LOL, it’s murder
Posted on March 19th, 2009 –
Just kidding. Yup, apparently that’s a bonafide legal defence these days.
In case your cave doesn’t get cable yet, the story is one of your basic teenage withholding-sex-for-murder deals. Right now the jury’s still out on whether or not the female half of the duo is culpable, but the precendent that appears to have been set has already been decided.
After all, if you can say “I didn’t really mean it” when on trial for first-degree murder (meaning it was planned), you should certainly be able to use it in almost any other criminal and civil defence. Consider this courtroom evidence, a few excerpts from instant messages between the two:
“I want her dead … if it takes more than a week, then we’re just gonna be friends”
“ur getting blocked until u kill her”
The mother of the accused girl suggests that “they were trying to make each other jealous”. Her lawyer says that “things don’t necessarily mean what they appear to mean”*. Presumably Judge Nordheimer weighs each defence before allowing anything under the sun into his courtroom, so in this instance it must have been deemed a-okay.
I’m not suggesting that the defence will fly with the jury. Arguing that the words “dead” and “kill” in instant messages (where brevity usually prevails) mean to disassociate or block, especially when the longer word “blocked” is used to mean just this, is a huge stretch. Even punctuation seems to be well thought out, and the diminutive “ur” and”u”, and a captilized “I” suggest a domninant attitude in the relationship.
Whatever; the point is that whichever angle you approach this from, it’s been allowed to be a part of the defence, including the bit where it wasn’t really serious. I really hope that when the full transcripts are released, these few details will somehow make sense. Right now, I get the impression that I should be able to make death threats of all sorts as long as I laugh about it afterwards.
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March 19th, 2009 10:31 am
Sure seems pretty cut and dry to me! She hired him to murder the girl. The payment was the promise of sex. They should both go to jail, her for a longer sentence than him I believe. She is the mastermind, not the boy. There should be reprecussions for bad parenting like this too! It's horrible that her mother is making excuses for her.