Flo6 said:

people are going to come face to face with MANY stupid and idiotic people in their lives, that is totally unavoidable. How we deal with them is what the issue is here.

At the end of the day, we have a dead child

and an adult who should have known better

its all messed up however u look at it

ZombieKitten said:

ZombieKitten said:

Y'all keep goin on about the CHILD'S SUICIDE like oh well, the child's fault na na na

Now hold on a minute, what if the child never killed herself... shouldn't there be some sort of "legal reprimand" just for the stalking, luring the child, fraud, harrassment, ETC?????

Cinnie said:

the suicide itself is not necessarily that woman's fault but that elaborate scheme she pulled to try and destroy a child's self esteem needs to be addressed legally.

JasmineFire said:

that's what I'm sayin. like okay, you can't legally charge her with manslaughter, but there are all kinds of wrongdoing before that point.

Anxiety said:

Flo6 said:

I disagree. We ought to be held responsible for the words that come out of our mouths. Using your example, I was/have been called ugly by people all my life. Are you to tell me that I should not take that to heart?

People ought not be assholes.

JasmineFire said:

...and basically as it stands, the only legal way to do so would be in civil court...not criminal.

some words have been used here to describe the womans actions, that by law, simply don't fit...she didn't lure the child as defined by criminal law, she didn't stalk the child as defined by criminal law and as far as fraud is concerned, the fraud was a grown woman posing as a teen boy on a social network to degrade a young girl...none of that is clearly covered/defined by any sort of criminal law...and harrasment?? well, that's a toughie to present and prove in civil court, let alone criminal...if it were as simple as applying the above terms, you can bet the prosecution would have thrown the collective book of those terms at her...

I think everyone is in agreement that this womans actions were reprehensible...and if updated laws need to be put in place to prevent this from happening again, so be it...I simply hate to see attorneys bring half applicable charges to the table...to me, that beckons of a hasty need to satisfy an angry public and an attempt to seal a conviction by any means possible...lord knows, if this woman is convicted, she deserves every bit of what she gets and then some...but what happens when these same tactics are thrown at persons in other cases...perhaps innocent people?? To me, thats why this is an interesting and somewhat troubling case...

Cinnie said:

absolutely

I'm objecting to people on here calling that woman a "murderer"

roodboi said:

That's it in a nutshell, J....

matt said:

Hello my legal eagle! I believe any adult tampering with a minor should be preventable. In the case of this household it wouldn't be such an issue.



I'd be the one on trial. There isn't a solitary thing that could save her from my wrath.







.
[Edited 5/17/08 16:47pm]

ZombieKitten said:

I see na

Cinnie said:

The way I see it, she is an example

new laws will probably be written cause of this, people will soon need to give their social security no. or person number to even be able to make social networking site profiles.

what a difficult thing to be policing

ZombieKitten said:

I still feel like the old laws could handle this. I don't care if this woman wrote hand written notes and included fake polaroids... it is the same wrongdoing.

Cinnie said:

Probably.
If it becomes more and more common for folks to invent fake personas with malicious intent online, people will demand action.

Yes, imo you shouldn't take that to heart.

Words are powerful things. They can and do hurt us. And in a free, open and pluralistic society, we should expect to come into contact with offensive speech on a more or less regular basis. It is part of growing up into independent, mature adults that to learn how to tolerate hurtful words or views, handle our emotions and be able to see beyond. Not to be able to do this shows an inability to cope with criticism and disagreement. We should learn this if we are to cope with a world in which those with divergent opinions are increasingly connected with each other via the online media. We should learn to cope with these words rationally and without fear.

It's not because a certain type of speech is offensive to someone/some people that it automatically lacks social value. In fact, offensive speech often produces the most valuable ideas and debates online and off-. True freedom of speech should have a place for it.

And to be told by lawmakers that freedom of speech is 'too dangerous' for us to practice is patronizing - it's saying that we cannot be trusted to act as mature, independent adults capable of making the right decisions.

So yes, if I may suggest, forget about people saying you are ugly. "Don't let it spoil your day" as Prince says, or "Stop worryin' about what people say - When it ain't gonna stop them anyway,: as he sings in 'Love'...

Stymie said:

"We ought to be held responsible for the words that come out of our mouths."

I think we ought to be responsible for our actions.

Stymie said:

A nice, useful summary of the legal angle.

The little I know about US law tells me that you cannot call someone a criminal on the assumption that that person has committed or intends to commit a crime.

In this case, it seems most people assume much more about that woman than what she may have actually intended to do. We do not know if she planned to take her reprehensible online actions into the offline world and actually meet and cause further harm to this girl, and we have no evidence of this as far as I understood the case.

roodboi said:

violator said:

we should start a law firm Don...