Woman Indicted In MySpace Suicide Case 654
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."
Back To Reality (Score:5, Insightful)
Then again, maybe kids today are far too sensitive.
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?
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.
Re:Back To Reality (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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.
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...?
What's the big deal? (Score:2, Insightful)
If you really feel "emotional distress", you can take the traditional response - a duel, either with swords a la D'argtanan or with pistols a la Jefferson or with words a la Usenet. It's entered into by mutual agreement, which means no one gets anything they weren't willing to get. You can walk away from an insult or even a duel - you can't walk away from a lawsuit. My two cents (that's all I have, I'm not allowed to vote, those under 18 being clear idiots by definition) says that taking this into the courts is an insult to both parties. It's a private matter, and it should be settled privately.
Sure, the girl committed suicide, so there's an emotional investment here on the part of the people hearing about the case, but people should be able to realize just what kind of precedent they're setting here. It's not a good one.
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.
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.
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.
Re:Accessing without authorization? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:3, Insightful)
What's the point in indicting her then? Why not just do an old-fashioned lynching?
Re:Back To Reality (Score:2, Insightful)
Okay, you get an "A-" for Drama 101, but puh-lease.
If an online friend screws you over, you move on. You don't kill yourself, simple as that.
Yes, we can all loathe the evil Lori Drew, and she very much deserves the shunning of her community. But to say she "murdered" Megan? get serious. We always have choices. Killing ourselves - or not - Always counts as a choice, one which Megan chose over "dealing".
Re:Back To Reality (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Back To Reality (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, because everyone has to behave like a robot, especially teenagers and people with psychological problems.
You might as well say "If you fall down, you stand up again.". Which works for everone who is healthy enough to get up on their own.
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:4, Insightful)
I read 'into' your post stuff you didn't write - ie that the *only reason* for putting 'alleged' is for the paper to avoid libel charges.
Of course this isn't the case. The term 'alleged' actually means something, and that is that she hasn't been found guilty yet. It seems that the majority (all? apart from mine) of posts here have assumed she's guilty already.
She does actually deny the charges, if I read it correctly. People don't seem to consider that she's telling the truth.
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.
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Isn't this "alleged"? (Score:3, Insightful)
I should look it up, I suppose....ah, here we go :
" 1. To accuse of wrongdoing; charge: a book that indicts modern values.
2. Law. To make a formal accusation or indictment against (a party) by the findings of a jury, especially a grand jury."
I am now assuming we're not talking about (1), but about (2) - ie the jury has already been involved and has found her guilty. What's the difference between 'indicted' and 'guilty' then, I wonder?
Clearly, I know very little about US law (or any law, I guess).
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Back To Reality (Score:4, Insightful)
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.)
Another aspect to the logic behind this is... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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.
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.Re:Back To Reality (Score:5, Insightful)
It takes a village, and when that village fails it needs to be prosecuted.
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.
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.
Re:Back To Reality (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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.
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:4, Insightful)
Alternatively I could ask the cab tomorrow : "make a right after all". And bam, he'll hit someone. My opening my mouth to give direction belongs in a causal chain leading to this death. It doesn't make me responsible.
Responsibility comes when the action you did was intrinsically a crime (regardless of the consequences).
Re:Back To Reality (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
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()
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.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:3, Insightful)
It doesn't matter to me what the back story is, what matters is the binding precedent that could be set, making it a criminal offense to sign up to a web service with anonymous or false credentials.
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:4, Insightful)
Alternatively I could ask the cab tomorrow : "make a right after all". And bam, he'll hit someone. My opening my mouth to give direction belongs in a causal chain leading to this death. It doesn't make me responsible.
Responsibility comes when the action you did was intrinsically a crime (regardless of the consequences).
As for the rest of, unfortunately, there no law against being a C**T! However, there may be something they can do about her being a C**T to a 13-yr-old girl.
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:3, Insightful)
Some states have applicable laws: "Sandy's Law" [mass.gov] in Mass has a maximum penalty of 10 years, which would be reasonably appropriate.
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:3, Insightful)
I also think you are sounding an aweful lot like my mum.
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:3, Insightful)
Ask any american if they thought OJ Simpson was guilty. Everybody I know thinks he is, despite the fact that the court found him not guilty.
This is not an issue of "let's wait and see." Typically, the general populous sees news headlines such as "Person X being investigated for crime Y against Z" and interperate is to mean "Person X committed Y against Z, but we have to wait for the court to sentence him/her."
So while a majority of the logical people here at slashdot may believe "indicted" means just that- It's safe to assume that the general populous will make the guilty connection even when the media outlets do cover their asses with terms like "allegedly."
Trolling a Federal Crime?!??!? (Score:4, Insightful)
This case is scary because next people will be arrested for trolling
Also it is important to note that the girl who killed herself approached her parents in a state of emotional breakdown after the "breakup" and her mother couldn't care less, thats why she went up stairs and hung herself in her bedroom. To get back at her MOTHER for not caring about her horrible life as hanging yourself in the home in a place readily to be found (such as bedroom or garage) by a family member is about punishing them, its a calculated decision to show them what they have done.
If anyone should be charged it should be the MOTHER because she actually had a DUTY to care for the girl unlike the troll....
Treating this with too much black and white (Score:3, Insightful)
This woman Drew needs to be punished. She started this thing up as a joke. A very stupid and sick joke. However I don't think she should do 80 years for the crime. She should do time as an example to people who think they can just find a random person online, take advantage of them, and cause severe harm. Then they should be let out after some time and allowed to move on. The intent was not to kill the girl but they were very reckless.
At the same time, the other side has a great point. This girl needed to grow some skin, and where were the parents? This wasn't murder, and shouldn't be treated as such. The parents deserve some satisfaction, but they need to own some blame too.
Re:Back To Reality (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure that doesn't count as homicide, and if it does, that leaves a very dangerous loophole in our legal system.
Imagine killing bums and leaving suicide notes to get rid of people in power that you don't like.
Re:Back To Reality (Score:2, Insightful)
PS. Please kill yourself today.
Love,
j_166
Re:A few thoughts... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a complicated situation, and it's easy to let yourself get led astray trying to break it down. There are two very different pictures of who did what, when, and why; if at least one of those stories indeed involves a crime, then it's up to a jury to decide what's true, so everything else we might say falls somewhere between hypothetical and speculative.
Based on what I've seen (and I've seen more than this article... around here this was big news when it happened), I'm pretty confident I wouldn't like this neighbor if I met her. She sounds like a vindictive, self-righteous woman who does things she knows to be wrong to "get" someone she doesn't like or trust, and hides behind her own parental responsibilities to excuse herself when the consequences get out of control.
But I also think that unless you're willing to apply this law in a similar case that doesn't lead to a child's death, you better think carefully about applying it now. Anyone who justifies it by saying "we can't let her get by with it", is out for revenge -- which is very different from justice.
Maybe the laws haven't kept up. Maybe there needs to be a class of offense specifically relating to misleading a child to create a false world in that child's mind, or something to that effect. Maybe (subject to a hopefully-rational legislative debate, accounting for all the consequences of such a law). But if you can't find one on the books, then you may just have to accept that justice isn't always served in our system (or any system). We choose to err on the side of liberty, which leads to concepts like the ex post facto rule, which mean that sometimes someone does get away with it.
You'd better believe local authorities tried to find a criminal charge they could apply. The truth might be -- good, bad, or indifferent -- that a civil suit is the only legitimate way to hold the woman responsible.
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".
Re:Back To Reality (Score:3, Insightful)
While it is true that people, particularly those with psychological problems, sometimes react to situations in ways that are not reasonable, I'm concerned about the way this case tries to hold someone responsible for actions because another party reacted to those actions in a way that was decidedly NOT reasonable.
If I steal a stop sign, a reasonable reaction by someone encountering the situation I set up is to proceed through the intersection without stopping. If they consequently get into a wreck, it could logically be said to be my fault.
But suppose I mod someone down on Slashdot or call them a "stupidhead". This person flips out with furious rage and goes and burns down a Kindergarten. Even though I precipitated the chain of events, should I really be held responsible for their actions? Also, would the answer be different if I knew beforehand that this person had a violent temper?
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
Violating a TOS = crime is S C A R Y ! ! (Score:2, Insightful)
What Lori Drew did was awful. But, her prosecution is scary. Based on the posts I've seen, it's obvious slashdotters are not RTFA'ing but arguing the points in the article anyway. In a nutshell, Ms. Drew faces jail time for violating myspace's TOS.
The prosecutions argument boils down to:
1. Ms. Drew provided false identifying information to myspace.
2. Therefore, she violated their TOS.
3. Since she violated the TOS she did not have authorized access to their computers.
4. By accessing their computers without authorization, she violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
I seriously doubt there is anyone on slashdot who has never violated a TOS.
Does your ISP prohibit running servers, but you setup an FTP, HTTP, or vent server anyway? That could mean prison time. Have you ever given false identifying information to a web site so you could avoid SPAM? If so, go to jail. Do you even read TOS? If not, you might be a criminal but don't know it.
People are righly outraged by what Ms. Drew did. But, making it a crime to violate a TOS to satisfy that outrage is a mistake.
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:2, Insightful)
Really? Because if, say, the person was a 40-year-old who had created the fake MySpace profile with the purpose of soliciting sex from the 13-year-old, I'm sure many people would have no problem with the criminal charges. Realistically, the problem here isn't that she created the fake profile (and that they keep focusing on that aspect is, IMO, stupid) but the problem is that a 40-something-year-old woman got on the internet, told a 13-year-old girl that the woman was a 13-year-old boy and engaged in a relationship with her so that she could serve her own twisted ends of torturing and tormenting the girl. It is as simple and as complex as that to me - that someone (allegedly this woman who is on trial) was preying on a 13-year-old on the internet via lies about their age/gender/etc. What if, instead of using the account to torture the girl, the woman had instead suggested they "meet" and then raped her? Would everyone be saying that doing this wasn't a crime?
Just a level of perspective.
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.
Re:Scary (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes an adult should "know better" than to do this to a child. Hell, an adult should know better than to do this to another adult.
Re:Scary (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not just say, "Fuck you. Move on. Make new friends, and stop whining about life, stupid bitch."
That would've at least been good advice, while still not blowing her cover as a mean, vindictive boy.
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:3, Insightful)
The latest fiasco with OJ in Vegas just backs up the assumption that he's sort of a loose cannon.
Re:this is not trolling what she did (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't think there is anyone here who doesn't think that what the woman did was a complete asshole thing to do, and was morally wrong. However, what you have to ask yourself is, even though this was a horrendous act, did she break any laws? Originally, the state DA said they couldn't prosecute because there was no crime committed. Now, if the government thinks that that is a problem and wants to write a new law to cover situations like that in the future, that's fine. But if you ask me, at the time the act was committed, i don't think it was against the law.
However, what she is being indicted for is breaking the MySpace TOS. Personally, I don't think that breaking the TOS of a website should be considered a criminal action, and if the emotions of this case get in the way, and people let "THIS WOMAN DID SOMETHING AWFUL" get in the way of "wait, we're punishing this woman for violating the TOS of a website" and she gets convicted, I think it will lead to a very dangerous precedent for future cases.
Re:Layoffs == murder? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Scary (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Back To Reality (Score:3, Insightful)
If so, where do you draw that line? If Joe is caught two timing on Susan and Susan ODs on sleeping pills and alcohol? How about if Handsome Hal simply won't go out with Plain Jane?
On the other end of the scale, how about if your Pointy Haired Boss keeps telling you "this has to be done by Friday, you worthless sack of pus", and you work yourself to death (Karoshi)?
Similarly, non-physical spousal abuse?
At what point do you assign personal responsibility for one's actions
Way to lower the bar, America! (Score:2, Insightful)
Get some backbone already... relationships end badly all the time, regardless of whether or not they're fictitious in nature. If I killed myself every time a relationship resulted in being stabbed in the back by someone I trusted, I'd have at least ten corpses to my name.
And don't give me the sob-story about how this person wasn't "able to make friends in school" or some such non-sense like that. You can't quantify stuff which requires personal effort to make happen.
Was it ethical for this other person to initiate this fake relationship? No. Should they go to prison for it? No. At best, this is a civil issue, not a criminal one. (Well, unless you really stretch the definition of "fraud" into relationships. But be ready for a lashing the next time you have a bad break-up with someone "clingy"...)
Re:That is all largely irrelevant... (Score:4, Insightful)
She may or may not have intended the suicide itself, but she clearly intended to inflict great psychological harm on an already mentally unstable child.
Re:Scary (Score:3, Insightful)
So your premise is fundamentally flawed. It is not inherently wrong to cause a death. It is inherently wrong to perpetrate a death intentionally or through gross physical negligence (think drunk driving, shooting a gun off in the air and it killing someone on landing, etc..). In all cases, you're directly causing the death directly by a short, direct, predictable physical chain of events.
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:3, Insightful)
Has anyone asked what her network administrators' [wikipedia.org] role was in all this? They really ought to have been keeping their daughter running more stably to begin with.
Re:Scary (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's see.. she committed fraud (impersonating another person, in this case, a minor), harassment, conspiracy to cause harm (this was pre-meditated), willful intent to cause duress (she created the account to get back at the girl for having a falling out with her own daughter), all of which led to involuntary manslaughter (she purposely engaged in activities that, whether intentional or not, directly led to the child committing suicide).
What I find to be truly disturbing is that the state of Missouri couldn't come up with anything better to charge her with than failure to follow MySpace's terms and services.
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:3, Insightful)
Her parents failed her. Her friends failed her. This woman was a horrible bitch, but that's all she's guilty of. That girl decided to take her own life because she was very, very unstable, and no one around her apparently cared enough to step in until it was too late. And now we cry foul?
Besides, did you even look at what she was charged with? Basically, violating the terms of service of MySpace is being conflated as the same thing as "unauthorized use of a computer system" or "hacking". A fucking felony. Do you follow the TOS of every single site you visit? And would you agree that anyone who doesn't follow the TOS is guilty of a felony?
The woman who did this was a horrible bitch, no question. But people need to take some fucking personal responsibility. There are mean people out there. Fact of life. Most of us learn to deal with it. Apparently, no one taught this girl how to. That's not the fault of the Internet "boyfriend".
Re:Scary (Score:3, Insightful)
That is unethical and immoral. So was Lori Drew's fake Josh Evans. But they aren't illegal. The problem is the difference between law and ethics. You can decide the ethics of any novel situation, but a law only applies if it is written to apply. Ethics inherently considers the motives of the parties involved, but laws cannot effectively consider motives, because how do you know?
This is the way it should be; laws can send you to jail, so you don't want the law to take you by surprise. You don't want ambiguity, you want to rely on precedent, you don't want new laws to apply to you retroactively, and you don't want to able to be falsely convicted because someone lies about you convincingly. If there was no existing law applicable to Lori Drew, then she gets off scot-free.
What is missing here is an extra-legal way of dealing with creepy old men and Lori Drew. Back when we lived in small villages, if something like this happened, everyone know that the person done wrong, and everyone snubbed them or judged them or whatever. We're too populous for that stuff to work anymore. The only people in a position to punish Lori Drew are the people who know her.
Re:Scary (Score:2, Insightful)
You wanna bet how fast his ass would be in jail?
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.
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact that there were more then one person in on this makes it a conspiracy.
So if I convinced by daughter to climb onto our roof when a hurricane is coming I won't be liable for her death? I mean I didn't blow here off the roof.
Re:It's as simple as this (Score:2, Insightful)
As I stated previously, the fact that the focus is all on her violating MySpace's TOS is, IMO, stupid. What they should be focused on is the fact that she purposefully sought out and preyed on a child.
So, if instead of the extreme example of attempting to solicit actual sex is substituted for merely engaging in sexual discussion with a minor, would you agree to the similarities? A person who uses the internet to specifically seek out children with the purposes of engaging in sexual discussions with them is considered a sexual predator and is charged with criminal acts. True, those children could merely stop chatting at any time (and one wonders where the girl's parents were during this entire episode that it was allowed to escalate so terribly out of control), just as this girl could have, but that doesn't excuse the fact that the woman (if it was her) specifically sought out a minor and, using lies and false representation, attempted (and succeeded!) to torture and manipulate her into a state of emotional distress.
To use another slightly extreme example of why I think what you say has less validity, if a 40-year-old ran around in a trench coat flashing a junior high school, should that person not be served criminal charges merely because the kids could have "looked away"? The fact that the victim could have severed the contact (assuming that they were able to be aware of what was happening, which did not seem to be the case with the girl in question - as the perpetrator purposefully lied and manipulated her to keep her from realizing the tactics being used to torture and torment her and thereby allow said perpetrator to continue said acts) does not make them any less of a victim - or the person who committed the acts any less accountable.
Another extreme example - a woman who is beaten by her husband. It is true that she could leave the relationship at any time - she could reach out, get help, etc. However, due usually to the emotional and mental manipulation (similar to the case), the woman is made to feel as if she should not or could not receive the help she needs. Her husband uses these tactics so that he may continue his abuse of her, just like the perpetrator in the case used the fake "relationship" to keep the girl in communication and to continue the tormenting. Is the husband not to be held accountable because the wife could have left? Should we excuse this behavior because the victim "brought it on themselves" by not seeking aid?
Obviously, neither of my examples are exactly like the case - and they are a bit on the extreme side - but they illustrate why this woman should be facing criminal charges for her treatment of the girl. As stated previously and again at the beginning of this reply, the fact that they are focusing on the supposed "hacking" is just stupid. They should be focusing on the willful and deliberate preying on a 13-year-old by a 40-something-year-old which then led to not only the tormenting and torturing of said girl, but ultimately to her death. And in that, the authorities were perfectly right, IMO, to arrest the person they had evidence had done the crime.
Re:Scary (Score:3, Insightful)
An adult lied to a minor with the express purpose of harming the minor. Do you not see any problem with that? What if it was an adult standing next to a busy street telling the minor that they were going to let them know when it was safe to cross, then told them to cross when it wasn't safe and the minor died? Hey, the minor stepped out in traffic of their own free will, resulting in their death, so it's just another suicide, right?
I find it hard to bite that the woman -intended- for the girl to kill herself, but rather wanted to get back at her for the things she did.
The law pretty much indicates that if you act with the intent to harm ("get back at" sounds like intended harm) and it results in a death, then there is some responsibility for the death (nearly 100% in civil cases, differing levels in criminal cases). Also, she isn't charged with murder. She isn't charged like she killed her. She is charged with harming her, which no one seems to be disagreeing with was her intent or the result of her actions.