From efc-talk-owner@insight.dcss.McMaster.CA Fri Jun 23 10:20:11 1995 Received: from insight.mcmaster.ca (insight.dcss.McMaster.CA [130.113.68.58]) by eff.org (8.6.12/8.6.6) with SMTP id KAA13515 for ; Fri, 23 Jun 1995 10:20:09 -0400 Received: by insight.mcmaster.ca (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA07456; Fri, 23 Jun 95 10:03:16 EDT Date: Fri, 23 Jun 95 10:02:38 EDT From: djones@insight.dcss.McMaster.CA (David Jones) Message-Id: <9506231402.AA07425@insight.mcmaster.ca> To: efc-talk@insight.dcss.McMaster.CA Subject: Baker - all charges dropped Sender: efc-talk-owner@insight.dcss.McMaster.CA Precedence: bulk Reply-To: djones@insight.dcss.McMaster.CA (David Jones) X-Efc-Web-Site: http://insight.mcmaster.ca/org/efc X-Efc-Archive: gopher://insight.mcmaster.ca/11/org/efc Status: RO The Jake Baker Case: Charges Dismissed US District Judge Avern Cohn threw out federal charges against Jake Baker. The judge's ruling was in response to a motion filed by Douglas Mullkoff, Baker's lawyer, to dismiss the charges of transmitting interstate threats on the grounds that Baker's email is protected free speech. Judge Cohn ruled that the government failed to show intent to carry out a threat, which is required for conviction. "The government's enthusiastic beginning petered out to a salvage effort once it recognized that the communication which so much alarmed the University of Michigan officials was only a rather savage and tasteless piece of fiction," wrote Judge Cohn in his decision, referring to the dropped charges relating to Baker's rape/snuff stories and the 5 charges of transmitting interstate threats in the Baker-Gonda email exchanges.. Cohn also quoted a court case from 1886: "There is so much opportunity for magnifying or misunderstanding undefined menaces that probably as much mischief would be caused by letting them be prosecuted as by refraining from it." Jake Baker gained notoriety when the University of Michigan suspended him after he named a classmate as the victim in a fictional story of rape, torture, and murder. Shortly thereafter, Baker was arrested by the FBI and held without bond for 29 days on the grounds that he was too dangerous to release. In March, federal charges based on the story were dropped, and Baker was charged with transmitting threats across state lines in his email conversation with a Canadian man, Arthur Gonda. Baker is still suspended from the University of Michigan and is now attending a community college in Ohio. The individual who received email through a Toronto-area Internet Service Provider under the apparent pseudonym of Arthur Gonda has not been found by Canadian authorities. No information is available on the woman named in Baker's story. - - - For more information: http://krusty.eecs.umich.edu/people/pjswan/Baker/Jake_Baker.html