Creative Writing—or Criminal Act? Kid's fiction leads to inquisition

[osaMABUSh]

<snip>
It’s a school’s worst nightmare: Masked teenage commandos raid the campus office and kill the principal. A second group of students sets bombs around the building, synchronizing them to explode at lunchtime. And on the roof, snipers fire at cops and bystanders below.
AFTER HE FINISHED his assignments in a computer class one day last year, Brian Robertson—then a senior at Moore High School, in Moore, Okla.—penned that chilling scenario and saved it on the school computer’s hard drive.
Robertson insists the two pages of writing were fiction—a work of dark “literary art,” he told NEWSWEEK. But local prosecutors saw it differently. In April 2002, after a teacher discovered the file on the computer, the district attorney charged Robertson with the felony offense of “planning a violent act.” Robertson, who is now 19, became the first person in the Oklahoma City area charged under that law, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
<snip>
http://www.msnbc.com/news/958696.asp?0cv=CB10

1984 Thought Crime is here. Only in America.

His Mother sets up Website to defend him.
http://www.savebrian.org/

[sasquatch]

1. I wonder how were doing on the eastasia front

4+4=?

[RobinA]

2. This Guy

shouldn't be charged with a thought crime, he should be charged with criminal stupidity. He's a senior and he does this? Sure it's a free country, but ya gotta use a little sense.

[osaMABUSh]

4. BS - unless there is some other material evidence you can't

charge people with "thinking" about a crime. Christ half the American male population would be in jail for sex crimes.

[arwalden]

3. Wasn't There A Pedophile Who Kept A Private Diary Of His...

... fantasies (that he never acted on) just a written record of the things he thought of... and then he was put back in jail for violation of his probation/parole? for possessing "kiddie porn".

I'm still baffled over that one.

-- Allen

[sasquatch]

5. His conviction was overturned

The Ohio court of appeals overturned his conviction. The Ohio Supreme court ruled it unconstitutional.