Life and Deatherage
Author: Matt Deatherage Posted: 5/4/04; 12:33:37 AM Topic: Oklahoma Lege fixes bogus school violence law Msg #: 824 (top msg in thread) Prev/Next: 823/825 Reads: 9763
Oklahoma Lege fixes bogus school violence law
I swear, the lead-in to this story made me think the Lege had lost what little was left of its collective mind. The headline is "School Violence Bill Passes House/Moore Student's Alleged Shooting List Prompts Bill:"OKLAHOMA CITY -- A Moore High School student's actions prompted the state House of Representatives to pass an anti-violence bill Monday. Brian Derrick Robertson was arrested in April 2002 for allegedly writing a plan for a shooting at his former school.Now this, of course, is the same kid who required the "Save Brian" web site. He found a PageMaker training document on a school computer named "Evacuation Orders" and turned it into a short story about school violence. For this, he was charged with a felony, lost his job and couldn't keep more, incurred tens of thousands in legal fees, and even his friends who simply told the court-documented truth about him were fired for "supporting" him. I wrote it about it here, and again here when the charges were finally dropped. Even then, the kid couldn't get his record expunged because the felony charge had been open for over a year.
Well, it turns out, the lege isn't completely crazy - his hometown (Republican - yay for sane things from the GOP!) rep is trying to fix the horrible laws that caused all this:
It is currently a felony to plan to perform an act of violence intended to involve serious bodily harm or death. Violations are punishable by up to ten years in prison.However, House Bill 2270 would require anyone charged with a felony under the statute to have "intent to perform such malicious acts of violence ..."
The measure passed 98-0 and now heads to the governor.
A companion bill would expand the list of persons who are eligible to have their criminal records expunged.
In other words, simply writing the story as before is no longer a thoughtcrime; the state has to prove you intended to carry out the plan, and if it strings you along for more than 12 months before dismissal, you can get your felony record expunged. Yay for sanity in the Lege.
(If you don't think this is important, go back and read the previous links. Seriously, this was bad mojo.)
This is a Manila site.