I agree that Lori Drew is a foul excuse for a human who got some thrill out of taunting a teenager.
But when it comes down to it, Megan Meier killed herself because she had a chemical imbalance in her brain. She didn’t kill herself because someone was mean to her, she didn’t kill herself because she was unpopular. She died because her brain did not work right.
Fine, go ahead and charge Drew with harassment and fraud and conspiracy. Don’t say that said harassment/fraud/conspiracy caused Meier to kill herself, because it didn’t. Someone who’s so fragile that a MySpace nastygram will “cause” them to commit suicide probably belongs in an inpatient psychiatric program, not living at home with working parents. That’s someone who needs constant supervision, and to ascribe any one cause, beyond their own actions, to their death is ridiculous.
I’m not saying that Meier’s parents are to blame, either - we can’t pin the blame on anyone, because…well, it’s suicide. No one forces someone else to commit suicide.
If I call you a poop-head and you burst into tears, flinging yourself off the nearest cliff, am I criminally liable?
I see what you’re trying to say, but there’s an entire spectrum of intent and maliciousness. In this case I don’t think Lori Drew can be held personally accountable for the death. I suppose we’ll find out.
Prosecution Opposes: http://www.gfactorconsulting.com/DrewDocs/DrewOppI.pdf (expansive definition of relevance under FRE; goes to intent to further a tortious act, which is an element of the offense; explains defendant’s conduct)
files a second Opp: http://www.gfactorconsulting.com/DrewDocs/DrewOppII.pdf (tries to bolster element of tort=element of crime argument; argues the death also goes to defendant’s knowledge that her access was unauthorized)
The judge denied the motion at a hearing and only entered a minute order that says the motion is granted for the reasons stated on the record.
Total fucking bullshit. She was deliberately harassed and tormented by an ADULT posing as a potential new boyfriend. Lori Drew should be hanged and quartered, and I’m positive the judge & jury would agree with me, if our society still allowed such things.
Megan’s parents treated her like shit, too. Probably because they got bullied in school as well, and never got over it. I’ll forgive them, however, because they clearly did not deserve to lose their daughter over this. They learned their lesson. Chemical imbalance? Shit…with that kind of double-bind, any person’s brain would become unbalanced.
Fuck you, NinjaChick for dismissing this child’s torment as a mere “chemical imbalance.” Fuck you with a wet, sticky dildo bathed in dog’s vomit.
Jesus, KGS, can you not be an idiot for, like, five minutes? NinjaChick raised an entirely valid point: as cruel as what happened to her was, most people faced with those circumstances do not run off and kill themselves. Megan was not a healthy person. She was unusually vulnerable to that sort of emotional manipulation, and dramatically over-reacted to the situation in a way that a healthy person would not have. That doesn’t mean that Lori Drew isn’t the Douchebag of the Century, but it does diminish (if not totally obviate) her criminal responsibility for Megan’s suicide.
And, incidentally, fuck you for writing off a serious medical condition as a “mere” chemical imbalance.
Miller, ISTR having read at one point that Lori Drew did know about Megan’s bouts with mental illness. These were families that had been friends for a time, so it’s far from impossible. If she did know about that, ISTM that she’s actually more responsible than a hypothetical stranger would be in a similar situation.
Jesus christ, relax and learn how to read. I never said what happened wasn’t awful, I never said that Drew’s actions were in any way acceptable, and I never said that there was anything “mere” about depression. All I said was that if someone has a history of depression, has been bullied, has known self-esteem issues, and eventually commits suicide, you can’t point at any one thing and say, “this is why she died.”
I think this sort of incident is the perfect reason for a wrongful-death suit. While it may be possible for the government to prove that fraud was committed here, I can’t help thinking that this prosecution would never have been undertaken if it were just about fraud. I don’t like that, and I agree that the stability and consistency of the legal system is more important than achieving the maximum punishment for every lowlife who happens to find a novel form of bad behavior. It would not be a good idea to pass special laws protecting against a similar future incident, either, since there is not a great chance of such a thing happening again. Basically, I think Lori Drew should get her butt sued off and it should stop there. If she’s as nasty and messed up as she seems to be she’ll probably end up in jail someday anyway.
Only one person has pointed out so far about the monetary cost of her defense. The charges are a stretch and if convicted will bring up issues that have already been pointed out. This woman deserves to go broke and live in a life of poverty. Not doing anything because “well there is no previous law to charge her with” is unacceptable.
I think she did break the law. It’s a small law, often violated, but it is a law, and if the prosecution can prove she violated it, they should.
However… the suicide is absolutely irrelevant to the elements of her crime. So by putting that issue in front of a jury, they are making this crime about the death, and not the unauthorized access of a computer system.
SO… prosecution says, in essence, that since one element of one of the counts is the tort (intentional infliction of emotional distress) the suicide is relevant to show that emotional distress was actually inflicted.
I don’t agree. That only becomes relevant if the defense argues that there was no emotional distress.
They also make what amounts to a res gestae argument – we’re going to call all these people who will testify about what happened after the death, and how she changed her story, and what she did when she learned of the death. Again, I don’t see any of that as relevant unless the defense makes it relevant. Perhaps, when the motion was argued, the defense said, “Hey, our theory of the case is that she never heard of this kid,” and in that case I can see the point. But I very much doubt that’s what happened…
This woman did a bit more than call this girl poopy head. She was an adult that purposely emotionally tormented a vulnerable teenaged girl. I know she’ll never be charged with murder, but I certainly think turnabout is fair play, and a power greater than her’s torments her to the brink.
I think you’re right here, both paragraphs. We’ve all had nasty shit said and done to us and none of us have killed ourselves for it. If that was a more common reaction the human race would be in trouble. I think Megan Meier was probably a suicide waiting to happen, and this just happened to be the trigger that set it off. I don’t think Lori Drew intended to cause Megan’s death and I don’t think she’s a repeat offender risk. All a murder conviction would do in this case is unnecessarily destroy one more life, IMO.
Is it possible that this charge is part of a process of laying a foundation for future charges?
I.e., if she’s convicted of defrauding Myspace, then it will be a matter of record that she is in fact a person behind the offending posts, making it easier to use these posts as evidence against her in another trial on charges more directly related to the harrassment?
Generally not. *E.g., *404 - Page Not Found (see discussion under heading “Offensive Use of Collateral Estoppel: Concepts of Mutuality in Criminal Cases”)
I’ll be interested to see how this plays out. I don’t see how the suicide is legally relevant, but surely if the judge admitted it, he had a reason. What could it be?
Wait, that seems to be supporting the kind of move I described. It seems to be saying that once a fact has been established in one case, it takes a lot to question that fact in another case. The default, in other words, is to take it as established fact for all future cases.
That’s exactly what I suggested/wondered-whether the prosecution was doing here–laying a foundation by establishing a fact in one case for use as evidence in another case.
Good, lord! If my parents jumped up to cuddle us every time my sister or I threw an enormous teenage hissy fit - stomping off to our rooms, yelling about how the whole world hated us - by the end of our teenage years, they’d have been so well-trained we’d have had them wrapped around our fingers.
I had my share of “Fuck you, world!” outbursts, but I couldn’t come anywhere near competing with my sister’s hormonally fuelled “My life is oooooover! I wish I was never born! I hate my life!” tantrums. Granted we weren’t on medication or ever diagnosed with depression. We were just your standard, demented young teens, who went into emotional overdrive like teens do. Sometimes you just gotta let a kid flip out, have their tantrum, and when the dust settles, then try the rational discussion.
Most parents do their best trying to guess which is a real “my life is so over!” catastrophe and which is just the standard, hormonal “my life is over” drama-of-the-week. I wouldn’t say Megan’s parents were inattentive, I’d say they just guessed wrong that time.
I don’t disagree that the decision is questionable, but in this case I can’t see why the defendant would need to dispute emotional distress in order to make it relevant.
