A Los Angeles jury made it a Happy Thanksgiving for Lori Drew this week by rejected a felony conviction and only convicting the Missouri mother of three minor misdemeanors in the case involving the suicide death of Megan Meier.
The jury rejected felony charges of accessing a computer without authorization to inflict emotional distress on Meier. It found her guilty of three counts of the lesser offense of accessing a computer without authorization.
Her lawyer clearly succeeded in focusing the jury on the narrow question of a computer violation. In his closing argument, Dean Steward argued: “If you hadn’t heard the indictment read to you, you’d think this was a homicide case. And it’s not a homicide case. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a computer case, and that’s what you need to decide.”
The defense has pending motions and will likely to seek to set aside these convictions in a post-verdict hearing and likely appeal.
Drew is looking at a year of jail maximum on the counts, which would likely run consecutively.
In the meantime, the woman, Ashley Grill, who recently admitted that she sent the disturbing final message to Meier (saying the world would be better without her) will not even see a symbolic charge. She was given immunity by the prosecutors.
For the full story, click here.
It is good to know that Bug and Farmer John are spreading their manure so unsuccessfully. Thanks to Mespo, Jill,Patty, Mike, Buddha,Former Fed and rcampbell, for showing the trolls where the exit is. Happy Thanksgiving to you all. I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone.
Bug,
Brilliant! What an apt screen name, you clever devil.
Farmer John,
Posing as a person of the soil and therefore closer to being a “real American.” What a pity you look for your answers in the dirt and manure, rather than the constitution and our history. Real farmers mostly understand how they’ve been ripped off by those who support the Republican elite, Military/Industrial Complex and corporate agribusiness, to the detriment of the family farmer and real Americans.
Bug/Farmer
What the attacks in India show is that despite all the vapid swagger, human carnage in flicted and blustery talk of the Bush administration, the world is a more dangerous place now than before the ill-conceived occupation of Iraq. We were told the 150,000 troops in Iraq would make us safe from terrorism. Obama can’t begin to repair America’s damaged reputation until he’s in charge. That’s why we’re anxiously awaiting President Obama’s inauguration.
Lunatic Judges and Phony Constitutional Lawyers
Readers may recall that a few minutes before Attorney General Mukassey collapsed during his speech to the Federalist Society last Thursday, a heckler in audience shouted that Mukasey is a “tyrant.” Readers may also have been surprised to learn that the heckler was a judge, namely Justice Richard Sanders of the Washington Supreme Court.
I had my own strange encounter with Justice Sanders early in 2007. I was invited to Philadelphia to speak to a leading conservative organization. Arriving early, I struck up a conversation with a member of the group I was to address. Justice Sanders was sitting nearby.
The conservative was quite unhappy about the war in Iraq. He contended that the war was going badly (which was true at the time) and that, on balance, it would be better to cut our losses. I took issue with the latter point, but did not find it easy to overcome some of the points this conservative was making.
After a while Sanders jumped in. In contrast to the reasoned arguments I was trying to refute, he asserted that the war had been hatched by “the neoconservatives” and that the notion that Iraq had WMD was an invention cooked up as a pretext for launching a war of aggression.
Frankly, I was almost relieved to face these arguments, since they were so easily dealt with. I noted, for example, that the view that Iraq possessed by WMD was hardly confined to “neoconservatives.” Instead, it was shared by the Clinton administration and by foreign intelligence services such as France’s.
Justice Sanders appeared to have no answer to this basic argument and others; indeed, it was unclear that they had ever occurred to him. However, he stuck to his position until we were called to our lunch.
Looking back, I suppose I should be grateful that Justice Sanders didn’t heckle me during my talk or that he didn’t pull his phony expert on the Constitution act as so many others do.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/
farmer john,
There is a bug in here and you farmers know what to do with ‘dem pesky bo’ weevils.
An’ when ‘you’ done fixin’ da bug, please take your cotton duckers and tractor on outta’ here if you are going to copy/paste the same “stuff” on several threads.
Otherwise, Welcome, and hang around as fodder….
BUG:
You’ve now repeated your drivel on various entries all to the point that somehow telling the same story again and again makes it more credible.You are human spam hell-bent on sabotaging the President-elect before he takes office. We lawyers would say you have a prejudice towards the man that borders on the irrational and you are unworthy of belief since you concede he does nothing well or consistently. You have the same affliction that most authoritarian conservatives have and that is you cannot accept that your philosophy has lost miserably in a fair democratic process. It expresses your utter contempt for the process, those who disagree with you, and notions of fairness. You forget that should President Obama fail we all fail, as we have so sadly learned with your candidate the current President. No one is asking you to withhold criticism but at least have the human decency to wait until he assumes the reigns of power. To do otherwise brands you a zealot disinterested in the truth,and in the vernacular of the day — a tool. However, I prefer to call people like you “losers.”
Jill 1, November 26, 2008 at 5:29 pm
mespo,
I second that emotion!
—–
Really, Ms. Drivel?
‘Happy’ Thanksgiving, indeed…!
p.s. Gyges, take heed, this is what passive-aggressive looks like…
Change? Who said Change?
Obama is starting to feel a bit of pressure from members of the far left of his own party who are beginning to raise their eyebrows over the fact that he hasn’t shown any desire to institute any “change” thus far with his staff.
Obama went so far as to address the situation today as MSNBC reported on its FirstRead blog.
Obama explains away his lack of “change” and his picking of a plethora of out-of-work Clintonites by saying that who he puts on his staff and cabinet don’t matter. It’s because he is the change we seek, you see? But, wait, you might ask. If the press were paying attention, they might remember that during his acceptance speech he said this whole thing wasn’t about him, it was about us? Wasn’t it that we were the change we were waiting for… right?
Is the stupid press going to let him get away with dropping that hoary rhetoric only to say now it’s suddenly all about him?
When will the civil action be filed? Seems as though another OJ Simpson civil justice is in store. Lori Drew is a sad excuse for a adult.
Pssst. Hey boys? The world is a dangerous place. The only Pollyannas in here are you two who seem to think the world would be sunshine and roses if only Bush could be appointed Emperor of the United States.
Again.
Grow up.
Move along.
Wow. Schizophrenia in action. I didn’t know distinct personality constructs can interact. Troll mental health should be higher on the administrations agenda.
Farmer John, I fear you are exactly right.
The Islamic nuts of the world are going to start calling Obama an aposphate because he was born of a Muslim Father and left Islam.
We may be in even more dire straits than we ever imagined with Islamic nuts with Obama as our President.
This attack in India is just a warm up I fear.
farmer john:
I deem you non sequitur John!
DEVELOPING: Several sites in Mumbai, India’s financial capital, were hit Wednesday night by a wave of terror attacks, aimed at Americans, that left dozens dead and hundreds injured as Indian forces battled with terrorist gunmen to free hostages from two luxury hotels. There are reports of at least 50 and as many as 100 people dead. Police continued to evacuate people through the Oberoi hotel’s basement, and gunmen reportedly had taken hostages elsewhere in the city.
WHAT!! HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN! WE WERE TOLD THAT THE WORLD LOVED US NOW THAT OBAMA WAS ELECTED! WE WERE TOLD IT WAS A GOOD THING FOR ISLAMIC RELATIONS THAT WE HAD A PRESIDENT WHOSE FATHER WAS MUSLIM!
WHAT!! HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN! WE WERE TOLD THAT THE WORLD LOVED US NOW THAT OBAMA WAS ELECTED! WE WERE TOLD IT WAS A GOOD THING FOR ISLAMIC RELATIONS THAT WE HAD A PRESIDENT WHOSE FATHER WAS MUSLIM!
WHAT!! HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN! WE WERE TOLD THAT THE WORLD LOVED US NOW THAT OBAMA WAS ELECTED! WE WERE TOLD IT WAS A GOOD THING FOR ISLAMIC RELATIONS THAT WE HAD A PRESIDENT WHOSE FATHER WAS MUSLIM!
Am I misunderstanding something here? An adult woman used her intelligence and a computer to harass and screw up a teenager’s head because the said teenager fell out with the daughter of the adult. Hello. Adults usually know better than to get involved in the squabbles of teenage girls. This adult proceeded to mess up a vulnerable 13 year olds head until the child killed herself? Then she showed no remorse – s if she did not contribute to pushing this child over the brink? And she basically got off scott free? What is wrong with people? If it happened this way – there is no way she should have gotten off free. She was an accessory to causing the death of a child. What kind of ugly society do we live in that would allow a fully formed adult to prey on a child until the child is dead. Who is her next victim…a six year old that hits her pet with a rock and also has a computer?
mespo,
I second that emotion!
Lori Drew has a lot to be thankful for, and so do I. Have a fine Thanksgiving to all my friends here on the blog including my sparring partners and especially our generous host for inviting us here everyday and reading the drivel that we all sometimes (though it’s rare) spout!