he made it.
Well, you missed my point.... Command Responsibility, properly called, only exists where one is directly in control of another's actions and generally fails to discipline where appropriate. This usually comes up in war crimes trials because failure to punish war crimes can make commanders accessories to those crimes.
However, this case is very different. If Lori was not a conspirator (jury acquitted her of those charges except one that they deadlocked on), and if she did not seek to use this sort of account specifically to cause emotional harm to Megan (jury flat-out acquitted her of all charges here), then I can't see how one could hold her responsible MERELY due to her age made her somehow in control of the others involved.
Sure. Of course in this case, the question is whether Ms Grills was acting specifically as Drew's agent, whether the discussions were merely brainstorming sessions, etc. and whether Drew can rightly be called a conspirator in these cases.
I do not think that simplistic arguments over liability get one very far esp. since the jury acquitted Drew of the felony charges (breaking in to the computer with a tortuous intent). I am not at all sure that agency/principle relationship here is strong enough.
Presumably, the judge wanted to see what the jury would do--if they acquitted (as they did on the felony count), then he didn't need to make a thorny legal decision, and the case would not be appealable.
A pretrial dismissal would have guaranteed an appeal by the prosecution.
Criminal motions to dismiss are considerably more infrequently granted than civil ones, as double jeopardy prevents an appeal of an acquittal, so judges tend to let cases go the jury more.
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