Social Media Threat Conviction of Gogebic County Teen Overturned

The Michigan appeals court has reversed the conviction of a Gogebic County teenaged girl who fantasized about killing a boy and his pets on social media.

The girl, identified in court records as “J.P.,” formed a Snapchat group with three other girls, all in sixth or seventh grade. They shared messages about a 13-year-old boy whom they thought was a bully.

In a transcript of some of the messages released with the court decision, they threaten to kill him, his dog and his goldfish; drug him, stab him to death, and feed his skin to his dog.

The messages were never sent to the boy, and he never saw them.

Someone else did, though and one of the four girls was convicted in Gogebic County Family Court of using text messages to terrorize another person.

In reversing the ruling on Tuesday, Judge Elizabeth Gleicher said teens “sometimes make poor judgments” because of an inability to “foresee the painful consequences of their actions,” and that there was no evidence that they ever intended the boy to see or be intimidated by the messages.

See the full ruling here.