Journal writer (who was expelled) Rachel Boim withdraws from Roswell High

Three days after returning to Roswell High School, Rachel Boim has withdrawn from the school, deciding she needs a fresh start somewhere else.

"Emotionally, she could not cope," David Boim, Rachel's father said Thursday morning. "She was well received by students. And the faculty was fine. But she is the kid who wrote the story that was interpreted to threaten the life of a teacher and that stigma was really difficult for her to deal with."

Rachel, 14, was suspended and then expelled from Roswell High after a teacher discovered a story she'd written in a personal journal in which a fictional student shoots a teacher. Rachel had brought the journal into class and it was confiscated by the teacher as she passed the book to another student. The journal was not part of a school assignment.

After intense publicity surrounding her case, the school system temporarily lifted Rachel's expulsion, allowing her to return to school Monday.

Another hearing on the matter is set for Nov. 13. Between now and then, the school system's acting superintendent is reviewing the original decision to expel Rachel.

Meanwhile, the Boims are focusing on placing Rachel in a new school. The family declined to reveal what school she will attend.

"This has had a profound, adverse effect on her and the entire family," David Boim said. "We just want her to be able to disappear. She wants to be able to disappear.

July 11, 2001 -- BRIAN Dalton, a 22-year-old from Columbus, Ohio, will spend the next 10 years in prison because he's a sick man with perverse sexual fantasies about children - even though he did nothing more than confess those fantasies to his own private journal.

Dalton's fate is a testament to the growing trend in our society to legislate against thought and an individual's state of mind. One need not be a card-carrying American Civil Liberties Union member to worry about the far-reaching and troubling implications of this case.

What happened to Brian Dalton was born out of society's understandable concern about sexual predators who prey on children; indeed, the prosecutor in the case calls Dalton's sentence a "breakthrough" in the battle against kiddie porn.

But like so many of the "zero tolerance" schemes now afoot to counterperceived problems like kids bringing weapons to school, this one smacks of out-of-control overkill.

Dalton, to be sure, needed to be watched: He was on probation from a 1998 conviction involving photos of child porn. So when his probation officer came to check up on him, he took a look through Dalton's hand-written 14-page journal.

There he found material so disturbing that he notified police: Dalton had written about three children, ages 10 and 11, who he said had been placed in a basement cage and sexually tortured. The writing was so graphic that members of the grand jury hearing the case asked the prosecutor reading it to stop after just two pages.

Police at first feared that Dalton had recorded a confession to a most heinous crime. But it turned out that the entire account was fictitious:
No children had been tortured or molested, and there was no evidence to suggest that Dalton was planning any such act.

Moreover, Dalton had made no effort to disseminate his writing on the Internet or even show it to anyone else - it remained his own, private, twisted fantasy.

You would think that the legal case would have ended there - or with little more than a judge ordering Dalton to undergo intensive counseling, perhaps even revoking his probation.

Instead, Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien brought an indictment against Dalton, charging he "did create, reproduce or publish . . . obscene material that has a minor as one of its participants or potrayed observers." As far as O'Brien was concerned, even without passing his
journal on to anyone else, Dalton had committed a felony.

Fearing that a jury might not consider the First Amendment implications, Dalton chose to cut a deal: He pleaded guilty to one count of pandering and was sentenced to seven years in prison, plus another three years when his original probation was revoked. In return, prosecutors dropped a
second count that could have brought him 16 years behind bars.

Because he pleaded guilty, Dalton can't appeal either his conviction or the sentence. Which means that higher courts will not get a chance to consider the constititutionality of the law.

It's one thing to safeguard those who most need protection; the vulnerability of children - and the known recidivist rate among pedophiles - mandates that we don't always wait for actual acts to be committed. That's the importance of Megan's Law, which gives local communities the right to be made aware of known sexual predators living in their midst.

There would be no question involved if Dalton had posted his journal on the 'Net - even if he'd simply showed it to a friend. Or if there was evidence of continuing related activity, such as taking part in sex-related Internet chat rooms. But all there was in this case was a twisted mind committing private fantasies to paper - for no one else's
viewing but his own.

Sometimes it's possible to be too zealous when it comes to protecting our children. The prosecutor's intentions may have been for the best - and, in the long run, society is likely better off with Dalton behind bars, where any threat that he'll prey on children has been removed.

But the next person charged may not be someone with a prior conviction. And that will be another victory for the thought police.

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