19 year old given $500,000 bail for Facebook status

[merithyn]

To put it in context, the kid posted this status on February 14, 2013, exactly two months after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings.

Teen jailed for 'sarcastic' Facebook status update

The family of Justin Carter, the 19-year-old Texas gamer who made offensive Facebook comments that landed him in jail, is working with new urgency to get his $500,000 bail reduced because they say he's getting beat up behind bars.

"Without getting into the really nasty details, he's had concussions, black eyes, moved four times from base for his own protection," says Carter's father, Jack. "He's been put in solitary confinement, nude, for days on end because he's depressed. All of this is extremely traumatic to this kid. This is a horrible experience."

Carter has been in jail since his arrest in February. After he finished playing the online game League of Legends, where the community trash-talking can get quite toxic, court documents show he posted the following messages on a Facebook page:

"I think Ima shoot up a kindergarten / And watch the blood of the innocent rain down/ And eat the beating heart of one of them."
Carter's father says his son was responding to an insult by being sarcastic and followed the message with "JK" for just kidding, but that's disputed by police.

In April, a grand jury in Comal County, Texas, indicted Carter on a charge of making a terroristic threat, and a judge set bail at $500,000. The high bail has kept Carter imprisoned while his case moves through the court process.

"I have been practicing law for 10 years, I've represented murderers, terrorists, rapists. Anything you can think of. I have never seen a bond at $500,000," says Carter's attorney, Don Flanary.

The charge is a third-degree felony, which in Texas carries up to 10 years in prison. The Comal County District Attorney's office hasn't responded to our calls, but police in New Braunfels, Texas, who have investigated the case, say in a time of heightened sensitivity to school shootings, their interest is in preventing violence when they can.

"The whole situation is kind of unfortunate," said New Braunfels Police Lt. John Wells. "We definitely understand the situation that Mr. Carter is in, however he made the comments, and it is an offense. We have to ... protect the general public and specifically, in this case, with it involving schoolchildren, we have to act. We take those very seriously."

Carter's father says his son's past five months of "suffering quite a bit of abuse" behind bars doesn't fit the crime. "He says he's really sorry. He just got caught up in the moment of the game and didn't think about the implications," Jack Carter says.

An Change.org online petition for Justin Carter's release has gotten nearly 40,000 signatures, and attorney Flanary got a new hearing set for July 16 to bring up issues of his abuse and to try to get bond lowered so Carter can go home to await trial.

If convicted, Carter could face up to 10 years in prison.

[MadBurgerMaker]

They need to knock a couple zeros off the bail, but otherwise meh. 

He doesn't seem to be getting along very well with fellow hardcore Comal County inmates.

[garbon]

Good. Have some respect and common decency.

[Neil]

Good. Have some respect and common decency.

That's pretty rich coming from you.

[garbon]

Good. Have some respect and common decency.

That's pretty rich coming from you.

When do I JK about murder?

[Neil]

You bitch about law enforcement all the time.

Still, it's a shame that there are no social controls to smack down idiots like this guy.  This isn't what criminal courts are for.  But, I suppose that's the society we wanted, isn't it?

[merithyn]

Good. Have some respect and common decency.

My daughter said pretty much the same thing on Facebook. A guy I know - the American version of Martinus except a hair stylist instead of a lawyer - replied this way:

I just listened to some truly insipid teenagers going on about how they actually thought that this was a good thing. "That'll learn em'' and "Sadly it probably, actually won't". Seriously you self absorbed heinous little fuckers? As if you, as a teenager have never said anything truly stupid. This kid does not deserve to be in jail with bond higher than a rapist or murder, being beaten and abused for saying one really dumb thing. Your parents need to teach you some empathy.

He'd said more or less the same on her link, peppered with more "fucks", then finally deleted his comments and blocked her. Mind you, the guy's 35 years old arguing with a 14-year-old girl. 

[garbon]

You bitch about law enforcement all the time.

Which clearly means I think no laws should be enforced?

[Razgovory]

Well, all things considered it's probably for the best.

[11B4V]

MAH BUTTOCKS

[jimmy olsen]

Absolutely ridiculous miscarriage of justice.

[Syt]

It's more than 4 months later. How long can the investigations last in such a (IMHO silly) case?

[11B4V]

Absolutely ridiculous miscarriage of justice.

It's Texas, what do you expect.

[jimmy olsen]

Absolutely ridiculous miscarriage of justice.

It's Texas, what do you expect.

Aren't you a cop from Texas?

[11B4V]

Justin Carter was 18 back in February when an online video game took an ugly turn on Facebook. Jack Carter says his son Justin and a friend got into an argument with someone on Facebook about the game and the teenager wrote a comment he now regrets. 'Someone had said something to the effect of "Oh you're insane, you're crazy, you're messed up in the head," to which he replied "Oh yeah, I'm real messed up in the head, I'm going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts," and the next two lines were lol and jk,' said Carter."

That was pretty fucking dumb.