Virginia Petitions the U.S. Supreme Court to Reinstate Anti-Spam Law

Virginia's Attorney General is petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the verdict against spammer, Jeremy Jaynes, and reverse the Virginia Supreme Court's decision rendering unconstitutional Virginia's anti-spam statute. Virginia's petition for a writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court, dated December 11, 2008, can be found here.

As we discussed in our prior posts, found here and here, Jaynes' was convicted of violating Virginia's anti-spam statute after sending millions of spam emails through AOL's computer servers. The Virginia Supreme Court declared the anti-spam statute unconstitutional after initially finding the statute constitutional. The statute was unconstitutional, the Court ultimately found, because it potentially chilled the right to anonymous speech.

It will interesting to see whether the U.S. Supreme Court hears this case since spamming is so prevalent. According to the petition, AOL servers received over one billion spam emails every day at the time of Jaynes' actions. But, Virginia is one of the few if any states that forbid any type of spam -- not just commercial spam. So if the U.S. Court reinstates the Virginia anti-spam law, other states may quickly broaden their anti-spam laws.