Mother Convicted of “Unlawful Posting of a Message” for Website Sharply Criticizing Woman Who Accused Mother’s Son of Rape
From People v. Dingee, decided Friday by Michigan Court of Appeals Chief Justice Michael Gadola and Justices Kirsten Frank Kelly and Robert Redford:
This case has its origins with two young adults—SK [defendant’s son] and the victim—who were close friends in high school and for a time after high school…. In June 2020, the victim confronted SK at [a] party and loudly and repeatedly yelled that he had raped her [at an earlier party]. According to SK, a crowd of people chased him back to his friend’s car, and his friend drove him away. Approximately two months later, a former girlfriend contacted SK and arranged to meet with him at night in a secluded park. The former girlfriend allegedly lured SK to the park so that a group could ambush him. At this arranged meeting, SK was attacked. Defendant blamed the victim for the attack on her son, even though there was no evidence that the victim planned, encouraged, or participated in it.
Defendant created a website, titled “[Redacted by court]Lies.com,” through which she accused the victim of lying. On that website, defendant attacked the victim’s reputation and posted images of the victim that included details that would allow others to identify the victim’s social media accounts.
Defendant also posted what she deemed to be evidence that the victim fabricated her claim against SK. Defendant asserted that the victim was responsible for the attack on her son and posted images of his injuries. In addition to the website, defendant posted numerous messages and comments on Facebook targeting the victim and referring people to the website she had created. She also eventually made TikTok videos about the victim.
After the victim began receiving numerous threats and comments from third parties on her social media accounts, the victim was forced to close the accounts. She testified that she also quit school and work, and she moved back home for her own safety.
Dingee was convicted for violating the “unlawful posting” statute, MCL 750.411s, which reads, in relevant part:
(1) A person shall not post a message through the use of any medium of communication … without the victim’s consent, if all of the following apply:
(a) The person knows or has reason to know that posting the message could cause 2 or more separate noncontinuous acts of unconsented contact [by third parties] with the victim.
(b) Posting the message is intended to cause conduct that would make the victim feel terrorized, frightened, intimidated, threatened, harassed, or molested.
(c) Conduct arising from posting the message would cause a reasonable person to suffer emotional distress and to feel terrorized, frightened, intimidated, threatened, harassed, or molested.
(d) Conduct arising from posting the message causes the victim to suffer emotional distress and to feel terrorized, frightened, intimidated, threatened, harassed, or molested….
The court upheld the conviction, reasoning that such speech was punishable as “speech integral to criminal conduct.” The court acknowledged that, under People v. Burkman (Mich. 2024),
[T]he speech-integral-to-criminal-conduct exception cannot be triggered just by speech itself being a violation of a law, even a law that bans conduct as well as speech. In
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