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Woman Indicted In MySpace Suicide Case
Posted by
Soulskill
on Fri May 16, 2008 02:48 AM
from the eye-for-an-eye dept.
from the eye-for-an-eye dept.
longacre writes "The Associated Press is reporting an indictment has been handed down in the sad case of Megan Meier, the girl who committed suicide after receiving upsetting MySpace messages from someone she perceived to be her boyfriend. It was later determined the boy, Josh Evans, was a fictitious identity created by a neighbor of Meier's family. Lori Drew, of a St. Louis suburb, has been charged with 'one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to get information used to inflict emotional distress on the girl.' Interestingly, despite the alleged crime having occurred strictly in Missouri, the case was investigated by the FBI's St. Louis and Los Angeles field offices, and the trial will be held in Los Angeles, home of MySpace's servers. Wired is running a related story about the potentially 'scary' precedent this case could set."
Related Stories
[+]
News: MySpace Suicide Charges Threaten Free Speech 687 comments
Naturalist recommends a piece up at Ars about a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the EFF, CDT, Public Citizen, and a group of 14 law professors in the case of Lori Drew, who posed as a teenage boy to harass another teen online, eventually driving her to suicide. (We've discussed the case a few times.) "[The amicus brief argues] that violating MySpace's Terms of Service agreement shouldn't be considered criminal offense under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The groups believe that if the mother, Lori Drew, is prosecuted using CFAA charges, the case could have significant ramifications for the free speech rights of US citizens using the Internet."
[+]
News: Lori Drew Cyber-Bullying Trial Begins 317 comments
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."
[+]
Judge Tentatively Dismisses Case Against Lori Drew 420 comments
An anonymous reader writes "According to Wired, 'A federal judge on Thursday overturned guilty verdicts against Lori Drew, and issued a directed acquittal on the three misdemeanor charges.'" A similar story in the L.A. Times notes that "The decision by US District Judge George H. Wu will not become final until his written ruling is filed, probably next week." Update: 07/02 21:15 GMT by T : For those not following, Lori Drew's three convictions sprang from charges of online harassment of Megan Meier, a Missouri teenager whose suicide was linked to Drew's actions.
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"Emotional Distress" (Score:5, Funny)
Back To Reality (Score:5, Insightful)
Then again, maybe kids today are far too sensitive.
Re:Back To Reality (Score:5, Insightful)
This was an emotionally abused kid who, because of various problems, was unable to make friends at school. Haven't most Slashdotters been there? Then, she turns to someone online in search of companionship. That person, for months, is her best -- and only -- friend in all the world, commiserating with her, sharing her deepest, darkest fears, and generally being with her in a way that her parents (for all their good intentions) can't be.
Then, in the blink of an eye, it's all taken away. The friend is revealed to be someone malicious, someone manipulative enough to string out this child for months at a time before pulling the rug out from under her. She's now left alone, with no one to turn to. I've never (thank God) been that alone in my life, but reading her story makes me understand school shooters all the more. Eventually, she reached a point where the only thing left to do was escape -- permanently.
This isn't a suicide issue. It's an abuse issue. There would be no suicide in this case without the willful, malicious intent to construct a false friendship created by a knowing adult. There was no reason for it. This was murder, plain and simple. Who knows what Ms. Meier might have done with her life. She could've become a doctor, a pilot, or even a Slashdotter. But we'll never know.
Parent
Re:Back To Reality (Score:5, Insightful)
Then again the woman in question _CANNOT_ be allowed to get away with what she's done. I'm sure that there is mental health legislation that can be used to put her out of circulation for a very long time. The fact that the prosecutors in the state where this happened decided that they couldn't chase this speaks more about their competance than anything else.
This woman deliberately waged a premeditated campaign of psychological violence against a vulnerable child that ended in her suicide and they think that there is no reasonable chance of successful prosecution? What rock did they find these incompetant idiots under...?
Parent
Re:Back To Reality (Score:5, Insightful)
Genuine question. Why not?
I was on the receiving end of a somewhat similar attempt to drive me to suicide when I was in my teens. It's far too long to explain on slashdot, but I had a middle-aged guy threatening and abusing me, while convincing others that my mental illness was making me delusional. (It wasn't, I'm a neurotic, not a psychotic.) I did much later find out that it was deliberate. After he died, one of his friends admitted to being a bit disturbed about "the time they made that freak off himself". (I aten't dead. But I did basically just walk out of the city and become homeless for a while.)
One thing I have carried with me ever since then is the utter certainty on the part of everyone who knew about it that he had no responsibility for what he did whatsoever. As long as the violence was mental, and not physical, all the responsibility was mine.
What I have carried away from that, is that the human race is a cold and savage race. I can count the number of friends I have on one hand without using binary. Only when I am alone am I safe.
Nonetheless, I have never been able to find any convincing argument why someone is responsible for the way another person reacts to their behaviour. Every argument I've ever presented as to why what was done to me might be wrong has been shot down.
So, on a personal level, I'd like to see one of these self-centered bitches face some consequences for what they've done. I just think that the only reason it's happening is because there was a media frenzy manipulating people into it, not because people believe there was anything inherently wrong with what she did.
Parent
Re:Back To Reality (Score:5, Insightful)
Trust me, I know what I'm talking about - after suffering horrific bullying at high school I went through a phase for about 4 years where I withdrew to the point that the only people I talked to were my family and only them if they badgered me into actually interacting with them.
Parent
this is not trolling what she did (Score:5, Insightful)
1. its anonymous, not personal
2. its temporary and short
3. its done amongst a group of equally aged and emotionally mature people
4. the target is a crowd of people, a community, not a single person
what this evil woman did is more like stalking: purposefully targetting and manipulating one person over an extended period of time
furthermore, most disgusting, this was the actions of an adult against a child. there is no understanding of trolling that assumes that an adult is picking on children
and to go even further into disgust, the adult KNEW the child had emotional and suicidal issues when she set about this plan of decpetion and emotional manipulation
so this case cannot set a precedent against trolling
it can only set a precedent for:
1. prolonged one-on-one stalking
2. manipulating the emotions of a minor
3. manipulating the emotions of someone you know to be suicidal or otherwise emotionally fragile
all of which, in fact, deserve to made criminal
this is not just trolling, what this evil woman did
Parent
A few thoughts... (Score:5, Insightful)
What if Josh Evans really existed, and was true to what was spoken? Because then it would be a freedom of speech issue.
Parent
Re:Back To Reality (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't kill myself. But the girl in question did. And, since the villain here was her next-door neighbour who apparently knew her quite well, it is reasonable to expect her to know that the reaction in this case might be quite extreme. In fact she propably knew it, for why else would she had spent months setting the whole thing up ? You don't spend that kind of time if you think that the subject of your malice is going to shrug her shoulders and move on.
Yes, I think it's reasonable to say that she did indeed murder Megan. She deliberately set up as nasty and vicious blow as she could, and Megan died as a result of that.
Yes, a very logical and rational response. Now guess what depression and other mental problems do to your ability to be reasonable ? Especially since we are talking about a teenager; they are under their parent's guardianship precisely because they can't be trusted to act rationally at all times.
p>>Simply because an uninvolved outside observer can see things in context doesn't mean that a person caught in the middle of it can.Parent
Re:Back To Reality (Score:5, Insightful)
You're again assuming that everyone makes choices like a robot and has a completely unclouded judgement and complete freedom of will all the time. Have you ever been experienced people slipping into clinical depression (and I don't mean feeling somewhat "blue" or "depressive", but the real thing) ? They're not acting like the person you've known anymore. Same goes for many other psychological disorders. Scrap the notion that the human brain is a perfect, computer-like decision-making machine all the time. It's not.
Parent
Re:Back To Reality (Score:5, Insightful)
A brain can do all sorts of bizarre things; thinking that suicide is a good idea is only one of them. Thinking that there is no value to human life is another. If you really do believe that the sanctity of human life is baseless, I can only feel sorry for you since it's the cornerstone of the family, society, civilization and the species.
Megan was deliberately manipulated by an adult. She was set up like a bowling pin. The person who CHOSE to do so knew what buttons to push so Megan would fall all the harder. I could do the same to a 13 year old by the same methods, but I CHOOSE not to do so, since not only do I value human life, but because I thoroughly understand and *respect* exactly how emotionally fragile a 13 year old can be. The basis of morality is understanding the difference between when you *can* do something and when you *should* do something.
What happened wasn't murder but there was deliberate intent to harm. It's an abuse case that deserves to be prosecuted because it ended in the child's death. All this is cut and dried. The really scary thing is the way it's being prosecuted.
Parent
Re:Back To Reality (Score:5, Insightful)
It takes a village, and when that village fails it needs to be prosecuted.
Parent
Re:Back To Reality (Score:5, Funny)
And preferably burned to the ground, as an example to all the other villages.
Parent
Re:Back To Reality (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe you should go look up the legal definition of murder. Last time I checked murder was "any willful act, knowingly undertaken, which causes the death of another person." You don't have to mean to kill someone with your actions. If you do something when you can reasonably infer that doing so would cause grievous bodily harm or death, and you do so anyway because you don't care, it's called depraved indifference. This woman deserves to go to jail for her actions. IN our society is is generally considered unacceptable to prey upon those weaker than us, be it mentally or physically. This woman may not have beaten the girl to death with a hammer, but her actions are just as criminally culpable as if she had. She killed this girl, and her weapon was MySpace.
You may not like it, but you can be charged with murder for driving someone to commit suicide if it's determined you did what you did on purpose. You need not have meant to kill them. Just as you can be charged with murder if you shoot someone and they die, even if you didn't mean to kill them. You intended to cause grievous bodily harm which then lead to death. This woman intended to cause grievous psychological harm which led to suicide.
Parent
Re:Back To Reality (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Back To Reality (Score:5, Insightful)
I didn't come out of that thinking everyone who didn't have it rough was a pussy. I've seen people completely ripped up by stuff that I saw so commonly it wouldn't have even registered.
Everyone takes things differently. Some people will fold under a hit that other people won't even notice. That's just a fact, and there's no special virtue in being the sort of asshole who can just shrug it off. In my own case it makes me extremely angry when someone goes out of their way to smash up someone who can't take it.
In this case there is no question that this girl was intentionally persecuted, and that that persecution lead to her death. Obviously she wasn't mentally tough, but that doesn't mean those who persecuted her deserve to get off.
Parent
Scary (Score:5, Insightful)
Really I do not think theres anything scary about what will happen in this case. An adult should be semi responsible for there actions.
How can an adult feel like toying with a young girl with an over self conscious image of herself when they live near them?
I can understand that there could be other circumestances when this could be scary but in this case i thought it was just HORRID what the person did.
Mod me a troll if you want. But i think most people when they read this case realize that what that person did was wrong. And i believe that in most circumstances driving someone to suicide is a crime. I don't care if you say that the person was to emotional, thats a reason that you should be semi understanding and not go out of your way to mess with them.
Re:Scary (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps the way they are going about the lawsuit *does* set a scary precedent, and there is a *better* way to approach it, but IANAL. I do think that having protective measures in place is a good thing though. We have them for the real world, why not the virtual world?
Parent
Re:Scary (Score:5, Insightful)
It's hard to see what she actually did that was illegal. This could have just as easily happened had the boyfriend been real. Lying to someone about your identity isn't a crime (generally speaking).
On the other hand, if she had a reasonable expectation that the girl would commit suicide because of her actions, she could possibly be charged with reckless homicide or a similar crime for what she did. The obvious defense is that she had no way of knowing what the girl would do. I am guessing from the fact that such charges weren't filed that there was no history of suicide attempts, and that the woman likely didn't know (or can reasonably claim she didn't know) about the girl's clinical depression. Without those critical elements, there's no hope of securing a conviction, so it'd be pointless to file charges.
Personally, I suspect she just was trying to get back at the girl out of sheer nastiness, and didn't think too hard about what her actions might lead to. I wonder if she even feels badly about it. I certainly hope so.
That all being said, I think these charges are pretty tenuous at best. I can understand wanting to see justice done, but essentially making up crimes until you find something that will stick is not the way the American justice system is supposed to work, and it is an abuse of power on the part of the prosecutor. Sometimes you simply have to accept the fact that some wrongs will go unpunished because we are simply not equipped to deal with them at the time, and that is the trade-off for living in a free society.
Parent
Re:Scary (Score:5, Informative)
When Megan questioned "Josh" about his intentions, "he" responded "You should just kill yourself."
She did. She hung herself with a belt in her closet; it wasn't enough of a height to break her neck, but she crushed her throat and slowly suffocated over the next hour. Her mom found her upstairs, dead, a few days before her fifteenth birthday. She never lived long enough to find out that the cruelty was perpetuated by a grown woman living a few houses down, her daughter, and another neighbor girl.
I've been following this one for a while.
Parent
Re:Scary (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it is clear, however, that Drew's intention, at least towards the end of this scenario, was to use her positions of trust as a family friend, a close friend's mother, and an imaginary boyfriend, to torment the child and cause her anguish. This is the charge levied against her.
Parent
Re:Scary (Score:5, Insightful)
What is scary in this case isn't that the bitch would be punished. That is why she has been charged, a huge public desire to see this woman punished when there is no clear law that would allow it.
What is scary is that instead of finding some actual law she broke, they are railroading her with an incredibly loose reading of anti-hacking laws. The problem is if she is convicted of this, and it is upheld on appeal, it sets incredibly bad binding legal precedent that violation of terms of service isn't just a civil contract violation anymore, it is criminal computer hacking.
Parent
Had similar things happen myself (Score:5, Interesting)
After stringing it along for awhile, she indicated that she "wouldn't be moving so soon after all", but invited me to a fairly cool party in a city several hours away (Victoria).
I was suspicious, though I didn't suspect my ex , but rather thought that perhaps some friends that I knew to be in Victoria were planning a joke. I was bored, so I decided to check it out. I half-expected to arrive and find all my buddies waiting for a big "surprise", and half expected that perhaps there was a real party. Turned out the address itself was bogus (darn you mapquest, you said it existed) and a waste of time.
So then I traced the IP's on the email back to the wireless of the local college, which gave me some suspicions of the sender. I managed to determine that the password on the sender's hotmail account was my ex's birthday.
So my point? Well, it's pretty freaky to know that somebody will go to *that* much trouble to mess with you, even when you're an adult. As a techie type of guy, I've regularly met friends from both online and off, but it's put a pretty big damper on my trust of those online. It's one thing to know that when you meet a person they might be a little exaggerated in personal details, and another to realize you've befriended somebody who's just a troll created to get into your head.
My story ended (I hope), when I talked to the police. They weren't actually able to do much about the whole internet thing (though it seems like stalking to me), but they were able to deal with the fact that she was calling me about 15-20x in an hour, and often masking her phone # from my call display. The threat of criminal harassment charges and deportation (she was a student from overseas) tuned her down a bit, and I moved from that city not that long after.
This girl's story ended when she got too attached to her stalker, and was given a directive to end her own life. Was she too impressionable? Perhaps. It seems like it's fairly easily a case of stalking/harassment to me. Throw in the age and I'm sure that other things crop up.
As mentioned elsewhere, if this were an adult male and a young woman, they'd most likely have gone after this even more heavily.
I don't agree with trumped-up charges, but what happens when there are many things that are a half-fit, but don't quite match the modern world? The problem is that laws don't always keep up with technology, and unfortunately the technology is not well understood (which leads to vague and easily abused laws). Perhaps there needs to be a meter that distinguishes minor online "harassment" such a posting insults on usenet from creating a fake identity to target and damage a specific person.
Nowadays I think that the best meter for that is still the same as before. A judge, and/or a jury. Unfortunately, they're both (especially a jury) still influenced strongly by emotion and doublespeak, but the justice system is still one of our best ways of making a strong impression about what is not acceptable in today's society.
I'm an adult, I can deal with this shit. A 13-year-old girl, already an outcast, could use a little help or protection.
Parent
What does technology have to do with this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Technology has nothing to do with this crime, and there could be negative ramifications if she is indeed found guilty of federal communication charges for a local crime.
Let's pretend this occurred 30 years ago, and instead of using the internet as the backdrop, the woman and girl simply exchanged letters as local pen-pals. The woman would photocopy the girl's letters, and circulate them around the community, demeaning and belittling the girl. The girl finally finds out, and commits suicide over the humiliation and emotional distress.
So what's the difference here? Society at large demands punishment for this woman, as she acted intentionally to harm the girl emotionally and humiliate her publicly. Whether she did so using sign language, morse code, hand written letters or the internet is irrelevant.
Excellent Legal Post (Score:5, Interesting)
Apologies to Slashdot readers if someone else already posted the following link(s) or material, but I looked for it and related keywords over the entire thread, finding nothing. Orin S. Kerr [gwu.edu] over at The Volokh Conspiracy [volokh.com] (a legal blog with a cool name) has posted a useful quick analysis [volokh.com] of the matter, which I believe is more important than might appear at first glimpse. It's well worth reading in its entirety, but I'll quote a short stretch of it:
(The original post has embedded links to relevant citations).
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:5, Insightful)
Thats a very unstable and impressionable stage, where shit like the pencil you use in school seems important.
If the case was another 13 year old, I would be rather dissapointed that the charges stuck... however she was/is 49 years old, preying on a 13 year old... thats, just flatout fucking bullshit.
Parent
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:5, Interesting)
(Although I suppose MySpace could sue her for breaching the terms of service and the resulting bad press for MySpace, that would be civil charges, not criminal.)
Parent
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:5, Informative)
The Grand Jury then issues an indictment, which are the formal charges which will be presented to the criminal court, in which arguments will be weighed by a Petite Jury who decides if the individual in question did the shit that the Grand Jury said happened.
My knowledge of the British legal system comes from watching Poirot and a few episodes of Murphy's Law, but I think its roughly analogous to a Coroner's Inquest in the UK, where they decided if in fact a it was a murder before they decide who actually gets charged with the crime.
Parent
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:5, Insightful)
The "victim" for the computer trespass crime is MySpace, not the girl or her family.
MySpace suffered no financial losses because of this, so this is a highly dubious criminal charge. The family, on the other hand, has a legitimate case which they should take to the civil courts.
(Obviously the base instinct is "get 'em!", but Slashdot should be more perspective about computer crimes.)
Parent
Another aspect to the logic behind this is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Another aspect to the logic behind this is... (Score:5, Insightful)
beware of social judgement, because it's only a step away from lynching and self justice.
Parent
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:5, Informative)
You could certainly try.
Such a case would lack "standing" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_(law) [wikipedia.org] (since I didn't "make" the day: "Friday") and other tort requirements. The case would be thrown out or summarily dismissed and you'd be left vulnerable to a counter suit for frivolous litigation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frivolous_litigation [wikipedia.org]. By me.
You'd probably lose, too.
Yes, Yes, I understand your point about there being too many lawsuits. Do you think Ms. Meier's family would be frivolous to sue here?
Parent
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not defending the woman's actions, because the entire thing does sound messed up. However, she didn't kill that girl. Even if she had come right out and said "You should go kill yourself!", it still wouldn't be her fault that the girl did it. I have a hard time believing the conspiracy charge as well, but whatever.
Parent
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:5, Interesting)
You don't understand the story. This girl was depressed and suicidal, and had attempted suicide before. She told her best friend this. Her best fiend felt slighted over something that happened, and told her mom all about it. Mom created an account belonging to a "13 year old boy" who "went to another highschool" and started e-dating her. Telling her how smart and pretty she was, how he can't wait to meet her. She got her daughter and her daughter's friends to play along, mentioning having met this fake boy over the summer and other such stories, to make sure she believed he was real, to cement what a heart-throb and a sweet caring guy he was. Then one day "he" told her he was lying for a joke, she's stupid and ugly and world would be better off if she was dead. And she killed herself.
A post above said that the mother denies it. This may be true now, but initially she confessed and boasted that she did nothing illegal. She said it doesn't matter what I said, she was crazy and would have killed herself no matter what. She has said such things as "It's done, she killed herself, let it go" and so on. She admits telling her to kill herself, she admits making this account to spy on her and "see if she was talking about my daughter behind her back". Only now that she is in trouble does she backpeddle and say she was lying about all of that, she didn't actually do it!
Parent
Re:That is all largely irrelevant... (Score:5, Insightful)
Charles Manson didn't kill anyone, only told other people to do it.
She didn't say something cruel, she manipulated someone into killing herself.
That's a lot different then angerly shouting at someone to drop dead.
"It's a far greater concern to me, anyway, that parents dump their kids, unattended, on the internet. "
you don't know that. she could ahve easily be allowed a set amount of time. At 13 you should be getting a little less controlling over your children.
They may have been happy she was communicating with a peer that made her happy. She was depressed and then she starts talking to someone that makes her happy, they where probably thrilled.
I don't think there was much time between the end and her killing herself.
The issue is more complex then you want to believe.
Your amazing anecdote aside, not all kids online are just 'dumped' there.
Parent
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:5, Insightful)
The final outcome makes a difference as well. Driving drunk & crossing the center line is one thing. If there just happens to be another car on the road at the same time &place and you hit it & kill someone, it's a very different deal even though in truth, it could very well be the only difference was blind luck.
In this case, doing what she did to a grown up would most likely be seen as a practical joke. Doing it to a young girl who was emotionally vulnerable and suicidal to begin with is a very different situation. And we know that she knew the girl had problems because she said so in her own words, early on using the age old blame-the-victim strategy. In terms of the case of her defense, probably more than anything else, making public statements that the teen was suicidal may be what results in her conviction.
Without getting into the in's & out's of the particular charges and approach used against this woman (which is a separate issue) as far as justice goes, there's definitely a smell-test issue. It's quite clear that what this woman did was creepy, vicious and just plain wrong morally. Here actions resulted in something terrible - and any reasonable person would see that it tormenting the girl in this manner would very likely lead to this outcome.
Parent
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:5, Interesting)
And of course every time they have a conversation like this she is left in tears and feeling completely worthless, which is great for somebody that's going through some serious problems to begin with. She has repeatedly said that she wishes she had some kind of gaping wound instead, because at least then people would take it seriously.
Mental illness can be frustrating -- I'm frustrated with her myself sometimes. But I have never doubted for a second that she is truly ill, and she is taking her meds and going to therapy and everything else she needs to do in order to get better. And it's working; just not quickly enough for her parents, evidently.
Parent
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:5, Insightful)
This is one of the most twisted things I have heard, and your logic echoes that of the sociopathic, fat, middle aged woman who felt the need to do this "I don't feel bad about this because she had issues with depression".
The woman deserves what is coming, and I will laugh happily every time I hear her family has suffered misfortune - losing their business, pulling their daughter from school and hopefully soon being forced from the community. She acted without remorse and deserves to suffer consequences.
Parent
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not put all that hate-filled energy into positive steps, like helping out a suicide hotline or pushing for legislation they feel would prevent this in the future?
The people who attack her family are doing evil, plain and simple. I hope they get sent to jail for it.
Parent
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:5, Interesting)
Dangerous DANGEROUS precedent to make yourself feel better about a depressed kid doing the inevitable
Perhaps this woman should be charged with 'child abuse', as "Child abuse is the physical, psychological or sexual maltreatment of children." (Ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abuse [wikipedia.org]). If this woman (or more likely if it was a man) was sexually enticing this girl then 'child abuse' charges would likely be filed. It is sad when people put such little emphasis on psychological abuse (of other people, and especially children) though I've always found much hypocrisy when it happens to themselves.
Parent
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:5, Insightful)
Because, like it or not, the woman in your example was no better beating her husband than he was beating her. It may have worked, but more often than not, it doesn't. I know people who've been hospitalized for shit like that. I know of (second hand) multiple people who've been killed for shit like that. Either the husband died or the wife died because she tried to "fight" back.
Giving bad advice that works out okay isn't acceptable. What the pastor should have told her was "get out of the house--take the children (if applicable) and call the cops." Anything else was negligence on his part.
Parent
Re:The larger truth (Score:5, Funny)
Take the pots and pans ands brooms away from her, and tell her to quit breaking all the stuff because she's got a lot of cooking and cleaning to do.
Parent
Re:Accessing without authorization? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure I'm saying it properly, but it seems to me that this is going beyond calling somebody nasty names into an entirely new game. The case apparently centers on the manipulation of a minor through cold-blooded deceit and willful misrepresentation. It's the difference between beating somebody up during a fight and torturing a helpless prisoner.
I'm not sure a law covering something like this wouldn't wind up being a cure worse than the disease. However, if this woman actually did what she's alleged to have done, she's a sadist at least and probably a sociopath. People like her wind up getting caught with dead people chained in their basement.
Parent
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:4, Insightful)
More to the point...I saw your earlier post and recognize the situation here, and I don't disagree that this woman has violated the law. Just trying to point out that "infliction of emotional distress" sure as hell shouldn't be the crime here. Find something that should actually be illegal to prosecute her under. But as a minor, I don't want it to be illegal to offend me on the Internet - otherwise, I could sue you (and lose, hopefully) based on your disagreement with me there. I'm an emotionally vulnerable child, and he damaged my psyche! I have no self-respect!
Some people in my generation just need to get the fuck over themselves. I'm not trying to dismiss the pain she felt or say that this woman has done nothing wrong - just please, everyone-who-actually-has-a-voice-in-this-government, prosecute her for something that teenagers can't take advantage of. The law gets abused badly enough without things like "infliction of emotional distress" being illegal.
Parent
Re:James Vance vs Judas Priest (Score:5, Insightful)
Drew and Grills should have known better. They were once adolescent girls, (at 19, Grills might arguably still be one) who now as adults are morally required to take the high road. Solution? Dunno.
[Starting rant; invoking wishful_thinking()
Revoke their adulthood. Driver's license? Gone. Checking account? Get a legal guardian to approve your expenditures. Car loan? Get a cosigner. Set a curfew. Make them ride a schoolbus every day. At work, make them raise their hand and get a hall pass before they go to the bathroom. Voting? Drinking? Smoking? Forget it. Not mature enough. Make them write 10,000-word essays about being nice to others. Make them fill a blackboard with "I will not torment vulnerable teens online" hundreds of times. Daily. After they spend sufficient time slogging through 'childhood', maybe they'll someday be worthy of adult status.
[End rant; invoking return_to_reality()
Parent
Re:Treating this with too much black and white (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, unless you're Jeebus himself, someone with clinical depression won't "grow some skin" just like a paraplegic won't "get up and walk" or a blind person will "open his eyes and see".
Parent