United States v. Morris p. 149 2nd Circuit (1991) Facts: Morris created a worm virus and released it into a massive network. He did not intend to the worm to cause damage but underestimated the rate at which it would duplicate and it ended up causing massive damage. The statue we are working with is, “intentionally accesses without authorization a category of computers known as „federal interest computers‟ and damages or prevents authorized use of information in such computers, causing a loss of $1,000 or more.” Morris is appealing his conviction saying he intentionally accessed the computers but did not intentionally cause the damage. What does the statue imply about the intent and when a statue is ambiguous does the court have to determine the legislative intent. Affirm conviction because based on changes in law legislature wanted the intentional clause to apply to access only and not to causing damages Govt suggests that the comma in the statue separates the two clauses and thus the term intentionally only applies to access.
Issue:
Holding:
Reasoning: