News Service from House Harris

US: State begins prosecuting cyberbullys

ST LOUIS, December 20 AP - A 21-year-old woman accused of sending a vulgar text message to a 17-year-old girl is one of the first cases brought under a law against cyberbullying spurred by the suicide of a teenage girl following cruel internet messages on the Internet.

The 2006 death of 13-year-old Megan Meier prompted Missouri lawmakers to update state harassment law earlier this year so that it covers bullying and stalking done through electronic media, like e-mails and text messages.

A handful of cases related to electronic communication have been filed statewide since the law took effect on August 28. Prosecutors do not track harassment cases based on the type of communication method used, so could not provide an exact count in recent days of how many people have been charged because of the new provisions.

In one of the new cases, Nicole Williams is accused of using electronic communications to harass a teenager in a dispute over a boy. Williams is scheduled for arraignment on one count of harassment on January 8.

She allegedly sent the text message to the 17-year-old she had not previously met because she heard the girl had a physical encounter with her boyfriend. The two had just been talking, police said.

The 17-year-old girl received voice messages with lewd and threatening comments, including some threatening rape. Williams told police others sent those messages from her phone, according to a probable cause statement.

The case was filed in November and is the first involving text messages in the county where Meier resided, since the new law came into effect.

Defence lawyer Michael Kielty, who represents Williams, criticised the revised law on electronic harassment. He called the Meier case tragic, but said lawmakers had engaged in a knee-jerk reaction to try to address the high-profile case.

In a landmark cyberbullying trial, Lori Drew, 49, of Missouri, was convicted in Los Angeles on misdemeanour federal charges of accessing computers without authorisation last month.

Kielty said Missouri's revised harassment measures are bad law.

He said kids used to say things face to face or pass notes in school commenting on someone's looks or weight. The new law "criminalises behaviour that otherwise wouldn't be illegal except for the medium", he said.

"It's not criminal. It might be mean-spirited, but it's not criminal," he said.

Prosecutor Jack Banas said the updated harassment law should help make it "easier to go after people who are going after people in unusual ways".

He said harassment over the telephone has been a crime for years in Missouri.