The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that cyberharassment and lies posted online encouraging that bullying is not speech protected by the First Amendment, the Boston Herald reports. The court upheld the criminal harassment convictions of two real estate developers who arranged postings online to harass two business executives they were feuding with. The postings falsely claimed the couple had golf carts free for the taking and wanted to sell their "fictitious dead son’s Harley Davidson motorcycle for $300," the Herald further reports. The husband also was sent an email from a "make-believe former teenage male employee accusing him of sexual molestation."
The speech was unprotected, the court ruled, because their conduct was a "'hybrid of conduct and speech integral to the commission of a crime ... Their conduct served solely to harass the (victims) by luring numerous strangers and prompting incessant late-night telephone calls to their home by way of false representations, by overtly and aggressively threatening to misuse their personal identifying information, and by falsely accusing (the husband) of a serious crime.'"
Lawyer and Legal Journalist
