Virginia Supreme Court Upholds Conviction Under Computer Crimes Act

By a split vote, the Virginia Supreme Court has upheld a conviction under a state statute that prohibits the sending of “spam” emails. Jeremy Jaynes appealed his conviction under the Virginia Computer Crimes Act for sending more than 12000 emails in 24 hours over the AOL network (July 16, 2003). On subsequent days in July he sent more than 24,000 and more than 19,000. The Court noted that none of the recipients had requested Jaynes’s communications and that he had falsified headers in the emails. Mr. Jaynes tried both a First Amendment and a Commerce Clause defense. Read the entire ruling here. The case is Jaynes v. Virginia (2008 WL 539744(Va)).