Lori and Ashley and the Ox-Box Incident

I recently saw the 1943 Henry Fonda movie The Ox-Box Incident, in which the townspeople form a posse and hang three innocent people. That incident is placed in the wild west where law was harsh but certain. Like the movie, the Drew-Megan incident has no happy outcome. Lori lost her nine year old business. Ashley Grills, the 18 year-old who set up the My Space account, is under a suicide watch. And, of course, Megan is dead. As in the movie, the law is impotent, and there is no sense that justice will prevail. And, in the absence of justice, you see the modern day equivalent of a lynch mob, which is as American as apple pie.

I'm stumped on this. In the movie, what if, for example, the mob hung three guilty men? Would that be jsutice? Or what if the court had freed those guilty men? Would that be an injustice? However, if the notion of civilization is to have any meaning, I do believe we need to make an effort to comport ourselves to principles of law that go back to the Magna Carta seven hundred years ago -- due process and a jury trial, the use of argument, precedent, and evidence, competent advocacy, and perhaps enough doubt in our verdict to take the penalty of capital punishment off the table. But that is the ideal and the bloggers who post the cell phone number of the Drews and harass their business partners know the reality-- that law often has little to do with justice.




Lori Drew

Reviled Mother




Ashley Grills

The Tormentor, The Tormented



Megan Loved Josh



As American As Apple Pie