Woman indicted in Missouri MySpace suicide case

[Shakespeare]

Source: Associated Press

A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted a Missouri woman for her alleged role in perpetrating a MySpace online hoax on a 13-year-old neighbor girl who committed suicide.

Lori Drew of suburban St. Louis was charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information to inflict emotional distress on the girl.

Drew allegedly helped create a false-identity MySpace account to contact Megan Meier, who thought she was chatting with a 16-year-old boy named "Josh Evans."

Megan hanged herself at home in October 2006 after receiving cruel messages, including one stating the world would be better off without her.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/05/15/financial/f112531D47.DTL&tsp=1

---

Very glad to see this.

[efhmc]

1. What an evil thing this person did to a fragile soul.

[elpresidenteAlex]

28. She will get a few years in jail

Although she probably didn't think the girl would commit suicide.

[mountainvue]

2. Good. n/t

[FreepFryer]

3. THe woman is a sick fuck and she should be punished and treated as a sociopath (n/t)

[skepticscott]

20. Punished on what basis?

On the basis of moral outrage after the fact? That's no way to run a just and fair legal system.

[MadMaddie]

26. It's not just moral outrage..she terrorized the 13 year old

girl. She is culpable in the girls death.

[varkam]

34. I think that's demonstrating scott's point.

Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. An indictment is not a conviction.

[skepticscott]

40. There is also another point

which is that it's a very dangerous thing when people who are charged with enforcing the law say "The law doesn't say what I want it to, or allow or prohibit what I want it to, so I'm going to distort it beyond all recognition and intent until it does." That's how George Bush justifies his endless signing statements, and how people like Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo justify torture and the imperial powers of the president. Larger stage, but same misguided principle.

[varkam]

46. The difference here, though, is that a grand jury returned the indictment

and, if it goes to trial, a jury will have to determine whether or not this woman is guilty of violating the specific statutes that she is charged with violating. IOW, there is a check on the prosecutors ability to be able to do whatever they would like as far as that is concerned (though I have heard that you can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich if you are creative enough).

[skepticscott]

47. True enough

and we can be glad we have that safeguard, but it's also true that in real life, a prosecutor who's determined to get someone can make their life miserable for quite a while, even if they aren't truly guilty of any crime and are or would be eventually acquitted. Particularly if they have a bargain-basement lawyer (as many people do) that gets walked all over and agrees to a plea just to get things over with.

The bottom line is that this woman is being charged in criminal court for what is essentially a civil violation (TOS violation amounts to breach of contract). If a similarly zealous and pressured prosecutor were out to get you or I, they could do it in the same way, if they dug deep enough. I'm sure some time in my life, I've violated TOS on at least one of the web sites I've visited.

[varkam]

50. It seems to me that the TOS violation is only one aspect of the indictment

The violation of TOS seems to apply to the "beyond authorized access" part of the statute with which Drew is being indicted, but doesn't apply to the parts dealing with information or inflicting distress.

While I don't think there would be many people shedding tears for this woman, I do think that it's probably a case of enormous public pressure leading to what looks to be a less than solid prosecution (at least thus far).

[skepticscott]

51. That isn't actually part of the indictment

"obtaining information to inflict emotional distress" is simply why they're saying she did it, but it is not actually an element of the crime she s charged with, and doesn't have to be proven. Remember, the law being used was designed to combat hacking, not TOS violations (which are technically civil).

And how are this girl's parents going to feel when the whole thing gets thrown out or ends in an acquittal? Yet another reason why the whole thing is misguided.

[varkam]

53. Ah, I see now.

I went back and looked up the sections of the US Code she's charged with violating, and it would appear as though you're right. The first count is the conspiracy count, whereas counts 2 through 4 reference the unauthorized access though there is nothing in any of those statues that mention distress to an individual.

[skepticscott]

39. Morally perhaps, but not under the law

There is no criminal statute that prohibits being so mean to someone that they kill themself.

[Honeycombe8]

52. I think the indictment involves rep. self fraudently as someone else, AND involves child. nt

[zonkers]

4. So sad. So so sad.

[Samurai_Writer]

5. Finally

The excuses this woman used were pathetic. There's no excuse to driving an already fragile teenage girl to commit suicide. Too bad they couldn't charge her with murder.

[Jefferson23]

6. Maybe I am wrong here, but were the parents told by these wackos to get over it?

I recall something along those lines.Horrible behavior, this case will be watched closely though, the situation will set a precedent possibly depending on the outcome.

[Posteritatis]

7. The woman went and put up a website to that effect, yeah

The parents need to get over it, the kid was broken and would've committed suicide sooner or later anyway, etc etc etc. Lovely woman. ;P

[devilgrrl]

11. You should have seen some of the stuff posted here on DU with a similar tone.

It made me want to :puke:

[roguevalley]

16. to their faces, she said it. i want to be on the jury.

[TheDebbieDee]

8. It really irks me that GROWN frikken people

teamed up to torment and play with the mind a 13-year-old child. I hope she is convicted and I hope she does time.

DON'T MESS WITH CHILDREN!

[Occulus]

30. This was emotional and phychological abuse of the worst possible order

It drove her to suicide, after all.

This woman needs to be behind bars for a very, very long time, as well as losing custody of her own children, if any. Who knows what horrors she put her own kids through...

[YDogg]

9. good. about time

[skepticscott]

10. But let's face it

these counts are just drummed up because of public pressure to charge this woman with something, anything. Unfortunately, what she really did and what people would like to see her punished for wasn't illegal, so the prosecutors had to go through the criminal code with a fine-toothed comb to find charges that never would have been brought on their own. You can say "well, it SHOULD have been illegal" all you want, but that's not the way our law works and trust me, that's not the way you want it to work.

[raystorm7]

12. I understand your argument but a "NEW" crime of this sort is so nefarious that it cannot be ignored.

No telling what I would have done if I was the father of that child and she gets off scott free.

[NashVegas]

17. It's Not New. Not Really

Only the method is new.

I'd rather see no charges, and the public subject them to lifelong humiliation.

[raystorm7]

18. Respectfully tell that to yourself when its your own family memeber that got bullied to that extent.

[LanternWaste]

37. We are a pretty damnably shameless public...

We are a pretty damnably shameless public who will quickly give a wink and nod to these societal distempers.

It's difficult for a public without shame to bring humiliation on someone.

[Shakespeare]

14. No, they're not just drummed up.

Cyberstalking legislation is just beginning to define state and federal law on that topic. This is absolutely a valid case, and will help to further define the law.

[skepticscott]

19. Doesn't sound like cyberstalking to me

"accessing protected computers without authorization" was the charge...that says nothing about harassing a person. And the law should define the cases, not the other way around. That's the whole point. Maybe they'll write new laws in response to this, but they won't apply to this case.

[Shakespeare]

21. You don't understand how application of the law works.

You also don't understand how a new law is narrowed and defined through prosecution. Since this is what I do for a living, I know just a bit about the topic.

[skepticscott]

23. Then explain

how "accessing protected computers without authorization" translates to cyberstalking. Tell me what the elements of both crimes are and how that makes them remotely similar. And explain how narrowing and defining a law through prosecution (as opposed to legislation) changes what constitutes a crime and what you are required to prove in order to convict someone of that crime.

[Shakespeare]

24. Are you familiar with the evolution of the RICO statute?

Why don't you let me know you have the first clue about the law before we get into a debate.

[skepticscott]

42. Since you didn't answer any of my questions

I'll assume you're ducking them. My points still stand... A. The statute this woman is being charged under is NOT a cyberstalking statute and cannot be morphed into one by any sane person; and B. The statute she IS being charged under is being stretched to the limit as it is, if not beyond. Even the former prosecutor they quoted in the article acknowledged that they would have a very hard time making out a prima facia case for the crime charged, but frighteningly also opined that the law might be stretched after the fact because someone had died.

And yes, I am familiar with the evolution of the RICO statute and I highly disapprove of some of its uses, applied by people who "know" who the bad guys are and feel perfectly justified in using any means, however distorted, to charge them. I know many people feel otherwise, but personally, I like to see the horse before the cart.

[Oak2004]

31. I'm no lawyer, but I've been around enough of them to know a bit about the foundations of our legal

system (real lawyers, feel free to correct me).

Law doesn't emerge out of nothing, and is not wholly dependent upon legislatures passing laws which precisely make novel forms of crime illegal. Our legal system is founded upon a set of principles. One of those principles is that for every wrong, there is some kind of remedy. Obviously this principle is only imperfectly expressed, but nonetheless it is a principle.

What occurred is clearly wrong. Any adult who is not grossly impaired should know such an act was wrong before they did it. It certainly appears that a competent adult knowingly and recklessly conducted themselves in a manner intended to harm a child, and in fact led to the child's death. In short, a crime was committed. That a novel means was used to commit this crime doesn't make it any less a crime.

It's therefore entirely valid -- almost an imperative -- for a prosecutor to carefully examine the laws on the books and find ways to apply existing law to this crime. Certainly it was a conspiracy to do a living breathing human being, a child no less, harm. And certainly the account was obtained in violation of Myspace TOS, which makes it some variety of fraud and/or improper use of someone else's computer. I can think of a few other angles one could take on this, but I'm no prosecutor, and I trust that the local prosecutors have a better idea than I do what kind of charges are most likely to lead to convictions in their jurisdiction.

It's not funny business. It's not even all that unusual. Novel means of committing crimes and torts happen all the time, and the law has been handling them this way for centuries. Hell, I once even represented myself in what amounted to a novel tort, and won, thereby contributing a tiny bit of case law to my state.

[skepticscott]

41. I'm no lawyer

but I'll feel free to correct you. One of those principles of our legal system is most certainly NOT that for every wrong, there is some kind of remedy. The same type of argument comes up in high profile incidents when a horrible crime is committed in the full view and hearing of bystanders, who do absolutely nothing to help, or even call for help. As morally repugnant as people may find it, there is (and should be) no legal remedy for that wrong, except in very limited circumstances, as legal experts have to patiently explain to an outraged but legally clueless public every time this happens. The truly important principles of our modern system of criminal law are that punishment can only be for acts (again, except in limited and specifically defined circumstances) and that the law must precede the act charged as a crime and not be made up afterwards.

And if they could have charged fraud for these actions, they would have. The statute that this woman is being charged under was written to prohibit hacking into other people's computers, which isn't remotely what happened here. And of course, prosecutors get creative in applying the written law when they want to punish someone whose conduct is of uncertain illegality, but it is an arbitrary exercise of power and as such, potentially dangerous.

Torts, by the way, are quite different. These are criminal charges and are subject to a very different standard.

[skepticscott]

45. Another point

is whether you or anyone else here would care to be liable for criminal charges every time they violate a TOS for any website they visit. If not, then you should consider this type of prosecution very disconcerting. If everyone on MySpace that had done anything that could be even argued as having violated their TOS were arrested, our jails would be pretty damn full.

[Posteritatis]

29. "...to obtain information to inflict emotional distress." (nt)

[skepticscott]

43. That isn't part of the charge

or one of the elements of the crime she's charged under. It's just confusingly stated in the article.

[darue]

15. these are perfectly reasonable charges and will likely result in conviction n/t

[Lydia Leftcoast]

32. At the very least it's harassment

:shrug:

[skepticscott]

44. There are no federal laws

against cyberbullying.

[raystorm7]

13. Simply put, This is bullying at its worse. Adult bullying a child?! WTF!

[darue]

22. they need to take the kids away from this "family" they're obviously incapable of being responsible

the sick and twisted Drew family needs some major intervention

[Imagevision]

25. This hag of a woman needs to do at least 5 years - after good time - sick fuck!

[cosmicone]

27. What was her motive? n/t

[DU GrovelBot]

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[JeanGrey]

35. I hope she gets some serious jail time for the terrible, awful,

cruel thing she did that contributed to that girl's death.

[UndertheOcean]

36. Finally , what an Evil person

[orleans]

38. lori drew:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=&imgrefurl=http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php%3Faz%3Dview_all%26address%3D389x2347755&h=244&w=325&sz=68&hl=en&start=9&um=1&tbnid=Ux2_QfpbbbN6tM:&tbnh=89&tbnw=118&prev=/images%3Fq%3DLori%2BDrew%2B%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

[BuelahWitch]

48. Would people defend Lori Drew if her name was Larry Drew?

On our local message board, someone brought up that if this were done by a man, he'd be labeled a predator.

[zonkers]

49. I just watched the youtube interview of the parents... wow, it there is one lesson

to be learned it's... just don't stay mad at your kids very long, especially if they are fragile. It seems the girl went to her mom to be consoled after the online romance got bitter... but her mom was still mad at her for going online w/out permission. Then, she killed herself. People can be so fragile.