The Third District Court of Appeals in Sacramento tossed out a Pleasant Valley High School student's conviction, Tuesday. Investigators say the Pleasant Valley student sent his ex-girlfriend profanity filled text messages after they broke up last year. He was convicted of sending threatening or obscene telephone communications. One of the many text messages read "im gonna come to school with one of P's gun and kill half the school ill load everyone with bullets and then shoot myself in the head right in front of u."
The court of appeals concluded the text messages were not intended as a threat to the girl, nor were the vulgar words used in the text messages "legally obscene" because they are in "common use" at the high school. The student's defense attorneys Tahj Gomes and Philip Heithecker told Action News, "We are glad that it was reversed because there was no crime committed. Language was bad granted. I don't like what's going on, but this was a private conversation."
Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey hopes the attorney general will appeal the decision to a higher court or at least have it de-published so it does not set a legal example. Ramsey said, "We were shocked and dismayed. This court decision puts a new low in public discourse particularly at a high school level. That bodes ill for public safety, it bodes ill for us as a society that we've got some new low standard."
The P.V. student spent 13 days in juvenile hall and wrote an essay about the Columbine Massacre, last year. The girl who received the text messages testified she neither felt annoyed or threatened by the text messages.
