MCLEANS IN THE NEWS

Here's WHLT's story on the McLean situation:

WAINWRIGHT: FINALLY, A DAY IN COURT


Yuri Wainwright's trial is scheduled for November 28, 2007. That's over 7 months since he was arrested and held on $1 million bond. He was originally charged with violating the Anti-Free Speech Act of 2003, otherwise known as 97-45-17 of the Mississippi Code, which criminalizes "posting of messages" through any medium "for the purpose" of causing "injury" to "any person."

I have questioned Wainwright's detention from day one, for one big reason--the authorities would never tell us specifically what Wainwright wrote that could be construed as being "for the purpose of causing injury to any person." They did tell us that he was an atheist and that they found guns at his grandmother's house, where he lived. But to this day, the general public has never been told what Wainwright said that was so criminal that he had to be arrested exactly in the middle of the week that began with the Virginia Tech shootings and ended with the anniversary of the Columbine killings and then held on a $1 million bond.

I have never said that Wainwright did not commit a crime. I don't know if he did or didn't. I'm just saying that it strikes me as very odd that the authorities felt no responsibility to let the public know exactly what Wainwright said. After all, in a case that is similar to Wainwright's in many respects--that of Tosin Oduwole--the police quoted from his alleged writings immediately, as I've discussed elsewhere. Oduwole supposedly wrote that there was going to be a horrific act of violence on a college campus if money wasn't deposited in his PayPal account. Unlike Wainwright, Oduwole had also allegedly tried to (or actually did) purchase semiautomatic weapons online and had a gun in his dorm room.

Why wouldn't/won't they tell us?

Why would our public servants not tell us what Wainwright said? After all, if people are going to be thrown in jail because they wrote something, the public has the right to know what words were used--we have the right to know whether our First Amendment freedoms are being protected or not. I have feared from the beginning of this case that Wainwright's treatment suggests that the First Amendment is being trampled--it's the mood of the whole country, it seems.

Somewhere along the way, a charge of cyber-stalking was added to Wainwright's case. The Hattiesburg American has been apparently combining the two offenses in their descriptions of the charges, saying Wainwright is being tried for "cyber-stalking through electronic media." That is of course a redundant charge, as cyber-stalking cannot take place except through electronic media.

Cyber-stalking is a completely different charge--the law specifies that a threat must be issued, the victim must reasonably fear for his safety, and the accused must have had the apparent ability to carry out the threat. In fact, when the authorities were quoted in articles about the Wainwright case, they always seemed to be describing cyber-stalking even though Wainwright was originally charged with violating the "posting of messages" statute, which in the law is obviously separate and distinct from cyber-stalking.

I should point out that the "posting" law (97-45-17)does not mention a "threat." Rather, it forbids the purposeful causing of "injury," without defining what "injury" means for the purposes of the statute.

So I'm not sure what happened along the way. When the Hattiesburg American says Wainwright is accused of "cyber-stalking through electronic media," I can't tell if they're quoting the authorities verbatim or if that's the American's interpretation of what the authorities say.

At any rate, I hope Wainwright gets a fair trial and that the First Amendment rights of Wainwright as well as the public at large are protected.

Here's the text of the Hattiesburg American story, reprinted here without permission (I'll remove it if asked) because their stories are deleted after some indeterminate amount of time:



Court date set in Internet threats case
By TERRY L. JONES

A University of Southern Mississippi student charged with posting threats on the Internet may finally get his day in the Forrest County Circuit Court.

The court date for Yuri Wainwright, 26, is set for Nov. 28, according to court documents.

Wainwright was arrested in April, just days following the shootings at Virginia Tech, for allegedly posting threats on the popular social networking Web site MySpace.com.

Since his arrest, Wainwright has been held in the Lamar County Jail on a $1 million bond.

Wainwright was indicted on charges of cyber-stalking through electronic media in September. He pleaded innocent following his arrest.

Very little information has been released regarding exactly what kinds of threats Wainwright posted on his blog.

Jackson attorney Jim Kitchens is representing Wainwright now, court documents say. He was previously being represented by Hattiesburg attorney Maura McLaughlin.

Kitchens did not return calls seeking comment.

Court officials said the Nov. 28 date does not ensure Wainwright will stand trial then. District Attorney Jon Mark Weathers said Wainwright's case is just one of 12 on the court docket for that day.

If convicted Wainwright could be sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison and fined $10,000.

FREE SPEECH OUTLAWED IN MS CODE 97-45-17?

The more I think about it, the more I have to ask whether or not the law under which Yuri Wainwright was charged is an attempt to outlaw "free speech."

Why would I say this? Consider the following:

1. The term "injury" isn't defined in the chapter in which this anti-free-speech law in contained.
2. Any "message" posted in "any medium of communication" is subject to this law.
3. The "injury" claim can come from "any person," not just the person who may or may not be mentioned in the "message."

The only mitigating factor, the only part left up to a jury, is whether or not the "message" is "for the purpose of causing injury to any person." Intent, I would think, is fairly difficult to prove. But not impossible--all it would take is a slick lawyer making a case to a dumbed-down jury.

What is "injury?"

Since "injury" isn't defined in the code, how is that word defined in say, the dictionary? Dictionary.com lists a legal definition of injury as:

4. Law. any wrong or violation of the rights, property, reputation, etc., of another for which legal action to recover damages may be made.

So according to this definition, a person's reputation can in fact suffer "injury." At what point does injury to a reputation become illegal? It would be helpful if this law would tell us, but it does not. We know that Yuri Wainwright was not satisfied with the quality of his education. If he posted a message that said "I think the University of Southern Mississippi's architecture department is useless," could that be construed as causing "injury" to the reputation of the university and/or one of its academic departments? Of course it could--and probably should.

But is it illegal--or more precisely, should it be illegal to express one's opinion about the architecture department? I should think that this goes to the very essence of the First Amendment. For example, if I say that "George W. Bush is a moron and is unfit to be president," could I, under MS Code 97-45-17, be charged by not just Bush, but any and/or all of his supporters who feel that I have injured Bush's reputation as well as the reputations of his supporters? I'd argue that yes, under the vague language of this law, I could be prosecuted for saying that.

Should I be able to be prosecuted for saying that? I'd like to think that the First Amendment and related judicial precedents would render the very question inane, but 97-45-17 seems to render the likelihood of my prosecution for such a statement a very open question indeed.

Was Wainwright in fact arrested for something that's been "hiding in plain sight" on his MySpace page? In his "About Me" section, he says the following:

"Yuri switched his alliterative identity of a pothead philosopher to an alcoholic architect. As soon as he graduates from a rinky dink excuse for a school(with good teachers, amazingly), he will promtly move to a different place where the scenery doesnt quite match the morass of its inhabitants."

The University of Southern Mississippi is not mentioned by name on Wainwright's page. But someone with an axe to grind against Wainwright could conceivably argue that he caused injury to the university's reputation among people who knew he was USM student, including the faculty member who supposedly turned him in.

Is that far-fetched? Well, consider the fact that, according to the Hattiesburg American, Wainwright "has been placed on interim suspension by Southern Miss." For that status to apply to Wainwright, all that must happen is that
"the president of the university or a designated administrator determines that the presence of a student would reasonably constitute clear and present danger to the university community or property" (Section 11 of USM Student Handbook). Would someone bad-mouthing the university "reasonably constitute" a "clear and present danger" to the university? Probably not. Unless Wainwright saw something involving a professor that he wasn't supposed to see and let it be known that he was going to go public or something. Or something similar--who knows?

But I'm getting away from my point. It strikes me that 97-45-17 of the MS Code is unconstitutional and should be struck down. Maybe Wainwright's case will help that happen--if they ever get off their ass and try him.

EVERYONE IN THE UNITED STATES SHOULD CARE ABOUT YURI WAINWRIGHT'S CASE...

New story about the lack of information in the Yuri Wainwright case today...

Here's what I wrote about it at the Hattiesburg American forum...

Stonewalling=Lack of guilt?

Wainwright has been rotting in jail for over four months. It is long past time for "the law" to bring a case against him or let him go. I've said it before and I'll say it again--there is no way that this case can be as complicated as Weathers and Hopkins have made it out to be. Either Wainwright made a threat on the Internet or he didn't.

The stonewalling of Weathers and Hopkins makes it pretty clear that Wainwright did NOT make a threat on the Internet. After all, if Wainwright had written something that was clearly a threat, no one would've had any qualms about publicizing what it was that he wrote that was so bad.

How do we know this? By comparing Wainwright's situation to that of Tosin Oduwole, a student at Southern Illinois University.

Wainwright vs. Oduwole: Contrast & Compare

The police supposedly found a note in Oduwole's abandoned car that said:

"if this account doesn't reach $50,000 in the next 7 days then a murderous rampage similar to the VT shooting will occur at another highly populated university. THIS IS NOT A JOKE!"

Not only that, Oduwole had recently placed online orders for semiautomatic weapons. Oduwole also had a loaded gun in his dorm room.

Note that what Oduwole supposedly wrote appeared in the very first stories about his arrest. That's because in America, when someone is hauled off to jail for engaging in a constitutionally-protected activity--in this case, exercising the freedom of speech--the public has a right to know how that constitutionally-protected activity crossed a line if in fact a line has been crossed.

Why This Concerns Every American

Everyone in America should be concerned about Wainwright's incarceration and the authorities' apparent lack of justification for it. I don't care if Bob Hopkins is a smart, likable guy as I've repeatedly been told. He owes the university, nay, the Hattiesburg community, nay--the people of the United States some concrete reason for putting Yuri Wainwright behind bars on $1 million bond.

If they can put Wainwright in jail for over four months with no apparent end in sight to his incarceration, what's to stop them from putting any one of us in jail merely on their say-so? Apparently all that has to be done to take a citizen's freedom is to make a vague accusation under a (probably intentionally) vague statute (in Wainwright's case, it's "Posting of Messages through Electronic Media for Purpose of Causing Injury to Any Person," which is from MS Code 97-45-17).

Is that the impression John Mark Weathers and Bob Hopkins intend to leave for the citizens of this city, state, and country? I sincerely hope not--but what other conclusion are we to draw?

What, exactly, is "injury?"

Read the statute--it went into effect in July of 2003. It's likely that it hasn't even been tested in court yet. The standard it uses--that a "message" must "have the purpose" of "causing injury to any person"--is so vague that it could apply to anything. In fact, if Bob Hopkins or John Mark Weathers were to read this post, they might try to argue that this "message" has the purpose of "causing injury" to them, or their reputations, or their feelings, or whatever.

After all, what, pray tell, is meant by "injury?" How can it be proved whether or not a message "has the purpose" of "causing injury?" As far as I can tell by just using Google, MS is the only state with a statute like this. That doesn't mean other states don't have similar laws, I just can't find them easily/quickly.

Not only on the Internet

But also take note, the statute in question here is not limited to only the Internet. It says if you purposely create a "message" that has the purpose of causing "injury" (physical? social? mental? all of the above? any of the above?) to "ANY person," you could be charged under this act if you use "ANY means of communication."

HATE AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Reading Arthur Silber's take on the Newt Gingrich free speech fiasco...

Silber points out that we've been told that "they hate us because of our freedoms." Silber correctly points out that this is utter nonsense and that "they hate us because we kill them."

I have long argued that we need to bring the frightened sheep in this country to the realization of the true cause of terrorism, which is simply other nations' or peoples' grievances against us, whether real or perceived. The cause of terrorism is not jealousy or hatred of our "freedom."

But when the popular perception is that we must give up our freedoms so that terrorism will stop, we have people like Newt Gingrich and George Bush who will gladly sacrifice those freedoms. And they have done and will do so in vain, because their terrorizing of us won't stop until we stop our terrorizing of them.

Gingrich's remarks remind us that we have to make sure our fellow citizens understand why people would want to hurt us. Instead of trying to score political points with Christofascists and their sympathizers by expressing a desire to end free speech as we know it, Gingrich should be advocating the end of imperialistic impulses and our attempts to control the rest of the world to our benefit and the world's detriment.

If You Think About It

Because if you think about it, from the very beginning, the history of the United States is the history of oppression and overthrow, naked agression and plundering. All of which is cleverly done under the guise of being dedicated to freedom and equality.

Howard Zinn does a good rundown of this history in an interview with (shudder) Dennis Prager:

HZ: Well, probably more bad than good. We’ve done some good, of course; there’s no doubt about that. But we have done too many bad things in the world. You know, if you look at the way we have used our armed force throughout our history: first destroying the Indian communities of this continent and annihilating Indian tribes, then going into the Caribbean in the Spanish-American War, going to the Philippines, taking over other countries, not establishing democracy but in many cases establishing dictatorship, holding up dictatorships in Latin America and giving them arms, and you know, Vietnam, killing several million people for no good reason at all, certainly not for democracy or liberty, and continuing down to the present day with the War in Iraq—we’re not bringing democracy to Iraq, we’re not bringing security to Iraq, and we’re responsible for the deaths of very large numbers of people, I mean, 2500 Americans, tens of thousands of Iraqis....

Just sayin'...