Closely Divided Va. Supeme Court Upholds First Felony Spam Conviction
The Virginia Supreme Court has upheld the country’s first felony spam conviction in a 4-3 ruling, holding that the state’s groundbreaking anti-spam law did not violate the First Amendment.
The majority rejected free speech arguments by Jeremy Jaynes, regarded as the world’s eighth most prolific spammer before he was sentenced to nine years in prison for violating the 2003 law, the Richmond Times Dispatch reports.
The opinion (PDF) said Jaynes was prosecuted for sending almost 46,500 spam e-mails within a three-day period that had disguised his identity as the sender.
Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell said in a press release that the decision was “a historic victory in the fight against online crime.”
The dissenters said the law was overbroad “because it prohibits the anonymous transmission of all unsolicited bulk e-mails, including those containing political, religious or other speech protected by the First Amendment.”
Jaynes’ lawyer, Thomas Wolf of Richmond, Va., told the newspaper he would ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case. “Unfortunately, the state that gave birth to the First Amendment has, with this ruling, diminished that freedom for all of us,” Wolf said.
