FC: Utah arrests student publisher, plans to charge criminal libel

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

[Let me see if I get this right. A California teenager is transplanted to 
Utah and doesn't quite fit in at his new school. Some of his enemies set up 
a web site. He replies with his own anonymous site, praising some teachers 
and students and denouncing others. In response, the Utah police raid his 
home, put him in jail for seven days, and now plan to charge him with 
criminal libel. This notwithstanding the fact that one of the most 
celebrated cases in U.S. legal history dealt with how Peter Zenger escaped 
criminal libel charges. --Declan]

**********

My article on a very similar 1997 case dealing with criminal libel charges 
brought against high school students:
http://www.time.com/time/digital/daily/0,2822,12129,00.html

Slashdot thread:
http://slashdot.org/features/00/06/01/1526235.shtml

Zenger case background:
http://www.sar.org/newslett/Zenger.txt

*********

http://www.sltrib.com/05282000/utah/52983.htm

Salt Lake Tribune
By Joe Baird

   MILFORD Ian Michael Lake didn't fit in this southwest Utah
railroad town. On that everyone in this close-knit community of
1,500 can agree. And most believe the Milford High School junior
crossed a line when he posted a Web site disparaging faculty
members and classmates in graphically vulgar terms.
    But there is serious and, perhaps, litigious disagreement
developing over how he became marginalized and whether Lake's
inflammatory home page merited the seizure of his home computer
and seven nights in a juvenile detention facility. There is also the
question of the constitutionality of criminal libel charges he may
soon face.

[...]

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