There’s been a lot of discussion of the knowns, the unknowns, and the what-the-hells? in the case of the four teenagers convicted in the school bombing conspiracy case.
On Wednesday, the Daily Progress‘ Liesel Nowak wrote about the now-named 15-year-old convicted in the case, Alan Newsom, talking with father Fred Newsom about the boy. The name will ring a bell for many: the boy sued Jack Jouett in 2002 after they refused to let him wear his NRA t-shirt at school. The school system’s case was terrible, and Newsom defeated them in court in early 2004, which was a public embarrassment for the Albemarle schools. I have to wonder if he was targeted in this matter as a form of retribution.
Nowak also identified the 16-year-old who pled guilty, WAHS student Dominc Hawranke, saying that he may be in prison until he’s 21. She wrote that she couldn’t learn how the case of the two 13-year-olds ended, because “authorities have said privacy laws prevent them from disclosing the outcomes of the cases.” The very next day, though, Nowak wrote that the two 13-year-olds were found guilty, with the court apparently having changed their minds on what could be released.
Sheila Pell has a piece in this week’s Hook for which she interviewed Fred Newsom and noted local children’s attorney Andy Block, speculating as to what these kids’ futures hold.
Also, Lisa Provence also has coverage of Jim Camblos’ bungling of the case in the current Hook, complete with Camblos denying that he ever said there was a gag order. I have to wonder if Camblos will make good on his threat to go after reporters who print any details of the case.
Finally, Rick Sincere has a thoughtful blog entry on Alan Newsom, what “conspiracy” really means, and about what the lesson is to other students. I’m inclined to agree with Rick’s conclusions.
Sorry for the delay in this—I’ve been out of town since Monday night.
Man, the kid was probably just emailing some friends about how much he hated the school. If he said “I wish someone would just blow it up”, that would be evidence enough for police.
And for all we know, the father is telling the truth about the guns and firecrackers being his.
But his kid’s had severe problems with acceptance. Research his name and get reading!
Rick Sincere wrote, “‘Conspiracy’ that involves crimes that are never realized (that is, never committed) should not by itself be a crime.”
Does that make any sense? By that logic, you have to wait around for a “crime” to be committed (a crime other than conspiracy, that is, which Sincere seems to want to exclude from the definition of “crime”) before you can arrest someone for something. That would seem to take the whole guts out of the deterrence aspect of the conspiracy charge–if you find that someone is conspiring, planning, to commit a crime, but you have to sit around until the crime is “realized” to call in the cops?
I agree with Rick’s comments about conspiracy—that there’s no obvious line between writing out a plan to blow up the White House and writing a best-selling book about blowing up the White House.
That said, there must be some litmus test for when planning to commit an act is, on its own, actionable. It would be crazy if there was no way to stop imminent crimes. I hope that litmus test includes possessing intent and means, in addition to a clear plan. If it does, I find it difficult to believe that these kids had the means to pull this off, to say nothing of intent or a clear plan.
There must be some dividing line between fantasy and and immediate threat. Based on the little that I know about this case, it seems to me that when I fantasized about blowing up my school in fourth grade (going so far as to sketch a helpful diagram of an Estes rocket targeting the school; what a six-ounce balsa rocket would have done, I couldn’t have explained) that I was as guilty as these kids are.
I agree with Rick, and with you, Waldo. What were the ways and means, if any, that they had to commit the crime? What did they possess that was dangerous or illegal? We have never been told .Will we EVER be told?
You are correct, Waldo. If a fourth-grader today did what you did, he or she would be arrested or at least hauled off to some “counselor” for interrogation about his mental state.
Sometimes I think our society has gone stark raving mad with its paranoid obsession over security.
I realized last night that at least some caution has been exercised by the county in this matter: these kids weren’t charged with terrorism. I don’t doubt that they could have been whisked away by the federal government to Guantanamo, charged with nothing, and left there to rot without even their parents knowing what ever happened to them.
In all fairness, Waldo, the choice was made to try the alleged bomb plotters as juveniles. Or this would be an even grimmer story.
Now everyone knows two names, but we still have no way to determine where that line between fantasy and preparation for a crime has been drawn. Parents have no way to know how to talk to their kids about what has happened. I have not been able to understand why, given Alan Newsome’s involvement, it was not obvious to the police and prosecutor from the beginning ,that this would appear to be payback. You might think it would have made sense for them to not sensationalize this case with press conferences, etc.
Also, what are the implications for the Albemarle County School Board ruling on a student who has previously prevailed in a case against that board? Any thoughts?
It is very strange and maybe not a coincidence that one boy should twice be a focus for the fear of school violence in this community. If you think back to the beginning of the bomb plot story, an informer (or the parents of the informer) may have been influenced, at some level, by the past publicity about this kid.
I don’t know the officials involved, but I would want to see some evidence before accusing a school board of throwing a kid and three of his friends in jail because they were sore about losing a lawsuit. That sounds like a pretty serious charge, and it also sounds paranoid to me.
On the issue of whether the kids are “guilty”, I don’t have anywhere near enough info to have an opinion. It might have been idle talk that all kids do, or there might have been elaborate plans drawn up and some physical evidence. Without being at the hearing, I don’t think we can determine that.
Nobody’s accused anybody of that—there has only been speculation as to whether there might be a relationship. And, yes, some evidence would be good. Wouldn’t we all love to see some evidence?
Again, that’s the point of all of this discussion—none of us have enough information to have an opinion. That’s the problem.
Waldo writes that no one is accusing anyone of throwing a kid in jail because they were sore about losing a lawsuit, but I reread Rick Sincere’s post and it kind of sounds like that’s exactly what Sincere is suggesting:
“The arrest of Alan Newsom, and his conviction on flimsy evidence (the police removed ‘firecrackers’ from his father’s gun safe– this is supposed to blow up a school?) is clearly meant to create a chilling effect against future uppity students who think they know more about the Constitution than school administrators do.”
And yeah, that seems both irresponsible and paranoid to me.
Other points: I’m not a lawyer, but I think that, legally speaking, “conspiracy” does not require possessing intent and means. I think if you have intent and means, then you are guilty of “attempted” whatever rather than “conspiracy to” whatever. Fault the legal system for making conspiracy a crime, but maybe don’t fault the local authorities for following the (possibly faulty) guidelines for conspiracy.
RE: evidence. We’re all clamoring to see/hear what it was, and I’m just wondering about us. Gail keeps making the good point that parents need/want to talk to their kids in instructive ways about what happened, to make this a teachable moment for all the kids. I’m very sympathetic to that desire, having kids myself (practically still babies, though). I’m not sure, though, that we need to see the evidence to have those conversations with our kids. Is it too flippant of me to say that we can/should tell our kids “don’t have extended conversations online or in person with someone who wants to talk about blowing up the school”? And we don’t have to see transcripts of what these particular kids said in order to tell our own kids that? “If you’re talking to a friend who wants to talk about blowing up the school, you should tell that friend that that is a bad idea and then you should avoid those conversations.” I mean, why do I need to see the evidence in order to talk to my kids about how it’s not okay to hold extended discussions of school-blowing-up? (I mean that as a serious question.)
I’m not usually a trust-the-authorities kind of person, but I’m leaning towards assuming there was some basis for the arrests and the convictions (other than “let’s get that pesky Newsom kid, teach him a lesson”). The fact that kids pled guilty, the fact that trials moved quickly–you plead guilty when you see that they’ve got you, right? I’m leaving aside the argument about whether or not we like the idea of conspiracy as a crime itself–it IS a crime, currently, and it’s one that at least some of these kids pled guilty to committing. How sucky could the evidence have been if none of their lawyers could muster a defense against it?
And I keep coming back to the rock and the hard place that local authorities inhabit in regards to these kinds of cases. Someone tips them that a small group of kids is having discussions about blowing up the school. They investigate and it appears the kids are indeed doing that. So, they should ignore it? I know that actual Columbines are statistically rare, but human beings are rarely moved by statistical data–they’re moved by irrational fears. No one wants to be the locality that overlooked warning signs of an impending tragedy. I would not want to be in the shoes of local authorities who have to make this judgment call. I think it’s a little objectionable to impute base motives to the local authorities stuck in this difficult position.
Ah, Rick’s post—I went back and read the comments on the past few threads, assuming that “insomniac” was responding to one of those. Yes, I agree that an accusation is too far. But I do think it’s a reasonable coincidence to question.
I certainly do not think the Albemarle County School Board was in any way involved in getting back at the Newsomes. I would be interested if anyone with legal expertise could weigh in on whether or not the school board is in a difficult position regarding deciding on expulsion etc. for a student who has previously won a lawsuit against the board.
Thanks, Cecil,for the parenting tip- I will add the “avoid any interactions regarding blowing up schools” to my regular chat about avoiding ever writing down a list of names of people you don’t like. Seriously though, I think more specific info about where the lines are, now, would be helpful-especially for us older parents. You know, I can’t believe I ever did this, but I actually taught my older children that the written word could be used as an anger management technique in diaries, never mailed letters, and so on- hard to believe. That was well before the current era of fear.
There is also the issue of respect for legitimate authority which is important to me as a parent. Two of these boys are classmates of my child, not close friends but people he knows. I want him to feel that justice has been done but I can’t make the case yet.
I don’t see how the initial press conference or arrest of the unarmed 8th graders at school can be justified but I hope there is some real evidence, not yet apparent, to justify the damage to these 4 boys and their families.
I know my parenting tip sounded flippant. I am in fact scared by the whole thing myself–I can picture my child (older, of course, than he is now) getting caught up in something that starts out as a joke but then slowly snowballs into something more serious and, just as the frog in the slowly boiling pot of water doesn’t realize he’s boiling to death, suddenly my child is part of something he never would have stepped into if he hadn’t been part of the rolling snowball, so to speak. And it terrifies me to think that even though we’re sending him the best messages we can, he might someday make a series of mistakes that take him somewhere we and he never imagined he’d be.
But that’s different from fearing that my “innocent” child will be victimized by an overzealous administration/police force. Occasionally I fear that, too, but not so often. (It helps that we’re white–if we were black, I think we’d have a very different persective on that kind of victimization…)