On April 20, 1999, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris went on a shooting rampage at Columbine High School in Colorado. They killed 12 fellow students, a teacher, and finally themselves. Eric had a Web site that contained numerous rants about violence, including the phrase, “God, I can’t wait until I can kill you people.” For a school project, Harris and Klebold made a video titled “Hitman for Hire.” After the tragedy, school officials, students, and parents across the nation were afraid that copycat crimes would occur in their own schools.
Hoggard High School in North Carolina was no exception. Within days of Columbine, rumors began to circulate throughout the student body that Hoggard High was to be bombed on May 4, 1999. Parents were asked to come to the school that day and patrol the halls to help the students feel safe. One-fifth of the students were absent on May 4.
That day a student at school discovered a screensaver message that read, “The end is near.” The police traced the message to 17-year-old Joshua Mortimer, a Hoggard sophomore. He was arrested at school and spent two weeks in jail before his parents could raise the thousands of dollars for his bail. Josh admitted to writing the message on the school’s computer. He said he didn’t mean anything by it other than “the end of the school year or the end of time, or whatever.” He said it was a joke referring to the year 2000 being the end of the world. Josh was charged with communicating a threat and was tried as an adult. He was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to 45 days in jail, 18 months probation, and 48 hours of community service. Josh was also expelled from school for one year.
Josh appealed the jury’s decision claiming the state failed to prove that he committed a crime. At the time of this incident, communicating a threat was a misdemeanor in North Carolina. The misdemeanor had four elements that must be proven by the state: (1) a person willfully threatens to physically injure someone or damage someone’s property; (2) the threat is communicated to the other person; (3) the threat is made in such a way that a reasonable person would believe that it is likely to be carried out; and (4) the person threatened believes that the threat will be carried out. Without proof of these four elements, a conviction for communicating a threat cannot stand. The state argued to the jury that Josh’s crime contained all four elements.
How Would You Decide This Case?
Do you think Josh’s note contained all the state’s required elements of communicating a threat? Why or why not? Did Josh threaten anyone in particular by posting “The end is near” on the school’s computer? Would you interpret “The end is near” as a message directed at you personally? Under the circumstances, was the school justified in calling in the police to investigate what may have been a prank? Do you think this would have been handled differently if there had been no prior rumor of a bomb on the same day? Or if Josh had posted his message before Columbine occurred? Why or why not?
What the Court Decided
The court started its analysis of the case by stating: “The meaning of the statement ‘The end is near’ is impossible to ascertain. The end of what is near? Who will bring about the ‘end’ and how?” The court recognized that the school was in a state of fear over the tragedy of Columbine and that one interpretation of Josh’s message was that the writer intended to bomb the school. The court ruled, however, that, “the leap to such a conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt is extremely speculative.”
Before this incident, Josh had no problems at school and even the police officer who arrested Josh thought his message was a prank. No evidence was found that he had any plan to injure anyone or damage school property. He wasn’t connected to any of the alleged bomb threats at the school. Since the statement “The end is near” did not indicate what, if anything, the speaker intended to do, the court threw out the jury’s verdict and dismissed the charge against Josh.
How Does This Decision Affect You?
Four words typed into a screensaver changed Josh’s life. It was over two years before he won his appeal to the North Carolina Court of Appeals. In the meantime, he couldn’t return to his high school, he spent two weeks in jail, and he had to complete his probation term and the community service hours. The court suspended the 45-day jail sentence, which meant he didn’t have to spend any more time in jail.
Admittedly, Josh’s timing couldn’t have been worse. Following Columbine, the country was on a high alert for school violence. Hundreds of bomb threats were phoned in to the nation’s schools. At any other time, “The end is near” might have been taken lightly or even ignored.
The bottom line: Think before you act. As Josh learned, there may be a stiff price for not considering unintended consequences.
“Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.”
—from Whitney v. California, 1927
“Undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance is not enough to overcome the right to freedom of expression.”
—from Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 1969
What Is Josh Doing Now?
After being expelled, Josh earned a GED at a local community college. He works in the pizza industry, is married, and has a young son. Josh advises kids to “be extremely careful about what you say, do, and write while in school.”
Related Cases
Dustin Mitchell v. Rolla Public Schools (Missouri, 1999)
Dustin was a junior at Rolla High School in Missouri in 1999. He was an 18-year-old honor student eligible for the National Honor Society. Five days after the killings at Columbine High School, Dustin participated in an online chat room about school violence. He was at home, and in response to the question, “Do you think such a tragedy could happen at your school?” he answered, “Yes!” Dustin used another student’s name instead of his own—a student who regularly wore a black trench coat to school, similar to those worn by the shooters at Columbine. Dustin was quickly identified as the writer and was suspended for 10 days. He was also given 40 hours of community service to complete at the police department.
Dustin took the matter to court and won. The court ruled that his speech was protected and that the school’s code of conduct wasn’t clear about off-campus speech.
State v. Brittini Hardcastle and four others (Florida, 2008)
As was shown in Josh’s case, you don’t have to be an adult to be treated like one in the criminal justice system. Every state has laws about trying minors in adult court for certain crimes. Conviction results in adult sentences, including life in prison. The decision to prosecute you as a minor or as an adult depends in part on your state’s laws, your age, your criminal history, and the current offense. Consider the following recent case of juveniles being prosecuted as adults.
Victoria Lindsay was a 16-year-old cheerleader and honor student at Mulberry High School in Florida. During spring break in 2008, she was staying at the home of her friend, Mercades. Brittini, Mercades, and three other girls, ages 14 to 18, confronted Victoria about trash-talking them on MySpace. One of the girls also sent threatening text messages to Victoria the same day. Later they assaulted her for 30 minutes while one of the girls videotaped the beating and posted it on YouTube and MySpace—a form of cyberbulling known as “happy slapping.” During the assault, Victoria was hit in the face and her head was slammed into a wall. She lost consciousness and when she awoke, the beating continued. She tried to leave but the girls kept her there until she was driven to another location and released. She was threatened with another beating if she reported what happened.
All of the teens involved were arrested and taken to jail. They were charged as adults with felony kidnapping, which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, and felony battery with a maximum of one year in jail. In 2009, all of the girls entered guilty pleas to lesser charges in exchange for dismissal of the kidnapping charge. They were sentenced to probation, restitution to Victoria and a letter of apology, and community service hours. They were also ordered not to have contact with Victoria or the media while on probation, and not to use social networking sites. Brittini, a key figure in the beating, was sentenced to jail for 15 days.
In the Matter of Seven Girls (Indiana, 2008)
Two weeks after Victoria’s beating, an apparent copycat instance of happy slapping occurred in Indiana. Seven girls ages 12 to 14 lured a 12-year-old classmate to a parking lot. All of the girls went to Clarksville Middle School. An argument escalated into a fight where the victim, the daughter of a police officer, was hit with rocks and fists resulting in head trauma and a chipped tooth. The fight was videotaped by one of the assailants and posted on PhotoBucket. The girls were charged with battery and disorderly conduct. Since the incident happened off-campus, the school took no action against them.
Things to Think About
Although Josh’s screensaver message was presumably a prank with no malicious intent, his age and timing worked against him. Before trying a juvenile as an adult, what factors should the court take into consideration? Does a juvenile’s family life matter? What about his or her school disciplinary record? Should the teen’s potential for rehabilitation be a factor? Are some crimes so outrageous that adult punishment should be a given, no matter what the defendant’s age? If so, where would you draw the line? And if not, why?
“The policy of the juvenile law was to hide youthful errors from full gaze of the public and bury them in the graveyard of forgotten past.”
—Arizona v. Guerrero, 1942
Chapter 12: Further Reading and Resources
Harpaz, Leora. “Internet Speech and First Amendment Rights of Public School Students.” Brigham Young University Law Review (2000): 123.
Hudson Jr., David L. “Censorship of Student Internet Speech: The Effect of Diminishing Student Rights, Fear of the Internet and Columbine.” Detroit College of Law at Michigan State University Law Review (2000): 199.
Salgado, Richard. “Protecting Student Speech Rights While Increasing School Safety: School Jurisdiction and the Search for Warning Signs in a Post-Columbine/Red Lake Environment.” Brigham Young University Law Review, no. 5 (2005): 1371–1412.