Oklahoma: Write a Story, Go to Jail...?

The statute, passed in July 2001, makes it illegal for anyone to "plan, attempt, conspire or endeavor to perform an act of violence involving or intended to involve serious bodily harm or death of another person."

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Frankly, all that should be considered criminal behavior; none of that, however, encompasses fiction. I'd say the law enforcement authorities need to busy themselves looking for actual criminals, and quit worrying about wannabe creative writers, however dull-witted they may be.

Remember: even paranoids have enemies.

So he found part of a story on a computer and added to it? I assume the story wasn't just for his own personal reading and more than likely he would be involved in plagerizing if he passed it off as his own.

The school needs to be charged as the teenager's accomplice, no? The dreaded story was found on their computer, potentially the Adobe software that they installed themselves.

I wonder just how much of the destructive story was from the Adobe textbook and how much was by the teenager.

With utter sarcasm

But it's the law, and the law must be followed.

For all you "by the book" people, do you see the short-sightedness of such a position?

??? What's this got to do with following the law? The law doesn't say anything about writing FICTION, it's about actually PLANNING something! I can see investigating it, but if it ain't clear that this is a just a kid who wrote a story, these "law enforcement" folks need to call 1-800-RENT-A-BRAIN.(c)

Anybody read page 2???

Last December, Robertson's case was actually dismissed by a judge who ruled the law under which he was charged "unconstitutionally vague."

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That throws the law out for any further enforcement of the kind. It's called precedent.

Soory if I am wrong here, but wasn't there already a SCOTUS case that has dealt with something almost identical? "Clear and present danger" or some such? Where the defendent was acused of planning a bombing but since he didn't actually posses any bomb making materials his conviction was overtuned. Something about idle talk? Can anyone here remind me of the case? Constitutional law class was sooo very long ago.

GinSlinger