On October 16, 2006, Tina Meier found her thirteen-year-old daughter, Megan, hanging from a belt inside her closet. The situation was a tragedy from the start for Tina and her husband, Ron, who pieced together what had seemingly pushed Megan to her unexpected suicide. Megan had only gotten to know sixteen-year-old Josh Evans through the cloaked world of an internet social network after he contacted her on MySpace. But when, after a month of flirtation, Josh inexplicably became cruel, Megan grew distraught. The day before she took her own life, Josh had publicly posted her private messages, as well as his own harsh comments calling her “fat” and a “slut,” for others to read and laugh at. It was the very day that she died though, just twenty minutes before Megan went through with her act of suicide, that she had received a message from Josh telling her: “Everybody in O’Fallon knows how you are. You are a bad person and everybody hates you. Have a shitty rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you.”
It was not until six weeks later that the Meiers learned the true extent of the tragedy underlying their daughter’s death; a young girl from the neighborhood came forward and informed them that Josh had never existed. It turned out the fictitious boy had been created to “mess with Megan,” not by a sixteen-year-old at all, but rather, by a forty-seven-year-old woman who lived four houses away from the Meiers in Dardenne Prairie, Missouri. Lori Drew’s original intent was apparently grounded in a desire to find out what Megan would say about her daughter, a former friend of Megan’s. There is no reason to believe that Drew actually intended to bring about Megan’s death. But, arguably, she deliberately participated in a ploy that would foreseeably cause an adolescent to suffer severe emotional distress. The emotional distress that Megan endured as a result of the internet ploy was particularly foreseeable for Drew, because Megan had struggled with depression issues in the past and Drew was aware of Megan’s emotional fragility.
Since the hoax that preceded Megan’s suicide became public knowledge, the incident has often been referred to as an unfortunate example of “cyberbullying.” However, scholarly discussions about “cyberbullies” tend to pertain to minors and the question of whether schools have the legal right to discipline them. Lori Drew’s behavior made it clear that cyberbullying is not limited to students targeting their peers, and that a solution extending beyond school discipline may be necessary. While similar problems have been recognized amongst adults in the context of cyberharassment and cyberstalking, it is difficult to ascertain the difference between these three forms of internet victimization, especially because they are often used interchangeably. Ultimately, since there are no universal terms with corresponding sets of definitions to describe the acts that internet culprits commit, scholarly discussions surrounding different forms of internet victimization have become muddled with confusing overlaps regarding both the ages of the persons involved and the severity of the culprit’s conduct. Such overlaps thwart clear analysis and the creation of successful solutions.
While many states have taken steps to account for the increased dangers posed by internet victimization, there is a need for more complete coverage in this area of law to account for the full spectrum of problematic behavior in the cyber context. This Note begins, in Part II, by presenting the current labels for victimizing internet behavior and their overlapping definitions as they are discussed in academic literature. Part III then explains why all forms of cyber victimization involve enhanced risks because of the internet’s unique characteristics. Next, Part IV describes the current spectrum of state statutes in this area of criminal law, providing examples of how states’ criminal codes do not account for all forms of cyber victimization independently. Part V then explains why states should update their laws to impose criminal liability for all possible forms of cyber victimization. Finally, Part VI proposes a three-tiered classification of cyber victimization crimes that states could effectively implement. The scheme proposed in this Note accounts for conduct that is likely to pertain to minors, but it does not involve categorical distinctions based on age. Instead, the proposed scheme includes the possibility for both adults and young people to be held liable, but breaks down degrees of liability based on the culprit’s intent and the victim’s harm suffered.