OK, we have now bested the lunacy of sexting charges

Why would the victim's character have any bearing on the decision to charge someone with a crime?

all character assessments are part of the judgment process, the alleged perps, the victim's, and once the case gets to a courtroom also all who testify.

That's an interesting view of the criminal justice system. Now, how about answering my question.

I did answer the question....prosecutors are charged with judging the totality of circumstances when deciding what if any action the state should take. The actions, reactions and character of the victim all come into play.

How does the victim's character "come into play" when deciding whether or not a crime has been committed?

no. However it is now very difficult for an individual to get through the day without breaking the law. That a person is criminally liable for his actions is a given, so I am not impressed when the state says that so and so broke the law.

Who the state decides to charge, and why, does interest me. Which gets back to the judgment of prosecutors where character matters

Really? I haven't broken a law yet today, and I don't plan on breaking one in the near future. And I didn't find that very difficult at all.


No, it's not a given that someone is criminally liable for his actions. That's why we have a criminal justice system.


Well, in this thread, your primary interests seem to be blaming the victim and avoiding my questions.

this case goes to show that every one is guilty.....no laws against bullying/no problem, the state simply makes other laws complete the purpose. If the state decides they want you they will haul you in. The state can not always convince a court though, not yet, though they can always go far towards ruining your life if they decide they want to.

Of course there are laws against bullying. "Bullying" might not be the term used in the applicable legislation but there are certainly laws against making threats. That's what I was referring to when I mentioned "criminal threatening" in an earlier post. In Massachusetts, that exact phrase -- "criminal threatening" -- is a recognized felonious act. I worked as ateacher in the juvenile justice system in Massachusetts for about 15 years. You'd be surprised at some of the charges that the state can, and does, bring against juvenile offenders.

interesting MA......do you have an opinion as to the proper use of the criminal justice system in dealing with social aggression (as opposed to drug/gang) in our High Schools? If you had no liability problems, no mandatory reporting laws, as much money as you wanted and designed a program..... when do the police/da get into it, and what would they do?

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1243564&srvc=rss

This case continues to look like the work of an out of control prosecutor, looking for someone to blame because a troubled good looking girl took her own life.

But it also looks like a school district trying to control it's image. If school personnel knew of, and actually witnessed, the treatment of this girl, and did nothing to intervene, it not only puts them in a bad light, it makes them complicit in this tragedy. Most of the bullying occurred on school property.

I think the problem is that there are not clear laws to deal with the type of bullying that went on in this case. The actions and behavior of the bullies in this instance really falls into a murky, poorly defined area. That's why the D.A.'s charges do not appear to fit the situation.

The girl really wasn't threatened physically, as Merry Andrew suggested. At least not until that last day when a soda can may have been thrown at her. If so, was the can empty? If empty, it wasn't much of a physical threat or physical attack. Certainly nothing you could hang a criminal charge on.

The girl was mercilessly harassed, apparently over a period of time, to a point where it constituted severe emotional abuse by other students. It was child on child emotional abuse. And you know it was abuse because the mother reported it, and her child's distress about it, to the school, and some of it was witnessed in the school by teachers. You know it was severe because it led to a suicide. And, in considering the severity of emotional abuse, I do think you should take the suicide into account. Harassment and stalking are crimes. Those sorts of charges the D.A. could justify. But, because those charges don't capture the emotional abuse, and it's affect on the victim, I think the D.A. went fishing for other charges to convey a sense of outrage over what happened and the tragic result.

The question then becomes when do you charge school bullies with criminal harassment? How do you draw a line between "normal" teasing or tauting and
a criminal act when you are dealing with minors? This is what future legislation must address. And I do believe we must address it legally. It is clear that bullying must be controlled, stopped, and appropriately punished, in all schools. Children have a right to a safe school environment, free from both physical and emotional harm.

We may need to mandate the reporting of child on child physical and emotional abuse. The laws are not clear on that mandate now, most apply to reporting abuse done by a parent or other adult, and even the mandated reporting of emotional abuse done by a parent isn't all that clear. But emotional abuse does go on between children, sometimes by siblings, sometimes by peers, and we must start addressing it. First we have to clearly define it in a child on child situation. Then we need to have ways of addressing it, and a start might be to mandate that teachers and school personnel report suspected cases to protective services, as well as contacting the parents of the children doing the bullying. The only main advantage of mandating such reporting would be to get the parents of the bullies involved so they are made aware of their children's behavior, and so that protective services can refer such matters to Family Court. This doesn't really provide any immediate help for the victim.

And the schools all have to initiate programs to deal with bullying. The overall situation with bullying has gone way beyond the bounds of anything acceptable as "normal" adolescent behavior. We have to treat it seriously and punish it with more than a slap on the wrist.

It does seem that, in the case of this poor 15 year old, the school should have done far more to deal with the situation. If an investigation finds they were negligent, there should be appropriate punishments or ramifications.

I can't say I agree with what the D.A. is doing in this situation, but I can understand and sympathize with her reasons for doing it. I think she is hamstrung by a lack of an appropriate set of laws to apply to this case. I think we have to get such laws in place, either civil laws or criminal laws, on a nationwide basis, and start treating bullying as a crime.

There are multiple problems with that theory:

1) the districts reputation is already trashed, nationally from this event and locally from a long record of not dealing with bullying.

2) there is a civil liability shield in place, so none of the adults will end up in civil court no matter what they admit to...again, no reason to play dumb

3) the DA is willing to go nuclear so we already know if there is any dirt to be found the police will find it, being able to trade information for better treatment

4) the one mean girl parent who is speaking to the media confirms that this was not a long running problem

5) even though all or almost all of the nine have now been removed from the school none of the kids are speaking up for this girl, telling of how she had it so bad

6) her alleged best friend says that she did not really know that something was wrong with this girl, she never said much about how tormented she was, nor did her friend know that she was tormented

7) hours before her death she had been asked to the major dance of the season by a boy, which is incredible if she was as persona non grata as is alleged. I have the youngest of my three in HS now, I dont see a boy encoring the wrath of the mob by asking her to the dance, if there actually was a mob that was as bad as alleged.

8) After the death the school board had a meeting about bullying and what to do about it, only the family of this girl asked that her death and the events leading up to it not be allowed to be voiced. The claim was privacy of the family needed to be guarded. WTF? Why are we keeping secrets when the locals are trying to learn what went wrong? What could have possibly come out and been recorded that had any negative impact on the family? Something stinks in Baghdad. (of course if the district lied and it was them and not the family who wanted secrecy, then this little factoid goes the other way)

9) not knowing what they should have known is not much better than knowing and not doing anything...this is a school here, a micro society together 7 or so hours a day 5 days a week, not a not of secrets involving a large number of people in this environment. Only the dumb and blind miss a three month organized bullying effort. Copping to it is not for the faint of heart. My money is on the DA grossly exaggerating events

Sometimes there are persons of heart and courage. I would hope there would be one or two sprinkled in amongst these others.

Joe(ask your youngest who is the bravest at their school.)Nation

radio god ron bennington had a great line yesterday

"there are ought to be a national course in the curriculum, called "someday you'll get out of this **** hole", give kids some hope"

When I was 13, in junior high school, a beautiful blonde named Joyce
made some social overtures to me, very unexpectedly.
That became my first love.
I developed a powerful approach-avoidance reaction to her.
I had no information of the existence thereof for the next 5 years
until explained by a psychology professor; I almost fell off my chair when he explained it.
Anyway, I coud not give a rat 's ass what any BOY thawt about ANYTHING; thay counted for NOTHING, in my mind,
but I sure was obsessed with Joyce.

At age 13, I did not know that the more that u CARE
about what she thinks or how she 'll react, the scarier it is
to approach her & the closer u get, the greater the fear intensifies.
Conversely, the further u get from her, the braver u get and the more attractive she looms in your mind.





David

Well, that's certainly arguable. I recall I once had a student who was awaiting trial on a charge of 'assault with a dangerous weapon.' Since this boy seemed to be fairly mild-mannered when compared to some of the gang members I was used to dealing with I looked up the details of that charge. What had happened the kid had gotten into school-yard fist-fight with another youth. During the heat of battle, rolling around on the ground, the boy's sneaker had fallen off his foot. He grabbed it and started using it as a weapon.

Assault with a dangerous weapon. Serious charge. You think an emppty soda can is less of a weapon than a sneaker?

Nicely put.

Very, very few things cannot be used as weapons,
when combined with a little creativity, tho some weapons r better than others.





David

So today the school people are saying that administrators did not know of any problems this girl was having till one week before she killed herself. This does not mean that no teacher or staff knew, only that the office did not know.