A recent article in Wired News, tells the story of 18 year old Brian Robertson.
Robertson was just short of graduating from high school when he encounted a not-so-minor setback. He was arrested.
His crime? Writing a short essay called, Evacuation Orders (pdf), which details a plan to shoot the school principal and plant explosives around the campus of his school.
To be sure, the subject matter should never have been typed onto the school's computer. And without argument, it should have never been written in the first place.
But after a search of Robertson's car, and his parents' house, rendered nothing in the way of explosives or any other type of artillery, the prosecutor decided to drop the case, having given the now shaken Robertson a stern warning — right?
Wrong! Robertson now finds himself facing felonious criminal charges that potentially carry a 10-year prison sentence!
Prosecutors decided to charge Robertson under an Oklahoma state statute, which makes it a felony 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." Fine.
But what if that person wasn't actually planning or conspiring to perform the act of violence? What if he was merely writing about it? Is that an adequate reason to toss him into prison for 10 years, and his future into the toilet forever?
There has been no crime committed in this case. No act of aggression has been committed. No weaponry has been found. No other indication that any plan of terror was about to be committed, except for an ominous two-page note on the school's computer.
Yet the authorities in Oklahoma are prosecuting this young man as if he had been planning a mass murder.
The greatest point of contention is not whether or not the writing actually proves that Robertson was conspiring to commit an act of violence, but whether or not the law requires the proof, in order to sustain a guilty verdict.
The article states that he had discovered the first few lines on a computer at school, transferred the file to a different computer, and commenced adding his own ideas to the piece. Quoting from Wired:
Robertson was in a Web design class at Moore High School in February 2002 when he says he found a Notepad file containing a paragraph titled "Evacuation Plans," which consisted of various instructions for taking shelter.
"It was pretty cool, I thought, so I just added on to it," Robertson said.
Robertson says the style of the writing set the tone for what he penned next. "The first paragraph was written in a militaristic style, so I got my mind set in a militaristic style and I just went from there," he said.
The text he wrote described using C-4 explosives to blow up the school and addressed what to do when police arrived. C-4 explosives were used in the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen three years ago and tore a 40-by-40-foot hole into the side of the destroyer.
About five weeks later, two students found the file on a computer and showed it to their teacher. Robertson was suspended from school for a year and prevented from graduating with his high school class. In order to complete the credits he needed to get his diploma, he took correspondence courses through the local university. Since his arrest he has had difficulty holding a job.
"I didn't know I could be charged with a felony for writing a story," he said.
Robertson's mother, Kathy, says Brian has produced dark writing in the past. "But he's not the only student who does this," she said. When she read the story in question she knew it was just "a figment of his imagination."
"Many students who are violent, you can see a pattern; they're constantly in trouble with school or withdrawn. But Brian is very gregarious. He's a fun-loving person and is very open. He's not the type who takes retribution," she said. Nonetheless, she supported his school suspension.
A former teacher herself, she said, "I know that in the day and time in which we live things are very scary." But she says the criminal charge went too far. "A felony will be with him for the rest of his life. That is so unfair."
Robertson says he lost friends as a result of the charges. Reporters later interviewed students at Moore who said they were frightened by news of his short story.
After his booking photo, which Robertson's mother describes as "not the most attractive photo," was flashed on the local news, Robertson's employer of two and a half years asked him to stop coming in.
"It was a really bad time for me," said Robertson.
And it is still a bad time for Robertson. His trial is currently underway.
In the transcripts of the trial, can be found some very interesting quotes. Quotes that serve to illustrate just how far we've come as a society toward institutionalizing George Orwell's 1984 "Thought Police."
On page 13 of one of the documents, the judge, presiding over the trial, described a possible scenario and posed a question to the Assistant District Attorney.
The Court: Now, if I am driving down the freeway, and I have a gun in my trunk with ammunition, and I think to myself, I will take the next exit, stop at a service station, get the gun out of the truck and trunk, and go in and rob this station, and shoot whoever is there. Okay, I am thinking that to myself as I drive down the road. I come to the next exit. I drive on past. I never exit the highway. I never get the gun out of the trunk. Did I commit a crime under this statute?
Mr. Sitzman: Assuming for the moment that big brother somehow or another is able to retrieve your thoughts and put it in some form that it could be utilized as evidence in Court, under this statute, I believe you have. I believe this statute as it is written on its face, unless, there is a very strict construction read into it, this statute criminalizes civil thought.
We freedom-loving patriots have been howling for years about thought police, only to be ignored by the mainstream. Or even worse, to be stereotyped as a bunch of paranoid, cuckoo nutcases.
But here you have an example straight from the horse's mouth (or maybe we should say straight from the ass' mouth), that leaves no doubt that our concerns are well founded.
Here is another:
The Court: Let me ask you, Mr. Sitzman, and I know the Assistant District Attorney, you are, it's your role to be an advocate for the State's side on this, and I don't want to ask you an unfair question. But it sounds like or I detect that you are not real enthusiastic about trying to defend this statute.
Mr. Sitzman: That is not an unfair question, Your Honor, and I have not been reserved. I've tried to be very candid about my feelings in this particular case from the very beginning. When this case came in from the Moore Police Department, there was no question that this — that the District Attorney's Office in this County was going to apply what we believed was then existing legitimate law in the State of Oklahoma, and it was our belief that the facts alleged in this particular case came under the color of that statute, and so there was no question that we were going to file or not file these charges. We do not see that it is our office's position to second-guess the Legislature. It is our job to enforce the law as the Legislature has drafted it, and as we believe they intended that it be enforced, and that's what we have done.
In other words, when it comes to enforcing the letter of the law, no matter how insane the law is, there will be no wiggle room. We are going to completely divorce our minds from any hint of common sense, in favor of prosecuting a high school student for authoring a fictitious work.
And you wonder why I say that government and common sense are like water and oil? Ne'er the twain shall mingle?
The assistant district attorney continues with his answer — a candid analysis of the Oklahoma law:
On the other hand, candidly, when I first read this statute, the very first time I read it, I was struck by a couple of different things. The first thing that struck me was every single verb in that section of the statute, attempt, conspire, or endeavor, is already the law in Oklahoma. And so the first thing that jumped out at me was why did they write this law when the conspiracy statute and the attempt statute would fully and adequately cover what this statute appeared to try and criminalize?
The second thing that jumped out at me was the use of the word "plan," and it stuck out like a sore thumb, and I had hoped that I would not be the prosecutor that would be asked, and I don't know if I am the first or not, but I haven't seen any case law. I wish I had. I wish I hadn't been the first to file a charge under this statute. But when we did, I anticipated there were going to be challenges to its constitutionality. It has cause [sic] me problems, analytically, from the day I first read it.
Then, why prosecute it? A prosecutor has descretion in deciding whether or not to prosecute a particular person. This prosecutor — knowing the law is ethically and morally wrong — continues to forge ahead with a prosecution that he knows is unjust, because he doesn't wish to "second guess" the state legislature. He's willing to ruin the life of a young man — perhaps a future screenwriter, or perhaps a future novelist — so that protocol can be followed. To HELL with justice! To HELL with the integrity of the system which was established to protect people from unfair prosecution.
Continuing with the assistant district attorney (again, this is the guy that is prosecuting Robertson's case):
"There is, in fact, perhaps a good argument to be made concerning a chilling effect on an individual's First Amendment rights to freedom of expression, and I admit freely that I am concerned by that as much as anything, perhaps more than any other factor in this particular case. I am concerned and I was concerned when I read this statute by the fact that the legislature used the verbal form of "plan" and not the noun form of "plan"; and although Mr. Presson didn't verbalize it today, I think it's inherent in his brief that verbal use of the word plan would not be limited, therefore, to actual writings or verbal expressions by an individual.
And although in this day and age we still, I hope, don't have the ability to do so, I am concerned by the old book we probably all read in high school, 1984, about the thought police. And the thing that I am concerned about this statute the most is the way it's written, perhaps outlaws thought. The way it's being enforced — I don't think is being enforced unconstitutionally — but it does concern me that the language that they decided to use a verb instead of a noun."
If Mr. Sitzman admits that a "good argument" could be made that the law violates an "individual's First Amendment right to freedom of expression", then why doesn't he refuse to enforce it on the grounds of its unconstitutionally?
The year of 1984 has arrived in full force.
Steven Spielberg beware! As you contemplate your next novel, Big Brother could be contemplating for you a sentence.
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