It is one thing if you have a list and a note that says you intend to kill people.

It is another if you write a completely fictional story that involves a school setting written by a teenager who spend more than 50% of their waking hours at a school. School is what they know.

I hate zero tolerance, and maybe common sense should be excersized a bit more readily.

Of course a $75,000 bail is just amazingly dumb.

No arguments here. Everything about this "zero tolerance" business is amazingly dumb.

Well at least on this topic we can agree.

Michael,

Hell no!

Billy,

Yes that was it exactly, contempt of court. Of course a $75,000 bail is just amazingly dumb.

Even so, police say the nature of the story makes it a felony. “Anytime you make any threat or possess matter involving a school or function it’s a felony in the state of Kentucky,” said Winchester Police detective Steven Caudill.

I suspect that's just poorly worded. I think what he meant to say is something along the lines of possessing matter that involves making a threat to a school, etc. But even if that's what he did mean, it's not at all clear, on the facts alleged, that Poole ran afoul of Kentucky law. Evidently, the relevant law states a person is guilty of terroristic threatening in the second degree when they threaten to "commit any act likely to result in death or serious physical injury" to students, teachers or employees of a school. From what I've seen of the "writings", none of the foregoing applies. The entire proceeding was bogus.

One wonders what the reaction would have been had they encountered a young William Golding and his first draft of Lord of the Flies.

This is the cause for concern or is it Poole’s mediocre writing that what scared everyone?

Can we, as a nation, really afford another Dan Brown?

We are a caricature...

In other words, Poole was violating the desires of a judge and for that he gets 2 years of probation.

It's called "contempt of court." Like it or not, at least it's a crime on the books.