Pro Bono Defense in United States v. Lori Drew: I have blogged before about the remarkable case of United States v. Lori Drew, the so-called "MySpace suicide" case, in which the government is claiming that it is a federal crime to violate Internet Terms of Service. At the time, I had explained why I thought the prosecution was terribly misguided, and I mentioned that I had provided some informal advice to the defense.

  In the last two weeks, I have gone an important step further: I have formally joined Dean Steward, counsel for Lori Drew, as Drew's co-counsel. My participation is pro bono, based on my strong sense that the government's theory of the case poses a very real threat to civil liberties online. (Check out my 2003 article on the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to see why.)

  In any event, I don't plan to blog much about the case, but I did want to post some of the recently-filed legal documents in the case and just mention my involvement. The documents are below. As per my usual practice when blogging about pending litigation, I'll keep the comment thread closed.

  1. Defense's Court Ordered Supplement to Motions, filed October 6.
  2. Government's Response to Court's September 23 Inquiry, filed October 6.
  3. Defense's Reply to Government's Response to Pre-Trial Conference Order, filed October 20.

Lori Drew Update: The St. Louis Post Dispatch has this update on proceedings today in the Lori Drew case.

Update in United States v. Lori Drew: The Associated Press has a report on today's hearing in the Lori Drew case.

"Judge: Evidence of suicide OK at Web hoax trial": The Associated Press has this update in the Lori Drew case. The case is now set to go to trial next week in Los Angeles. (For those wondering, no, unfortunately I will not be in Los Angeles to participate in the trial in person; next week is our last full week of class at GW, so much to my regret I cannot be away for this.)

Opening Arguments in United States v. Lori Drew: Kim Zetter of Wired has the story. I feel compelled to point out the very bottom of the story, which briefly notes the side that has mostly been absent from press coverage of the case:

  Defense attorney H. Dean Steward, delivering his opening remarks, painted a very different picture. He claimed that Drew knew about the plan to create the hoax MySpace profile and manipulate Meier, but neither encouraged nor participated in it.
  Steward told the jury that forensics evidence will prove the account was not created from Drew's computer, and that no messages were sent by Drew.