Over at Wired’s Threat Level blog, Kim Zetter’s excellent coverage of the Lori Drew trial continues. In this post, she discusses the testimony of Lori Drew’s daughter Sarah:
The girl’s testimony, if true, supports the defense’s assertions that Lori Drew was unaware of Meier’s previous suicide attempt until after Meier killed herself in 2006.
The younger Drew, who prosecutors say was involved in the creation of the fake MySpace account through which Meier was bullied, denied playing any role in the creation of the account, although she admitted she was present when many of the messages were written and when the final message was sent to Meier telling her the world “would be a better place without you.” She insisted she told Ashley Grills, who confessed to writing the last message, not to send it, although she didn’t say why she told this to Grills.
She said it was Grills — who has been granted immunity by prosecutors — who devised the plan, created the account and sent the messages. Neither she nor her mother knew the account was created until “after the fact,” and neither one was home when Grills clicked on the terms of service to create the Josh Evans profile. She also said her mother wasn’t home when Grills sent the final message to Meier.
The girl’s words seemed designed to strike at the heart of the conspiracy charge against her mother, which asserts that she conspired with her daughter and Grills to intentionally violate the MySpace terms of service in order to inflict intentional emotional distress on Meier.
Grills had said that both Drews were with her when she created the account, but that none of them had read the terms of service. That testimony raised questions about whether Lori Drew could be convicted of conspiracy if she didn’t click to agree on the terms of service or even know they existed.
Originally Posted at Concurring Opinions
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This post was authored by Professor Daniel J. Solove, who through TeachPrivacy develops computer-based privacy training, data security training, HIPAA training, and many other forms of awareness training on privacy and security topics. Professor Solove also posts at his blog at LinkedIn. His blog has more than 1 million followers.
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