15-Year-Old Spends a Month in Jail for MySpace Post

By Margaret Lyons in News on Mar 18, 2008 8:38PM

An Aurora teen was sentenced to 27 days in jail for posting what prosecutors called threats on his MySpace page. The 15-year-old East Aurora High School student agreed to a plea bargain today, having already served that time. He was also sentenced to 21 days of electronic home monitoring and a year of probation, during which he's only allowed to use the internet for homework.

The teen's Feb. 17 post lists particular students he felt wronged him and then says: "think again about another person u hurt think about what could and might possibly happen u could get shot with a 9 mm in the head or back." The post also said the student would not hurt anyone. [Beacon News]

Poor taste, maybe, and if we could we'd criminalize the use of "u" instead of "you," but is that really the same as a threat? Initially, the police didn't even charge him with anything, and he said he was just blowing off steam.

The teenager's trial started March 12 and, through his attorney, he argued the posts were protected by his First Amendment rights.

"You absolutely don't have the freedom to say whatever you want," [Kane County Judge Wiley] Edmondson said Monday. [Daily Herald]

We get why schools have to take threats seriously, but holy overreaction, Batman.