Judge overturns conviction in MySpace suicide case |
A federal judge in Los Angeles overturned a guilty verdict on Thursday against Lori Drew, a participant in a cyberbullying hoax against a 13-year-old girl who later committed suicide.
According to U.S. District Judge George Wu, the federal case against Drew revolved around the idea that violating the terms of service for MySpace was the equivalent of computer hacking, which “…leaves it up to a website owner to determine what is a crime”. Wu threw out the case against Drew of three misdemeanor accounts of accessing computers without authorization, despite a conviction by the jury. A guilty ruling in the case could have potentially made a criminal of anyone that enters false information when registering on any website.
Lori Drew, 50, was accused of participating in a MySpace hoax to inquire if a 13-year-old neighbor girl was spreading negative gossip about Drew’s daughter. She did so by making a fake MySpace account of a boy named Josh who befriended the neighbor girl.
The official written ruling is expected to be filed sometime next week at which time prosecutors will decide whether or not to appeal the acquittal.
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This woman needs to be convicted through some means.
What kind of vindictive, scum of a person takes the time out to actively bully and trouble a 13 year old girl at the ripe age of 50??
Seriously.
I agree with John. I’ve been waiting to see what would come of this for quite a while now. Saying it’s up to the site owner to determine what constitutes a crime seems like a dangerous precident to set, but this woman definitely went past appropriate behavior. There should be some kind of consequence. This was just rediculous.
I agree, but I think the prosecutors where grasping at straws here. they should of come up with something better, like assault of a minor, or you could even my a case for cyber predator, although her intent was different. In any event I am glad in part the initial ruling didn’t stick, like you said Tony, a dangerous precedent
A guilty ruling in the case could have potentially made a criminal of anyone that enters false information when registering on any website.
Hardly. This would have only effected the United States of America surely?
Perhaps ‘Slipperybrick’ author Darrin Olson thinks the majority of the World (that’s 5+ billion people Darrin) don’t exist?