Appeals court tosses conviction in 'cannibal cop' case, says fantasizing about murder isn't a crime
Fantasizing about violence isn’t a crime, a federal appeals court says in an opinion on Thursday that tosses the convictions of a former New York police officer dubbed the “cannibal cop.”
The 2-1 decision (PDF) by the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirms a federal court decision that overturned Gilberto Valle’s conviction for conspiracy to commit kidnapping. The appeals court also overturned Valle’s conviction for accessing a law enforcement database to collect information on a potential victim. The Associated Press, the Volokh Conspiracy and Reuters covered the decision.
Valle had accessed Internet chat rooms where he talked about plans to rape, kill and cannibalize women. The appeals court said it is difficult to identify the line between fantasy and criminal intent, but in this case evidence did not show his ‘gruesome’ online fantasy life had crossed that line.
Dates for planned kidnappings came and went, and impossible plans were discussed, the appeals court said. One plan consisted of luring a woman to India or Pakistan, kidnapping another woman in Ohio, and kidnapping a third woman in Manhattan—all in the same day. A human-sized oven and a remote cabin would be employed, though Valle did not own either one. Nor did he learn the real names of those with whom he made the plots.
“Fantasizing about committing a crime, even a crime of violence against a real person whom you know, is not a crime,” the majority opinion said.
The court also overturned Valle’s conviction under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which imposes criminal and civil liability against anyone who “intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access and thereby obtains information … from any department or agency of the United States.”
The appeals court said Valle did not exceed authorized access when he used his police department computer to search for a potential victim because he was otherwise authorized to obtain such information from the database.
Though the meaning of “exceeds authorized access” was capable of more than one interpretation, the court said it was required to adopt the interpretation favoring the defendant under the rule of lenity. A contrary finding, the court said, could have implications beyond Valle’s case because the statute applies to any “protected computer” with Internet access.
“While the government might promise that it would not prosecute an individual for checking Facebook at work, we are not liberty to take prosecutors at their word in such matters,” the court said.
The case is United States v. Valle.
