UC Irvine Internet Hate Crime Case Ends in Mistrial

The nation’s first prosecution of a hate crime case involving the Internet ended in a mistrial Friday when a jury deadlocked 9 to 3 in favor of acquitting a former UC Irvine student who sent an e-mail message threatening to “hunt down and kill” Asian students at the university.

U.S. District Judge Alicemarie H. Stotler declared the mistrial when the jury reported that it was hopelessly deadlocked after three days of deliberations.

The trial of Richard Machado, 20, of Los Angeles on 10 counts of civil rights violations had been seen as a test case for federal authorities seeking to police the Internet against hatemongers.

During the trial, the prosecution contended that Machado’s threats were not protected speech but civil rights violations.

By seeking to frighten the 59 mostly Asian students who received his e-mail threat, prosecutors contended, the defendant had sought to interfere--in violation of federal civil rights laws--with their right to attend a public university.

But a majority of the jurors said they believed that Machado was merely a disturbed teenager who didn’t really intend to harm the message’s recipients.

“We felt he was not innocent of sending the message, but that he was not guilty” of the charges, said George Caldwell, the jury foreman. “He didn’t willfully set about to harm [the recipients]. We felt the government was merely making a test case out of this individual.”

Federal prosecutors have until Dec. 1 to decide if they will seek to retry Machado.

But several jurors joined the defendant’s attorney, Deputy Federal Public Defender Sylvia Torres-Guillen, in urging the government to drop the case.

Delrey Tuttle, a Westminster woman who voted to convict Machado, nonetheless said she did not think “this is a case the government needs to go to the wall for.”

“It appears to me that this kid has serious problems,” she added. “I don’t know if it will do any good reprosecuting him.”

During the trial, Torres-Guillen depicted Machado as a young man who became distraught and flunked out of UC Irvine after his eldest brother was killed in Los Angeles. She said he was a despondent and bored teenager who was guilty of nothing more than “a stupid prank” that he pulled to provoke a response.

Michael Gennaco, who heads the civil rights section of the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles, said prosecutors will consider jurors’ views in deciding whether to retry the case.

“We’ll have to see whether we can convince the next 12 people to vote guilty,” he added.

Gennaco said this jury’s vote would not keep the government from prosecuting similar threats sent via the Internet.

“Clearly, we’ll prosecute these cases for deterrent effect,” he said. “The deterrent effect is already in place because we prosecuted this case.”

Machado sent the e-mail from the university’s engineering building Sept. 20, 1996.

The chilling message, signed by “Asian Hater,” warned that every Asian should leave UC Irvine or else the sender would “hunt all of you down and kill your stupid asses.”

“I personally will make it my [life’s work] to find and kill everyone of you personally. OK? That’s how determined I am. Do you hear me?”

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Machado, who testified at the trial, said that on the day he sent the message he was bored and wanted to start a “dialogue” with people who were signed on to the school’s computer network.

He told jurors that his brother’s killing left him with an “inability to concentrate” on his studies that led to failing grades and expulsion from UC Irvine in the summer of 1996.

Because he was ashamed to tell family members about being expelled, Machado concealed the truth from them and continued to have one brother drop him off at the school even after he had been ousted. He passed his days in the computer laboratory, sending and receiving e-mail and surfing the Internet until it was time to go home.

He recalled telling campus investigators, who quickly traced the e-mail to him, that he just wanted to “mess around” and “meant no harm” by the message.

Machado is in federal custody pending a hearing Dec. 1 before Stotler.

Anna Machado, the defendant’s sister, said outside the courthouse Friday that she was happy most jurors voted to acquit her brother.

“Justice has been done,” she said.