Hang 'Em! Hang 'Em High!

It’s both amusing and frightening to watch my fellow Americans act clueless with respect to certain laws when they’re more concerned with emotional knee-jerk reactions.

In the aftermath of Lori Drew’s conviction—a conviction that had absolutely nothing to do with her bullying a 13-year-old girl who eventually committed suicide—a federal judge has tentatively thrown out the convictions. That’s because the charges were for “computer fraud” since nothing else would stick in court. The prosecutor knew two things: (1.) the public wanted blood and didn’t care how they got it, and (2.) the “fraud” charge was the only thing that would stick, thus public opinion was more important than the legal system.

The problem was that if the fraud charge—which was leveled against Drew because she signed up for her MySpace account using a fake name—stuck, it would also mean that millions of people who have signed up for Internet accounts of any type would then be subject to the same jail term simply for using an alias. And many times they used an alias just to avoid spam or being tracked for additional advertisements in the mail.

But, judging by the comments left on ABC News’ Website, the American people don’t give a damn about the law. They want blood; they want someone to hang; and they don’t want to let the law get in their way.

I applaud the judge for actually looking at what happened and seeing that if this conviction would stand it would have massive implications for Internet users across the nation who have never even considered bullying anyone. This conviction had nothing to do with justice and it had nothing to do with what Lori Drew did to Megan Meier. It had to do with a mob of people wanting to see someone punished even if it meant a slippery slope to do so.

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